You cannot make a public post and then get offended when the public debates it, or does not agree with you, or holds opinions different from your own. The people who read my blog understand that reviews are opinions and I do not need to punctuate everything I say here with "It seems to me..." and "In my opinion..." or "I may be wrong, but...". That sort of thing is assumed here, because the people who read my blog are reasonably intelligent, educated people who are used to debate in the public arena. Nobody's going away from here and citing me in articles, nobody's going away from here and holding me up as an authority.
I don't even think I convinced anybody of my opinion who already held an opinion different from my own. And, yes, I respect that. I was arguing from my interpretation of your words - which I am under the impression that I explicitly said at least once - not in order to attack you, but to elicit interesting discussion about the subject.
I also happen to hold strong opinions about what I do and don't like in manga, and I'm not going to sugarcoat them. I'm willing to discuss them, and I'm willing to be convinced otherwise if the argument is strong enough.
I went over to your journal and politely disagreed with you there, IN ORDER TO find out what you meant by it. I haven't posted a follw-up here yet, and I have not replied to you there yet, because I haven't had the time to formulate a reply. You meant something that wasn't what I took your words to mean, although I think we still have a bit of disagreement about characterization and lead characters.
This part being the most important: "which was released to nowhere near as much acclaim as they'd hoped" How do you know how much acclaim I was hoping for? For the record, I'm *extremely* happy with the success of the CD. We went through multiple printings of it, it was carried through stores like Animenation, and distributed by Diamond. I don't think that's too bad for a self-published CD.
Sorry; going by my memories of reading your webpage and the newsletter you sent out in the months after it was first released, I seemed to recall mention of disappointment in the number of stores who ordered it after it was solicited, which is what I was referring to. Perhaps I remembered wrong. It certainly seems it picked up significantly after that, which I either never knew or misremembered. I stand corrected. Yes, I do admit to being wrong when I've been corrected. I hold a higher opinion of people who correct me politely, but even when that doesn't happen, I still appreciate it.
I have recommended your book to others in the past who I thought would enjoy it, including to the YA librarian in a local system who was developing the graphic novel collection at the time, and I will continue to do so. I have read enough of it standing in the aisles in front of the manga shelves that I feel quite solid in my opinion that you do not write characters and stories, at least in this book, that I like. They do not have the sort of depth that I prefer, and I do not find them interesting. This doesn't mean that others don't - I am very solidly a character person in my reading preferences, and other people prefer plot, or worldbuilding, or theme, or great explosions. I took your surprise at the very idea of an elderly woman being an "appropriate" lead character to indicate that we have different ideas about what makes a successful and appropriate lead character - for one, I think that the best lead character is utterly dependent on the particular story - which would explain why I bounce off of yours. Just like I bounce off of the characters of many other mangaka and authors.
no subject
I don't even think I convinced anybody of my opinion who already held an opinion different from my own. And, yes, I respect that. I was arguing from my interpretation of your words - which I am under the impression that I explicitly said at least once - not in order to attack you, but to elicit interesting discussion about the subject.
I also happen to hold strong opinions about what I do and don't like in manga, and I'm not going to sugarcoat them. I'm willing to discuss them, and I'm willing to be convinced otherwise if the argument is strong enough.
I went over to your journal and politely disagreed with you there, IN ORDER TO find out what you meant by it. I haven't posted a follw-up here yet, and I have not replied to you there yet, because I haven't had the time to formulate a reply. You meant something that wasn't what I took your words to mean, although I think we still have a bit of disagreement about characterization and lead characters.
This part being the most important: "which was released to nowhere near as much acclaim as they'd hoped" How do you know how much acclaim I was hoping for? For the record, I'm *extremely* happy with the success of the CD. We went through multiple printings of it, it was carried through stores like Animenation, and distributed by Diamond. I don't think that's too bad for a self-published CD.
Sorry; going by my memories of reading your webpage and the newsletter you sent out in the months after it was first released, I seemed to recall mention of disappointment in the number of stores who ordered it after it was solicited, which is what I was referring to. Perhaps I remembered wrong. It certainly seems it picked up significantly after that, which I either never knew or misremembered. I stand corrected. Yes, I do admit to being wrong when I've been corrected. I hold a higher opinion of people who correct me politely, but even when that doesn't happen, I still appreciate it.
I have recommended your book to others in the past who I thought would enjoy it, including to the YA librarian in a local system who was developing the graphic novel collection at the time, and I will continue to do so. I have read enough of it standing in the aisles in front of the manga shelves that I feel quite solid in my opinion that you do not write characters and stories, at least in this book, that I like. They do not have the sort of depth that I prefer, and I do not find them interesting. This doesn't mean that others don't - I am very solidly a character person in my reading preferences, and other people prefer plot, or worldbuilding, or theme, or great explosions. I took your surprise at the very idea of an elderly woman being an "appropriate" lead character to indicate that we have different ideas about what makes a successful and appropriate lead character - for one, I think that the best lead character is utterly dependent on the particular story - which would explain why I bounce off of yours. Just like I bounce off of the characters of many other mangaka and authors.