Saiyuki commentary: art (volume 6)

[kate_nepveu]

Mostly fight scenes this time; see also telophase's post on combat. I have to say that though I'm confused about some of the sequences below the cut, they aren't anywhere near as eye-crossing to me as the Naruto pages telophase uses; I think Minekura's lines tend to be more linear and more well-defined, and she uses even less in the way of backgrounds during fight scenes.

Spoilers for volume 6 of Saiyuki, of course, though not as bad as the past couple of volumes. I broke down and read the scanlations of Gaiden, but let's try and keep the comments free of spoilers for it (not that I expect it in response to this post); and I haven't read Reload yet, so if you spoil me for it, I will kill you with my brain.

Once again, all images are from scanlations; the ones on the page have been saved at 50% to reduce their size. (A few of the original size ones were also saved at reduced quality because they were just ridiculously big, but since they haven't been scaled it shouldn't be too noticeable.) Page citation convention: volume.chapter.page (Tokyopop editions). Click on images for a full-sized version.

A non-fight scene

Here's an effect that I don't remember seeing in Saiyuki before: to show the shock of the building rumbling on 6.30.19, the top panel is done in inverse colors (I'd guess drawn the ordinary way and then manipulated digitally), with then just text over a tone on the bottom panel:

And then the next page goes completely in the other direction, to the extremes of static, conventional, and repetitive—a deliberate and humorous contrast, given its content of Hakkai's dissertation on load-bearing walls:

Fight Scenes

*sigh* I've been avoiding talking about fight scenes, because I'm not good at them and I didn't know what I'd have to say, but there are so many in this volume that I think it's time to try.

Let's start with a relatively typical sequence that I understood, the four pages of 6.32.68-69, 6.32.70, and 6.32.71. The double-page layout first:

The spread above has big, simple panels and an idiot-proof panel layout: the two left panels are tied together by the big overlapping speech balloon, so you won't miss anything no matter which way you read. The top long panel is a good example of a subjective depiction: Kougaiji is actually upright before Son Goku hits him (as the bottom panel shows), but he's shown sideways to indicate his shock and to reinforce the strong leftward motion of the entire page. The top panel also focuses on Kougaiji's face, which we won't see again for a page and a half. The bottom panel of the double-page layout has the actual contact, with visual continuity in Son Goku's posture and movement from the right, and in Kou's crossed arms from the top.

The next page, 70:

This is all reactions, tied together by Kou's exclamations of pain: Kou's wound; Kou looking or falling downward in pain; reactions from Gojyo and Dokugakuji; and finally Son Goku smiling. The panel shape and layout are very simple, but they're also very slightly off-kilter, which gives an almost subliminal wobbling effect.

And then back to the action on page 71:

On this next page, Son Goku—we know it's Son Goku because of the wristband and because he was the last person we saw on the prior page—grabs Kou's long hair, and it and the speedlines go up and to the right (as do the bottom border of this panel and the top of the next). And in the next panel, Kou's face and earring are going in the same direction, which indicates that he's being yanked by his hair—whether to the side, as this panel suggests, or upright, as the bottom panel suggests, isn't that relevant, it's the reaction that's important. (Notice that he has eyes again now.) The bottom panel has more strong rightward motion, with Son Goku's claws and Kou's following blood.

Things that made this sequence comprehensible to me: all the motion on a page was in one direction. There was one action or less per panel. I could see all the relevant body parts. The reaction page gave me context.

Here's a cool, less typical (?), fight bit. First, 6.32.75:

Doku is rushing towards Son Goku; this panel is all speedlines and sound effects and big dramatic urgent things.

And then turn the page to 6.32.76-77:

Time slows way down; no speedlines, no sound effects, just Doku frozen as Son Goku seems to float down in the first panel. And then the precise, almost gentle landing, and Son Goku's body language says it all: "Hi! Die now!"

Very cool, and very easy to follow.

And now for the sequences that I didn't get. Well, first, one that I did but that the apparent conventions of fight scenes didn't help any. Apparently fast-moving limbs are drawn darker? On 6.32.92-93, I could tell that Son Goku was punching Hakkai, because of the fist in panel 2; however, if I hadn't known to look for a punch, his dark arm might've got lost against Hakkai's dark shirt. I've marked the punching arm in red below:

Also, if Hakkai is supposed to be thrown off Son Goku just by the force of the punch, the angles look a little weird to me, but it's hard to tell his relative position in the last panel.

