Got something you need to do at a certain time every day (e.g., take meds)? Start giving your cat a treat right before you do it. You may have trouble remembering, but your cat absolutely will not.
This might be the most genius idea I’ve ever read.
im not very good when it comes to spatial awareness. like, ill think something is a reasonable size and then i realize huh, thats a lot bigger than i thought it was
so anyway i made three pounds of mac and cheese this weekend
neither fma anime will ever quite live up to the manga
like, dgmw, I’m not saying they’re BAD, but reading the manga is this whole other experience with hiromu arakawa’s art and storytelling and PAGE COMPOSITION CHOPS *apples and oranges in some ways buT STILL
The manga abuses action lines way too much to ever be better than Brotherhood. I love Arakawa, her inking, shadows, and character designs are to die for but she does not know how to frame an action scene, and that’s like half of FMA. Like, look at this, this is at the climax of the series and we don’t even get a background. Each adaptation has its strengths, but I still think Brotherhood is the best.
to be honest I’d disagree with that, but then again I think we have different opinions on what makes a good action scene, b/c dynamic art + readibility + backgrounds when needed is good enough for me. so, to each their own.
Honestly, backgrounds and settings are a huge cultural difference between American (and many western) and Japanese comics.
American comics in general place a lot more emphasis on action, as well as place. Much more often about visualizing scenes, and you tend to see more full backgrounds, more full scenes. Strong sense of place is important.
Manga, in general, has more of an emphasis on character and emotions. Detailed establishing shots are common but usually followed by simplified backgrounds as necessary. Many more close up faces, and usually much more exaggerated emotional reactions are common. (Part of the reason to have the stylized faces with large expressive eyes in general, and the facial lines you do see tend to emphasize emotion. Whereas, again, in the average American style comics, realism is the emphasis)
(These are, again, obviously generalizations, but I think it holds true.)
They are different art forms with different goals, and that try to evoke different things. The lack of background is because its not what’s important to the story, and not what we’re supposed to be focusing on in the page. We’re supposed to be focusing on the people and what they’re feeling.
FMA in general is a story that lives on the emotions and characters. That’s what makes it what it is, in my opinion.
wait….are any americans aware that the cia overthrew the democratically-elected premier of iran in 1953 because he wouldn’t concede to western oil demands….and how that coup was the reason for the shah’s return to power, the iranian revolution, and the resulting fundamentalist dictatorship…..like, america literally dissolved iranian democracy and no one knows about it???
No. No we don’t know about it.
Americans aren’t told this shit.
The only thing we’re taught about any Middle Eastern country in school is that 1) the region exists 2) it’s where The War is happening and 3) Muslim people live there. That’s it. Maybe if you’re lucky you’ll get into the Hammurabi Code and some early Babylonian stuff but American schools seem to think that if it happened outside Europe and before the colonial period, or makes America look bad and isn’t about A Very Watered Down Version of What Slavery Was, it’s not important.
Info on this is almost notoriously hard to find. It’s not in any texts on American and Russian involvement in the Middle East during the Cold War that I can find. You have to specifically look for a book about the Shah’s return to power, and even then you’d be hard pressed to find a book like that at your local bookstore. Once you get into some higher level college courses you might know about it, but the people who can afford those are more likely to already be indoctrinated into a certain Way of Thinking (read: they’re racist as shit) by the time they get there. And it’s almost like you have to know about it beforehand if you want to find information on it.
The only reason I knew about it is because there’s a thirty second summary of the event in Persepolis. Those thirty seconds flipped my entire worldview.
“All the Shah’s Men” by Stephen Kinzer is a good, accessible text for people who want to know more about this.
!!!
I had to explain literally this to one of my co-workers, who is so fuckin racist against Middle Eastern people it’s insane.
She’s 60. She never heard of this.
As I was explaining this and how, during the Regan years, we funded Osama Bin Laden to fight against Russia, leading to the destruction of much of the infrastructure in the region, one of the plant workers came in to get his badge fixed.
He works in the quality control lab. He served 15 years active duty in the Army. Super smart guy, has a masters in chemistry and another masters in biology, raises saltwater fish in his spare time for sale, has the saltwater aquarium setup of the gods. Raises rare corals too, some of which he donates to be used in re-seeding reefs around the world, but that’s a side tangent.
And he listened for a minute, then nodded and said “Yeah. I was there during that. I helped train people to fight. They wanted us to help them build schools and hospitals, after, but we were only interested in them as cannon fodder. Left the whole area in ruins. I wasn’t surprised when they hated us for it later. Told people then it would happen. We let them know then that they were only valuable to America as expendable bodies. Why wouldn’t they resent us for that?”
And she just looked floored.
“So…” She started, after a few minutes. “What do you think of Trump?”
“I hate him. He’s a coward and he’s going to get good people killed.” He didn’t even blink. “
She looked back and forth between us for a second, and then asked how I knew all this.
“I research things.” I said. “Google is great.” He nodded enthusiastically.
And she just sat there for a second and then said, really quietly, “I didn’t know.”
She lived through it.
American schools don’t teach you any of this sort of thing.
I thought of Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi too. Never underestimate the power of a good book.
Every year in my entire schooling in small town Indiana, we’d start the year studying the revolutionary war. By the end of the year we would reach world war 2. The next year, the cycle would repeat. Every year. Revolutionary war to world war 2. Rinse and repeat.
We never studied the Vietnam War. Korea. No current events. No ancient cultures. No history of other countries. When 9-11 happened I was in high school, and me and my classmates legitimately had no idea who would attack the U.S. or why. We were baffled. Because we were taught our entire lives that America is always the good guy.
History class in America is an utter joke.
I grew up in California - one of the most liberal states in the union - and yep. Same. While we did learn about the Cold War and current events, the vast majority of what I know now never came from a ‘social studies’ text book. Iran? Osama Bin Laden? I found out about all that later in life.
Our country may not be that great at a lot of things, but we are masters at erasing history.
I am Silver Tongue, I am an artist. I have many characters and you can check out my art in the art tag. I occasionally practice witchcraft though I don't do anything too complicated. I am girl 2 and don't know what else to put here.
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