Golden Trash
Why did you click this? What are you doing here?I'm in my late 20's. I show up on twitter now and then to make bad jokes, whine about writing, and violently stan Hagio Moto characters.I occasionally MTL things that interest me.
I use DeepL and check kanji with Jisho.
See below.
PLEASE NOTE - I am not a Japanese speaker. Whenever I MTL anything, I also provide the extracted Japanese text.
Feel free to send me corrections.
TRANSLATIONS
In this excerpt from Chapter 2, Hagio Moto and Dr. Hiroko Uchiyama of Joshibi University discuss sources of inspiration, an environmental disaster in Hagio Moto's hometown, and deconstruct the layout and design of two particular pages of Marginal. [ADD PAGE NUMBERS LATER]
[Shittily Google Translated, as it deserves]
TIERLISTS
MANGA I WANT LICENSED
Marginal
Star Red
Silver Triangle
Mesh
Ray Bradbury collection
FAVOURITE CHARACTERS
Meyard from Marginal (Permafave)
Oscar from The Heart of Thomas
Adelade from A,A'
Mori from A,A'
Juli Schwarz from The Heart of Thomas
Nez from Marginal
Ashijin from Marginal, though it's complicated.
That one guy who was stuck in a room for an experiment.
Nobody from Cruel God
INTERESTING LINKS
An in-depth and thought-provoking meta essay by Suzuki Kaoru.
MTLed version available upon request, DM me.
[JP]
As close as this baby's ever gonna get to an anime, with a score by Haruomi Hosono. Yes, THAT Haruomi Hosono.
[JP]
By Akiko Ebihara.
Published by the University of Colorado Boulder in 2002.
[Eng]
By Kazue Harada.
Published by Washington University in St. Louis in 2015.
Discusses several of Hagio Moto's SF titles.
[Eng]
By Tomoko Kuribayashi.
Published in Monstrous Women of Comics, 2020.
I haven't read it yet, it's paywalled as hell.
[Eng]
By Kazue Harada.
Published by Brill's Japanese Studies Library, Volume: 70. 2022.
This isn't just Marginal, it's apparently full of stuff about Hagio Moto's SF in general. Sadly, it's paywalled as hell.
[Eng]
ON SILVER TRIANGLE
I sometimes joke about hating Silver Triangle, but it's a massive lie. I wasn't blown away the first time I read it, but I want to formally recant any actual dislike I've professed. I think it's brilliant, and everyone should give it a chance.
Maybe a few chances.The first time I read it, it was like I was looking at a beautiful bud that hadn't yet opened. Basically, I found it confusing and messy, I didn't like the characters, and I thought the prettiness of the art actually distracted from the story. The second time I read it, though, that bud blossomed. The depth and beauty of the story finally revealed itself in full colour. I think knowing the basic outline of the plot gave me a scaffolding to hang onto, which let me actually take all the details in. I look forward to reading Silver Triangle again in a few months or years. I wonder what new things I'll find it in then?I still partially agree with my initial assessment. Silver Triangle is a very dense and plot-focused work, and I do find it hard to become as invested in the characters as when I read Hagio-sensei's other manga. However, that's beside the point. It's beautiful, it's melancholic, and it does spacetime manipulation in an interesting and original way. It's also more tonally and thematically consistent than my favourite of Hagio-sensei's manga, Marginal. Silver Triangle is a unique piece of art, I certainly haven't read anything like it be fore. If I had to compare it to anything else, I'd say that it leaves a similar impression to Hexwood by Diana Wynne Jones or the Ethereals splat for the tabletop RPG Exalted.If you haven't already, go read the fan translation. Wait six months, then read it again. Repeat until you realize it's amazing, then start begging companies to license it so we can add some nice fat volumes to our shelves.But beg for Marginal first, please.