Angles and possible rotating motion gave me trouble in an earlier sequence, 6.32.64 and 6.32.65. The first page seems to show Son Goku leaping from behind Kou:

At this point, the next thing I expected to see was Kou knocked forward onto his face.

The next page shows something rather different:

This looked to me as though Son Goku kicked Kou while they were facing each other—which, since they hadn't been facing each other on the prior page, I found confusing. On looking at it again, perhaps Son Goku landed and then spun to kick Kou, and this is the end of that sequence; however, I'm more inferring that Son Goku is turning than really seeing it. It's possible this is my ignorance of what this kind of kick would actually look like; or, it's possible that combining or skipping motions in a fight scene is tricky.

Another sequence gave me trouble because I couldn't see the relevant body parts. Here are 6.32.84 and 6.32.85 (right-to-left, of course):

      

I should note first that Tokyopop translates 84.2 as "swing" and the big sound effect on 85 as "stagger." The speech balloons on 84.3 and 84.4 are "huh" and "Hee," respectively.

Now, if it weren't for the speech balloons, I could buy 84 as a super-slow-motion sequence: (1) Gojyo grabs Son Goku's face; (2) Son Goku swings; (3) Gojyo starts to notice the punch on the way; (4) Son Goku looks smug; (5) Gojyo really notices and goes "oh shit"; and then on the next page, he staggers as the punch lands. Except that the text balloons suggests that it's not in that slow motion, because they have time to talk, and now I have no idea what's going on because I can't see Son Goku's hands at any point after 84.2.

Hmm, I guess I have something like a conclusion: fight scenes that I understand include visible body parts, one action per panel, and clear directions of motion. Which is deeply and incredibly newbie, but y'all knew that anyway.

Thoughts?

[ more Saiyuki art commentary ]

Comments

[kate_nepveu]

Belated thought on 6.32.64 and 6.32.65: perhaps the reaction shot of Kou in panel 3 of page 64 is supposed to covey his turning around, which would also get the two of them facing each other. That kick still looks weird to me, though.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

"idiot-proof panel layout"

Hee! Nicely put.

Um, lots of useless nodding and uh-huhing from me here. I don't recall how I did with those fight scenes when I read them in the manga, but I could follow your meaning very clearly with each one here--yes, this fight scene is clear and coherant, but this one is confusing, etc. ::ponders:: I'm highly suggestible, I think.

Did you make a separate link to this in manga_talk that I just missed? (I followed telophase's link to this particular essay.) If you didn't, I encourage you to do so with each new essay. The comm's pretty quiet and heaven knows this is on topic, so it's not exactly spam, and I personally am awful about remembering to check back on "to be updated" sites without fresh reminders.

[kate_nepveu]

No, I updated an old post which I'd started when I realized that this series was going to be more than one or two parts--and when I was doing them all close together! But yeah, I think I may want to start doing separate notices to the comm for each update.

And if you're thinking you're suggestible, choose some other fight scenes to pick apart! I'll even post the scans for the pages if you don't have them. =>

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

Well, I meant highly suggestible in the sense that I read something and just go "yeah!" instead of thinking critically about it.

Ehhh....^^;; Art criticism isn't an alien language to me, as I've taken both art classes and art/architecture history classes, and have some experience with it. Nevertheless, while I can generally follow this kind of analysis, I don't have any confidence in my ability to conduct it myself. I might be knowledgeble enough to do it someday, but right now, I prefer to read and comment than to make my own critiques. (Some days, I actually have useful comments. Today isn't one of those days.)

[kate_nepveu]

Hey, no problem--post or comment or not however you're comfortable with, obviously.

I do, however, have to disclaim any special knowledge about art or manga--I have no background in either, academic or practical. Actually I think it's my ignorance that's making this series happen, since I'm trying to teach myself to _see_ the art (I'm heavily text-focused, so often skimmed right past it in prior (Western) comics) and understand how it works.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

I'm heavily text-focused, so often skimmed right past it in prior (Western) comics

I'm the same way, actually--I have a tendency to tear through things as fast as I can read the text, and only spectacularly gorgeous, elaborate art would slow me down at all. I've been trying to teach myself to stop and look at the art. The better integrated art and text are, the more important it is, because you're in danger of missing at least half the story if you don't.

