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aestivalis) wrote2021-01-11 10:46 am
aestivalis) wrote2021-01-11 10:46 am
snowflake challenge #5
Back at it again, sorry friendlist! This time it's snowflake challenge #5, promoting or talking about a canon you love. So join me as we return to the dark depths of 2005 and place ourselves into the frankly untrustworthy grip of Tokyopop, with their firm monopoly of the western manga market. Let us discuss that strange and slightly uncomfortable creature, the Original English Manga.
And let us reminisce about the one I loved above all the others, and a conclusion that took me fifteen years to reach.
Let's talk Off*beat.
I'm college age, I've just made a new friend who's into all kinds of manga I've never heard of before, and we're looking to consume just about anything we can get our hands on. Fortunately Tokyopop seem to have an endless well of material to keep pushing our way. These were the days of Fruits Basket, of Getbackers, of Saiyuki, Love Hina, Chobits, Demon Diary, DNAngel, Loveless, and so so so many others. Some of my absolute favourites were published by Tokyopop during this era. The Demon Ororon is always going to have its own weird special place in my heart. Vampire Game was the sprawling bisexual fantasy of my dreams, and if they took some liberties with the translation then I sure as hell didn't mind at the time. To be honest I still think fondly of Darres's slightly imperfect reaction to a certain biological plot-twist, even all these years later.
And Immortal Rain was published during this period. Tokyopop never finished releasing it to english-speaking audiences, much to my torment, and it took the dedicated work of an online community for me to finally see the end of that brilliant story. I still have my eight volumes of Immortal Rain on the shelf, and even if I'll never finish that collection in any traditional sense it's always going to mean so much to me.
BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THAT. I was looking to consume anything that Tokyopop had going, and I was especially into anything outside of standard m/f romance. If it was even remotely LGBT-adjacent, I was interested. Alas, I was assuredly one of those people willing to buy anything if it had m/m so much as implied. That led to some real questionable purchases, tbh. (Eerie Queerie, I'm looking at you.)
This is all drawing us toward our destination, Off*beat. Also written as Offbeat and Off Beat, this was an Original English Manga set in NYC—two factors that would usually have been enough to put me off. I generally wanted fantastical settings in my manga, and my opinion of OEM was that the artwork was typically inferior and I was willing to be a snob about that. BUT Off*beat promised that all important m/m content, and I was hungry like the wolf for things I felt I could relate to. So I went for it. And I never looked back.
It's a little hard to figure out what it was with Off*beat that drew me in so quickly. The art was less refined than other manga I could have been buying at the time. The setting really didn't mean anything to me, particularly the details of high school life or commuting through the NY streets. But there was something that caught me right away, and I think it was probably Tory.
The thing about Tory is that he's pretty awful and the text doesn't really seem to be trying to hide that. Tory obsessively keeps notes about everything, spanning back years and years of handwritten journals chronicling events down to the individual minute. That's a bit weird, maybe, but it's not bad, as such. But then the mysterious new kid moves in across the street, and Tory's obsessive determination to find out more crosses STRAIGHT into violation territory. The way he records Colin's every movement is super weird, but maybe you could allow it. It's just an extension of behaviour Tory was already displaying, right...?
And then you get to him deliberately planning his day in ways that will have him "coincidentally" crossing paths with Colin. You get to him eavesdropping on private conversations between Colin and his teachers. You get him sneaking into the guidance counsellors office to read Colin's notes. And you're like, "hold the fuck up, lad. what are you DOING here."
And for a while, you're a little scared that the story might not actually think of of this is that bad. Like, it's fine, because they're gonna be in love at the end, right?! Who cares how they get there! But thank god, Off*beat has more going for it than that. Tory's behaviour is outrageous and he doesn't seem inclined to change it, but the text still challenges his behaviour. It does it explicitly through the character of Paul, who nigh on constantly calls Tory out on our behalf. And it does it implicitly through the character of Mandy.
