Turning Japanese, and please, no Vapors references.

Published in: 2009
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press.
Read on: Dec 17^th 2011.

Hello and welcome to The Stone Cold Critique, where bad literature is given the cold shoulder!

On the sacrificial altar today we have Turning Japanese, written by Cathy Yardley, the publisher of eight Harlequin romance novels previously. However, this newest attempt is all foreplay and no climax, if you catch my drift.

The Overview and Ramblings:

The story is a simple one: a woman in her late twenties is passionate about anime and manga. She hand-draws a comic and submits it in a contest where the prize is a paid, one-year internship in a manga publishing company in Japan. It’s a simple story, with her dealing with culture shock and the quirks of a foreign country and it’s customs and people; a fish out of water story when the fish in question adjusts and thrives in its new environment. Or at least, that`s what the back would lead you to believe.

Hell, that’s why I bought the book – other than the fact that it was cheap and I was looking for some light reading to do on my vacation. For those readers that picked it up for that reason, the quirks and little details of Japan, you`re sorely let down. The narration is simple, the problems have to do more with the narrator’s personal relationships than the problems that would come with living half-way across the world in a completely different culture, and the manga-making process and content is completely ignored.

It’s a very safe book. Very predictable; when I was reading it, I could figure out (if only by my own fan-based knowledge of Japan and anime/manga) what would be mentioned and what sort of characters would show up. Hell, the narrator falls asleep on her train on her first night and has to stay at a love hotel, despite the fact that, although it’s late, she has a host-family set up. And it’s not even written that well – it’s written to shock, something to point and go, “Well gosh-darn, aren’t those Japanese just kooky?” At the same time, it felt like the author was just running down the check-list of all things Japanese in hopes that she touched on all of them. Hot springs? Check. Pocky? Check! Weird toilets? Check! Readers, that’s something you get in a cheap rom-com style movie, not a decent piece of literature! 

Let me take a step back. What we have is the main character, Lisa (or “Risa-san”, as she`s called by her Japanese co-workers) who is scared, to have no better term. She’s not very self-confident, and she doesn’t stand up to her boyfriend. She lets herself go with the flow, and it’s acknowledged in the story as harmful behaviour. That, actually, I liked about the book. It was easy to relate to – who hasn’t been stuck in a job they didn’t like, safe in their own bubble, content if not happy?

The events of the novel are told through the first person perspective; we see everything though Risa’s eyes complete with her thoughts and biases. And I will be the first to admit that I really, really dislike the first person perspective. It could be because I read Twilight and loathed it with every fiber of my being because of the vapid, morose, whiny narrator, and that’s just bleeding thought, but it might be something more. I hate having the entire story centered on one character, especially if there are more interesting characters around, or more than one side to the issue. And that’s what we see here. We have, at one point, a vendetta between Risa and a big name manga-ka (a person who creates manga) that is, from our perspective, completely random and out of no-where. We have Risa’s driven, uptight boyfriend Ethan (who will be Workaholic Douchebag from now on) who doesn’t give two fucks about his girlfriend or her passions, and doesn’t even seem to pay attention to the terminology. When she tells him that she has one an internship in Japan, he continually dismisses it as “that comic job” and doesn’t seem to care that she’s leaving, even tells her to go so she can stop distracting him from grad school.)

And I, for one, would like to know what was going on in his head, so to better empathize with him. Risa’s best friends, Perry (the Creep) and Stacy (married, heavily pregnant stereotype) are pushy and rude to the point where they brow-beat Risa into going to Japan (because she wouldn’t go on her own: it’s the fear thing again) and then get angry at her when she comes home and can’t stop talking about how awesome her trip was. If the point of view was different, it might have been more forgiving towards characters that we weren’t in the head if. It could have expanding characters into something deeper than just their stereotypes or cardboard cut-outs.

As an aside – the very last before we move onto more detailed points in the discussion, I promise – the last thing that I found particularly annoying was the lack of depth or detail given to the subplots of the novel. At one point, two of Risa’s co-workers on a private project are said to be romantically involved, with no lead up or follow-through. As well, that project that the three were working on? It’s dubbed “The American Manga Project” and is said to be a mix of action-manga

It’s flaws like that which kept me from getting completely into the story. But enough about the general thoughts and details. Let’s get into the good stuff.