That's part of my interest in reading this sort of thing (the rest is pure geekhood)--other people's insights can help me understand what I'm looking at.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I think maybe just changing the date on the old post would kick it up to the top, if you don't want multiple posts. Or you can do multiple posts: nobody seems to be bothered. :)

[kate_nepveu]

If changing the date will make it reappear on friends lists, that would be cool--I'll try it whenever the next post gets done. If not, multiple posts it is. =>

[cks.livejournal.com]

My impressions, for what they're worth:

In 6.32.92-93, Hakkai is kneeling over a prone Son Goku, with Gojyo standing somewhat back behind their heads (ie, in the top left panel, Gojyo is off to the left). Son Goku punches Hakkai in the chest, pushing him up and over Son Goku's head. The result sends Hakkai pivoting into the air, head down and legs flipping up; he runs into and bowls over Gojyo.

In 6.32.64, Son Goku jumps off with his left foot and pivots right to left (from his perspective) to deliver a snap kick to Kou (his right leg is cocked back at the knee and will snap out to deliver the blow); Kou feels something behind him and spins to try to face it. My cue for this is the '!' speach balloon, which links Kou's reaction to the speedline panel and seems to imply to me that the speedlines are for Kou, not Goku. 6.32.65 is the followthrough, in which we see that Kou is fast enough to turn around but not fast enough to stop Son Goku's airborne kick; Son Goku's right leg is now extended and the lower length blackened, probably to indicate 'this is what he hit with'.

6.32.84 and 6.32.85 puzzle me too. Here's what I can see: Gojyo grabs Son Goku's face with his left hand. Son Goku punches or does something with his right, possibly to strike Gojyo's grabbing hand; I think he draws blood, and Gojyo looks to his left to say 'Oops'. In the last two panels in .84, Son Goku and then Gojyo both look to Gojyo's right, but at what isn't clear.

In 6.32.85, Son Goku seems to have yanked Gojyo's left (grabbing) hand free with his right. Son Goku has one leg off the ground entirely. Perhaps he's shoving Gojyo, or in the process of kicking Gojyo back?

My reading of time: 1 grab, 2 punch, 3 punch lands as steps in the fight, then 4 & 5 more or less simultaneously, and then 6.32.85 is the followthrough to 4 & 5.

[kate_nepveu]

Thanks for such a detailed response. In the 6.32.64-65 sequence, I hadn't considered that maybe Son Goku was jumping to kick Kou and not just to get closer or try and land on him--the bent right leg hadn't registered. I do think Kou's supposed to be turning--his earrings are swinging in that reaction shot--but as you can see from the belated comment, that didn't occur to me until well after this post, so I still think that could've been clearer.

Good catch on reading 6.32.85 much more closely than I did--I'd kind of given up by that point, because I assumed that the "stagger" was linked to the punch on panel 2 of the prior page. But if it isn't, perhaps that's not a punch in 84.2 at all, but the start of the yank on Gojyo's grabbing hand? It _looks_ like a punch, but the sound effects would make a lot more sense:

2: swing
3: Son Goku grabs at the arm that Gojyo's grabbing his face with
4: Son Goku: hah-hah, nice try
5: Gojyo: oh shit
85: Son Goku pulls Gojyo's hand off his face and shoves into Gojyo

Yeah, I kinda like it. Thanks!

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

6.32.64: This is, I think, the correct sequence of events, although I think the speedlines in the panel below "!!" are meant to represent the speed and force of Goku's kick, as perceived by Kou. So, there is Goku (starting behind Kougaiji) jumping up to kick Kou in the head. Kou senses something and spins around. You can tell in the closeup of his face that he's turning around *fast* by the way his hair, earrings, and buckle are all angled off to the left (our left). He's spinning about to face Goku, but isn't fast enough and basically just turns into Goku's super-fast, super-strong kick (which he can only perceive as a blur of motion), and gets nailed.

The one where Goku fights everybody

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

This post was an interesting read, in that it revealed that I read fight scenes differently from you. You're looking on a microscopic level: the particular actions everybody takes, where their limbs are going, etc. I tend to look at bodies in motion as a whole: Goku plows into Kou, Kou goes flying over there, Doku charges in. This approach may arise from my life-long consumption and enjoyment of kung fu movies with elaborate, beautifully-choreographed fight scenes wherein it's as much about how all the players move together as it is about the hero's L33t skillz.