Oh, Mandy. When she's introduced—overly-friendly air-headed popular girl who doesn't seem to be able to take a hint—it seems obvious that she's going to be the butt of Tory's oh so subtle wit, and we as readers are supposed to be amused by it. And yet! It becomes more and more obvious that we're supposed to empathise with Mandy, not Tory. When Tory repeatedly and rudely brushes her off, it doesn't feel comedic or triumphant. The panels linger on her wounded expressions when he dismisses her out of hand. Her willingness to keep on trying to extend friendship toward Tory even though he only ever seems to remember her existence if there's something he wants from her is crafted in a way that makes it very clear where our sympathies are supposed to lie. Tory may be our main character, our point-of-view character, but it's Mandy who commands our attention in those scenes. And when she finally starts to drift back from Tory, and Tory has the gall to think to himself how boo, she's obviously like all those other stuck-up girls after all, you just want to shake the damn kid! Tory, pay attention to what you're doing!!!
But he does. He does realise that he's pushed people away, and he does start to make things better. And it isn't this grandiose affair. It's as simple as walking up to someone and saying 'I've been acting badly, I'm sorry, can we get a do-over?', and sometimes? A story as simple as that can be as gratifying as any of the epics that usually grip my heart.
Off*beat's a strange story. It's very low stakes, but also has some real mystery at its core. And I keep saying it's not fantastical, but there is a strange little undercurrent of urban fantasy/science-fiction that's influencing everything and leaves you wondering just where exactly this odd tale of A Weirdo Falling In Love is going to end up going. Tory is a self-absorbed and frustrating teenager, but he's also a protagonist that I loved riding along with. I loved his catty but genuine relationship with Paul, and I just adored the sincerity and reality of his relationship with his single mother. That kid clearly thinks the world of her, but also thinks down to her because he's a teen and teens ALL think they know better than everyone around them. His mother is amazing and all in all I think Tory does realise how lucky he is to have her, and I enjoy every single one of their scenes together.
Tokyopop never published the third and final volume of Off*beat.
For years I would keep checking for news, hopeful and desperate. Surely they wouldn't have released the first two volumes if they didn't plan to complete the series? There was only one more volume to go! How hard could it possibly be to just give us the conclusion...! Well. I'm not about to pretend I'm any kind of expert on publication, and I sure as heck am not going to claim to understand any of the MYRIAD problems Tokyopop was experiencing during the 2008 financial crisis. I'm also not even going to try and differentiate between problems outside of their control and those caused by bad business practice, because. yeah, tokyopop.
But the final volume never came, and in the end I was forced to give it up for a lost cause. Immortal Rain was never published in the UK but at least it became available elsewhere. But Off*beat? It was hard to imagine the same would ever happen for Off*beat. It was OEM. Surely Tokyopop had their fingerprints all over the rights. How could it be released elsewhere? Eventually, I let it go.
And then, in the year 2021, I stumbled into a youtube video talking about Tokyopop and Original English Manga.
It was a good watch! I was entertained! But it also got me thinking about OEM again, and particularly that one single story that had really jumped out at me for whatever reason. Whatever even had happened to the creator of Off*beat? How did they feel about that story now? Had they ever been able to at least talk about what they intended to have happen?
So I went digging around. I didn't expect to find anything, to be honest. But like a little Tory Blake had settled on my shoulder, I decided to go hunting for answers one final time. AND YOU KNOW WHAT?
Off*beat exists online in its entirety!!
Who the heck knew! So here I have been, January 2021, finally finishing a story I started half my lifetime ago (????????). I got some answers! I saw some relationships develop! I learned more about Colin after all this time! I saw, at last, how this story was intended to conclude. And it was honestly not at all what I expected, and it was every bit the positive subversion this series has always held for me.
This is not the kind of manga that has a dedicated fanbase. This is not the kind of manga that has a fanbase at all. But hey. For me at least, maybe that's not such a bad thing. It means I get to finally look at this wonderful open-ended 'what happens next?' conclusion, and the world is my oyster. And I'm so glad to finally be here, looking at the final page and knowing the possibilities that yet remain. And I'm so glad that, if I ever get to meet that frustrated teenage self who so wanted to know what would happen, I can tell them not to give up. That it's gonna take a while, but one day? You'll get your answer. And best of all? You won't even be disappointed by it.
