Tag: Pop Culture

Pop Culture Review: Heroes

by Sara Black

I’ve got to be honest, I thought the first episode of Heroes was Boring. Yeah, with a capital B. However, after a few months of hearing it was Really Very Good and I should Give It A Try, I decided that maybe I’d been too quick to judge. I caught up on twenty episodes in two weeks.

Heroes could have stood to lose a majority of it’s first chapter, but things improved from then on. The basic concept is heavily drawn from super hero comic books: As explained in the opening of each episode, a bunch of ordinary seeming people turn out to have extraordinary abilities like stopping time, flying, and turning homicidal. These people may be the only ones who can save the world, unfortunately it seems, from themselves.

From a pop culture standpoint it’s interesting to see such a melding of mediums. The episodes are structured similarly to comic books, each one being a chapter in the story with a shorter arc that eventually adds up into the larger arc. There is even a graphic novel available online which promises to deepen the readers understanding.

What keeps me watching is not the comic book premise (trust me, I gave up on X-men a while ago) but the characters. We get to watch as each hero gets a piece of the puzzle but struggles to see their part in the big picture. The main arc, we learn early on, involves the destruction of a large part of New York and the deaths of thousands. Even the audience isn’t certain what part each hero will play in what may be a domino effect of disaster. The anticipation is killing me.

It could be considered torture to interest you in a series only two episodes away from the season finale, but all the episodes can be downloaded from the iTunes store or viewed online at NBCs website.

Sara Black has a degree in Cinema/Television from USC. She watches far too much television, eats way too much sushi and is always writing a romance novel. For someone who religiously stays out of the mainstream, she knows an awful lot about Pop Culture. This is the third in a series of posts on the subject.

Pop Culture Courtship

by Sara Black

So what does Pop Culture have to do with romance?

Unlike the heroines of my favorite novels by Austen and Heyer who were not allowed to have jobs, about four years ago I was lucky enough to work at a small post production house. Though I worked with many men, including a Frenchman and an Italian, there was very little romantic about the place. For starters, the Frenchman’s name was Igor.

One day my computer started acting up. The guy at my office who fixed these things emerged from his hiding place in the back room to sit in my chair and fuss with the electronics under my desk. We maintained an awkward silence, until a lull while he restarted lead him to discover an empty plastic sleeve for a comic book which I’d left sitting on my desk.

“What are you reading?” He asked.

“Sandman.” I said.

If our courtship had been more traditional we might have moved from comics to finer literature discussions, but us being us, we proceeded to discuss more comic books. I told him about the upcoming San Diego Comic Convention that I was going to attend. Simply put the San Diego convention center becomes a pop culture mecca filled with comic book readers, TV and movie watchers, artists, and geeks of all shapes and sizes. Finally, we discussed anime.

Rather than exchange missives we exchanged anime DVDs. He lent me the cyber thriller Ghost in the Shell and surreal coming-of-age FLCL, and I leant him the action packed Scryed. I even went and saw the low budget but well-made British horror film 28 Days Later, because he said it was good, and–trust me–that’s not a film I would normally see. Our first outing did have a co-worker as a chaperon, but instead of going to a museum, we saw Finding Nemo.

He was invited to my birthday, and my present was not a traditional teddy bear, but a Gloomy Bear, which proved to me we had a deep understanding. There was no waltzing at the party, but plenty of DDRing. I kicked his butt.

Then we stalled. Except for the birthday party and movie with the coworker we were still work friends only. The attraction was there but I was shy and he was acting shy and nothing passionate was going to happen at the office. I got up the courage to suggest that rather than just trading anime we actually hang out and watch something together, like at his place. He mentioned he’d been meaning to get a group of friends together to watch the kung-fu historical Hero.

A group of friends? I wasn’t looking for more chaperons.

I was deflated enough that it took a whole week before I tried again. This time I made it simpler. I asked him what he was doing that evening. That worked. Our first date was at a Shabu Shabu place. Our romance followed our courtship in style, and when we went out we went to Japanese pop culture stores like Giant Robot and when we stayed in we watched Sci-Fi channel shows like SG-1. Lest you think we live totally one dimensional lives I also introduced him to the six hour version of Pride and Prejudice, which he has sat through several times since.

The real end of the courtship phase didn’t come with a declaration of love on bended knee, but I’ve never seen anyone more touched than he when I moved my computer to his place.

So, what does Pop Culture have to do with romance? I’m not sure, but it had a lot to do with mine.

Sara Black has a degree in Cinema/Television from USC. She watches far too much television, eats way too much sushi and is always writing a romance novel. For someone who religiously stays out of the mainstream, she knows an awful lot about Pop Culture. This is the second in a series of posts on the subject.

A Beginner’s Guide to Manga

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by Sara Black

Pretty boys. Magical girls. Demons. High School angst. Fruits Baskets. What’s not to love about manga? For the uninitiated they are worth checking out because they are hideously popular to the point that Harlequin is publishing their own and “manga-style” romances are being solicited, they are fun reads, and you’ve already raided all the other sections of the bookstore.

However, if it’s your first time voyaging into the Graphic Novel section maybe it’s a little intimidating. Maybe you even lose a little cred with the bookstore clerk by referring to the comics as Anime. Maybe you’re still hung up on ‘what the heck is a Fruits Basket?’

Here, let me help. Manga (mawn-gah) refers to Japanese comics books and only the comic books. Though popular series often get turned into Anime (Japanese animation), the comic books are still called manga.

How about some titles?

If you’re looking for action and adventure you may want to give Inu Yasha, One Piece, or Naruto a try. These comics are aimed at younger boys and as such feature long fight scenes, fantasy worlds, and occasional pre-teen level romance (something around the level of ‘I really like her, but kissing is gross’). Ranma 1/2 is similar but focuses on comedy more than adventure.

And now for a plug. My favorite manga: Rurouni Kenshin. The title character is a diminutive man who killed a whole lot of people during the Meiji revolution and is now trying to atone. The romance is more sophisticated than in the stories mentioned above without getting sensual, though the story revolves around the main character’s redemption.

If your taste is more towards the romantic, teenage angst plots try Mars or Paradise Kiss. These stories are more graphic and feature teenage heroines and heroes struggling with hardship and soap opera level conflict. If you want a little more fantasy (and maybe a magical girl or two) with that angst you may want to try Ceres, Red River or From Far Away. These may depict sensual sexual situations.

For a more innocent view of high schools give the oddly named Fruits Basket a try.

If a mix of history and violence is your thing Blade of the Immortal, Lone Wolf and Cub or Vagabond are more artistically sophisticated series aimed at adult males. There may be a little romance but there is probably more blood.

If you like horror try Monster, Hellsing or Deathnote and sci-fi lovers might want to check out Battle Angel Alita (which may one day be a movie directed by James Cameron) or Blame.

And if you’re wondering about the ones with groups of pretty boys on the cover and not too many girls on the inside, like Gravitation or Love Mode, those are Shounen-Ai and/or Yaoi. These stories are typically written for woman and revolve around homosexual male relationships, Shounen-Ai being the less graphic of the two. The lesbian equivalent, yuri, is less popular but they are out there.

Of course there are hundred of titles I haven’t mentioned, about sports and board games and anything you can think of, but hopefully I’ve given you enough to approach those shelves with a little less wariness.

Good luck.

Sara Black has a degree in Cinema/Television from USC. She watches far too much television, eats way too much sushi and is always writing a romance novel. For someone who religiously stays out of the mainstream, she knows an awful lot about Pop Culture. This is the first in a series of posts on the subject.