(Pardon me, I'm having a Scott McCloud moment here, thinking about the participation of the reader in forming the story, filling in the gaps between panels, and that there are as many ways to fill those gaps as there are readers.)

I'm curious as to what you'd compare the understandability of these fight scenes to one in, say, an X-men comic. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, a "hard-core" shoujo fight scene, like in Basara, where the artist makes little to no effort to convey the mechanics of the fight, preferring to depict the central character's mental state as they fight.

I just noticed that there is a neat thing going on in 6.32.92-93 (pp 92-93 in the Tokyopop edition, for those following along at home). Note the speech balloon ("!! GAAAAAH!") that spans the two big panels, starting at Hakkai's head in the top panel. Now, if you look at the curve of Hakkai's body in the top panel, and mentally rotate him along the path determined by the speech balloon, he's in just the right position to slam into Gojyo the way he does in the bottom panel.

Vol. 6 has one of my favorite pages in the series:

(http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b200/c_sometimes/comics-talk/saiyukiv06_sanzogoku.png)

It's such a simple series of images, why do I like it so much? Well, I am primarily a text-based person, so I get very impressed when complex narrative situations are communicated to me with no words whatsoever. There's a TON of stuff going on[*] in the last four panels on that 2-page spread, and NO WORDS, just two guys staring at each other.

Why yes, I am a native English speaker, not that you could tell

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

I'm curious as to what you'd compare the understandability

I'm curious as to HOW you'd compare, etc...

Re: The one where Goku fights everybody

[kate_nepveu]

Well, if I don't look at them on the microscopic level, then I can barely tell what's going on--it ends up feeling like "people fly around a lot," which hardly seems worth the effort of looking at. Perhaps when I get more familiar with fight scenes I won't need to stop and think about every movement, but this is all part of the process of educating myself.

(Also, this kind of analysis rather lends itself to microsopic-level discussion.)

As for Western-style action scenes, I really haven't read much. I suppose if I re-read _Watchmen_ this might help, but at the moment, the only Western comic I'm reading is _Lucifer_, which I will go back to when _Saiyuki_ stops eating my brain (or maybe I'll just wait until the whole thing is complete).

[kintail.livejournal.com]

Hi, I've just been reading through your series of commentary posts, and enjoying them very much. Wishing I was more awake so I could respond more, but right now it's hard to gather words and thoughts at the same time.

I really appreciated your analysis in this one, because I also had a hard time understanding some of those fight scenes, especially the ones that you said confused you -- but I was more lazy and just rushed over what I couldn't follow, meaning to go back and figure them out after (and of course I never did, because I wasn't really sure *how* to). It's a shame, because it left me feeling like volume 6 was the one I didn't quite grok -- when I looked at the volumes lined up on the shelf, I could quickly remember the major arcs in each one of them, except for volume 6, so I'd only figure it out by elimination: "where's that really important arc with Seiten Taisei in the desert, again?"

In 6.32.92-93, I think part of the problem that you identified as "the angles look a little weird" seem to me to be a problem with center of gravity -- Goku is connecting "above" Hakkai's CoG and at an angle that's kind of tangential to it, so I'd expect Hakkai to be forced to straighten at the hips as Goku's fist lifts him from his mid-chest or else sorta continues up his chest to catch him in the throat as Hakkai's torso is pushed upright, so that Hakkai would be lifted into the air in a shape like an upside-down J with his back curled and his hips straight, as if to fall over on his butt instead of his head (can't really explain it better). Instead in the bottom panel, it looks like Goku must have connected at or below his center of gravity (around his belt buckle which is where Hakkai's momentum is now driving "from"), and that center of gravity has been tossed over Goku's head. Agh that's hard to explain!

[kate_nepveu]

I'm lousy at visualizing such things, but I think you're picking up on the same problems I was having. More, it looks like he was hit on his side, but it's not clear whether he's rotating on his long axis as a result.

[kate_nepveu]

And yeah, I feel like I ought to like volume 6 a lot, for the Sanzo getting a clue, but it doesn't quite stick for me either.