Off*beat, what an odd little journey it's been.
And let us reminisce about the one I loved above all the others, and a conclusion that took me fifteen years to reach.
Let's talk Off*beat.
I'm college age, I've just made a new friend who's into all kinds of manga I've never heard of before, and we're looking to consume just about anything we can get our hands on. Fortunately Tokyopop seem to have an endless well of material to keep pushing our way. These were the days of Fruits Basket, of Getbackers, of Saiyuki, Love Hina, Chobits, Demon Diary, DNAngel, Loveless, and so so so many others. Some of my absolute favourites were published by Tokyopop during this era. The Demon Ororon is always going to have its own weird special place in my heart. Vampire Game was the sprawling bisexual fantasy of my dreams, and if they took some liberties with the translation then I sure as hell didn't mind at the time. To be honest I still think fondly of Darres's slightly imperfect reaction to a certain biological plot-twist, even all these years later.
And Immortal Rain was published during this period. Tokyopop never finished releasing it to english-speaking audiences, much to my torment, and it took the dedicated work of an online community for me to finally see the end of that brilliant story. I still have my eight volumes of Immortal Rain on the shelf, and even if I'll never finish that collection in any traditional sense it's always going to mean so much to me.
BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THAT. I was looking to consume anything that Tokyopop had going, and I was especially into anything outside of standard m/f romance. If it was even remotely LGBT-adjacent, I was interested. Alas, I was assuredly one of those people willing to buy anything if it had m/m so much as implied. That led to some real questionable purchases, tbh. (Eerie Queerie, I'm looking at you.)
This is all drawing us toward our destination, Off*beat. Also written as Offbeat and Off Beat, this was an Original English Manga set in NYC—two factors that would usually have been enough to put me off. I generally wanted fantastical settings in my manga, and my opinion of OEM was that the artwork was typically inferior and I was willing to be a snob about that. BUT Off*beat promised that all important m/m content, and I was hungry like the wolf for things I felt I could relate to. So I went for it. And I never looked back.
It's a little hard to figure out what it was with Off*beat that drew me in so quickly. The art was less refined than other manga I could have been buying at the time. The setting really didn't mean anything to me, particularly the details of high school life or commuting through the NY streets. But there was something that caught me right away, and I think it was probably Tory.
The thing about Tory is that he's pretty awful and the text doesn't really seem to be trying to hide that. Tory obsessively keeps notes about everything, spanning back years and years of handwritten journals chronicling events down to the individual minute. That's a bit weird, maybe, but it's not bad, as such. But then the mysterious new kid moves in across the street, and Tory's obsessive determination to find out more crosses STRAIGHT into violation territory. The way he records Colin's every movement is super weird, but maybe you could allow it. It's just an extension of behaviour Tory was already displaying, right...?
And then you get to him deliberately planning his day in ways that will have him "coincidentally" crossing paths with Colin. You get to him eavesdropping on private conversations between Colin and his teachers. You get him sneaking into the guidance counsellors office to read Colin's notes. And you're like, "hold the fuck up, lad. what are you DOING here."
And for a while, you're a little scared that the story might not actually think of of this is that bad. Like, it's fine, because they're gonna be in love at the end, right?! Who cares how they get there! But thank god, Off*beat has more going for it than that. Tory's behaviour is outrageous and he doesn't seem inclined to change it, but the text still challenges his behaviour. It does it explicitly through the character of Paul, who nigh on constantly calls Tory out on our behalf. And it does it implicitly through the character of Mandy.