The Bad:

First point: Ethan, the workaholic douchebag. Why are we supposed to sympathize and root for this guy’s romance when he’s such a dick? He tells his girlfriend of two years (I think) to leave and go to Japan, because she’s a distraction and he needs to graduate grad school with good grades. He trivializes her passions, and at one point late in the novel, pretty much tells Risa to come home to plan their wedding (spoilers, he proposes and Spineless McDoormat agrees) and break her contract. When they do start planning the wedding, he rushes it, and needs the knot to be tied and the ink to be dry by the time he starts a new job at a prestigious firm. Her wants are not taken into account. It’s not the healthiest relationship, but by the time that comes to light, our main character is good and pissed, and still made out to be the bad guy by her terrible, brow-beating friends. Who wouldn’t want to marry this guy, am I right?

Second point:  the way in which the book was written. It was scripted in a day to day format, and while that kept a good timeline of the year in Japan, it was often jarring. If felt like the author was cutting out beginnings, and dropping the reader in the middle of a scene with no context or lead up. Because of that, it felt like there was information left out and depths not yet explored. It was, in a word, disappointing.

Third point: the ending. Spoilers ahead, gentle readers. Skip this next bit if you want to read this trash. It’s okay, I’ll tell you when you can start reading again. Alright? Good. Starting the critique now.

THE ENDING WAS SHIT.

Towards the last quarter of the book, Risa and WD’s relationship pretty much explodes. The wedding isn’t getting planned because Risa is more concerned with her internship and The American Manga Project. He’s annoyed because she’s busy, and she’s annoyed because he won’t stop pushing. It all comes to a head when WD flies to Japan to surprise Risa – and spends the entire time planning the wedding. They fight. They break up.

And it was at this point I was grinning. Good, she left him, she can have a relationship with the guy she’s working with and everyone gets a happy ending. Right?

No.

WD is pretty much forgotten about until the last chapter or two. Risa comes back to America and has a big reunion with her friends and family, nabbing a job at an American manga company in the process. Workaholic Douchebag comes into the picture in the very last chapter. They “start over” after a heart to heart, and the book ends with them sitting down for a “First date” at the kitchen table.

This isn’t a going to be news, readers, I promise you that. I hate this kind of ending. There is no reason that our main character couldn’t have her dream job and her friends and be happy single. Plenty of people do that. This is just having her cake and eating it too – but the trick is, she didn’t like the cake the first time she tried it, so she’s going back for seconds! Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I don’t get modern relationships. Is that what women want now? To be talked down to and mistreated and trivialized?

It’s such a waste of an ending it makes me sick.

Spoilers are over. Come on back, gentle readers.

The Good:

I know, it’s surprising. I’ve spent the last 1000 words tearing this waste of pulp and ink a new one, do I really have anything nice to say?

 Actually, yes.

 I may have hated the characters because they were terrible, and in some points, completely flat, but they were, in some respects, realistic.

 I mean, they were self-absorbed, pushy and generally unlikeable, but some people are like that. Most people have set expectations towards their friends, and when those friends start acting strangely, they get upset. And that’s exactly what happened here. It was realistic.

 Also, I particularly enjoyed the dialogue in this book. The usual cliché of everything revolving around the main character didn’t happen. The conversations weren’t always “let’s talk about your problems, Risa-san” or “guess what you need to do next, Lisa!” there was a good deal of other conversation topics as well, centred on more than just the main character and her problems – and more importantly, lending a sympathetic ear.

Other than the dialogue, there were one or two other things that I liked. The character development, at least in the main character, was very apparent as time went on. The manner in which the book was written – day by day format—while jarring as hell in the beginning, gave the reader a lot to go on. You could really get into Risa’s head and poke around. You got to know the character you were subjected to.

The characters, as I’ve already mentioned, were unpleasant but realistic, as were a lot of the conversations. Just because the audience might be cringing at an awkward situation or conversation, the author didn’t soften it. Horrifically awkward situations stayed awkward, embarrassing conversations stayed embarrassing, and anger stayed hot as anything.

And finally: Risa’s flaws, as well as the flaws in her relationship, were pointed out very early – in the first or second chapter, in some cases -- and developed until they reached their logical conclusions. The foreshadowing may have been heavy-handed and blunt, but it was there.

And there you have it, gentle readers. Turning Japanese in a nutshell.  Is this novel really worth the cold shoulder? No, I’d say. It was a light, entertaining read, that wasn’t meant to push the envelope. It’s something you read in the airport or on a plane while you wait for your own adventures to start. It’s a nice, safe piece of chick-lit with predictable turns and a bit of Japanese culture to spice things up.

If you have nothing better to do, get this from a library, but don’t buy. You probably won’t read it more than once.

This is Contemptus, the Stone Cold Critic, signing off. I’ll see you next month, gentle readers.