Oh, Mandy. When she's introduced—overly-friendly air-headed popular girl who doesn't seem to be able to take a hint—it seems obvious that she's going to be the butt of Tory's oh so subtle wit, and we as readers are supposed to be amused by it. And yet! It becomes more and more obvious that we're supposed to empathise with Mandy, not Tory. When Tory repeatedly and rudely brushes her off, it doesn't feel comedic or triumphant. The panels linger on her wounded expressions when he dismisses her out of hand. Her willingness to keep on trying to extend friendship toward Tory even though he only ever seems to remember her existence if there's something he wants from her is crafted in a way that makes it very clear where our sympathies are supposed to lie. Tory may be our main character, our point-of-view character, but it's Mandy who commands our attention in those scenes. And when she finally starts to drift back from Tory, and Tory has the gall to think to himself how boo, she's obviously like all those other stuck-up girls after all, you just want to shake the damn kid! Tory, pay attention to what you're doing!!!
But he does. He does realise that he's pushed people away, and he does start to make things better. And it isn't this grandiose affair. It's as simple as walking up to someone and saying 'I've been acting badly, I'm sorry, can we get a do-over?', and sometimes? A story as simple as that can be as gratifying as any of the epics that usually grip my heart.
Off*beat's a strange story. It's very low stakes, but also has some real mystery at its core. And I keep saying it's not fantastical, but there is a strange little undercurrent of urban fantasy/science-fiction that's influencing everything and leaves you wondering just where exactly this odd tale of A Weirdo Falling In Love is going to end up going. Tory is a self-absorbed and frustrating teenager, but he's also a protagonist that I loved riding along with. I loved his catty but genuine relationship with Paul, and I just adored the sincerity and reality of his relationship with his single mother. That kid clearly thinks the world of her, but also thinks down to her because he's a teen and teens ALL think they know better than everyone around them. His mother is amazing and all in all I think Tory does realise how lucky he is to have her, and I enjoy every single one of their scenes together.
Tokyopop never published the third and final volume of Off*beat.
For years I would keep checking for news, hopeful and desperate. Surely they wouldn't have released the first two volumes if they didn't plan to complete the series? There was only one more volume to go! How hard could it possibly be to just give us the conclusion...! Well. I'm not about to pretend I'm any kind of expert on publication, and I sure as heck am not going to claim to understand any of the MYRIAD problems Tokyopop was experiencing during the 2008 financial crisis. I'm also not even going to try and differentiate between problems outside of their control and those caused by bad business practice, because. yeah, tokyopop.
But the final volume never came, and in the end I was forced to give it up for a lost cause. Immortal Rain was never published in the UK but at least it became available elsewhere. But Off*beat? It was hard to imagine the same would ever happen for Off*beat. It was OEM. Surely Tokyopop had their fingerprints all over the rights. How could it be released elsewhere? Eventually, I let it go.
And then, in the year 2021, I stumbled into a youtube video talking about Tokyopop and Original English Manga.
It was a good watch! I was entertained! But it also got me thinking about OEM again, and particularly that one single story that had really jumped out at me for whatever reason. Whatever even had happened to the creator of Off*beat? How did they feel about that story now? Had they ever been able to at least talk about what they intended to have happen?
So I went digging around. I didn't expect to find anything, to be honest. But like a little Tory Blake had settled on my shoulder, I decided to go hunting for answers one final time. AND YOU KNOW WHAT?
Off*beat exists online in its entirety!!
Who the heck knew! So here I have been, January 2021, finally finishing a story I started half my lifetime ago (????????). I got some answers! I saw some relationships develop! I learned more about Colin after all this time! I saw, at last, how this story was intended to conclude. And it was honestly not at all what I expected, and it was every bit the positive subversion this series has always held for me.
This is not the kind of manga that has a dedicated fanbase. This is not the kind of manga that has a fanbase at all. But hey. For me at least, maybe that's not such a bad thing. It means I get to finally look at this wonderful open-ended 'what happens next?' conclusion, and the world is my oyster. And I'm so glad to finally be here, looking at the final page and knowing the possibilities that yet remain. And I'm so glad that, if I ever get to meet that frustrated teenage self who so wanted to know what would happen, I can tell them not to give up. That it's gonna take a while, but one day? You'll get your answer. And best of all? You won't even be disappointed by it.
Off*beat, what an odd little journey it's been.
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