The Rec Center #117
Hello! This week we’re breaking out of our comfort zone: guest reccer Courtney brings us our very first doujinshi list, for the long-running manga (amongst other things) JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. We’ve also got our usual mix of links, some gorgeous Annihilation fanart, and an excerpt from the greatest novel of all time, Ready Player Two: Girl Stuff. — Elizabeth
new stuff
“The story behind the funniest Star Wars rap parody of all time” by Dan Jackson at Thrillist
An interesting interview with Demi Adejuyigbe (aka @electrolemon), about his brilliant Lando Calrissian/Childish Gambino parody rap.
“Why Did Fans Flee LiveJournal, and Where Will They Go After Tumblr?” by Heather Schwedel at Slate
An interview with Casey Fiesler about her recent research into fan platform migration.
“Excerpts From My Upcoming Novel, Ready Player Two: Girl Stuff” by Nat Silverman at McSweeney’s
I ran a proud hand over the side of my spaceship that was shaped like a Lisa Frank dolphin. I had won it in a bet with my friend Snapewife over how many Pirates of the Caribbean movies there were. Back then, she had called it the Sparkleship, but I wanted a more intellectual, literary name. So I re-named it Astolat, after my favorite fan-fiction author.
“Good luck in there!” said Astolat. She had a voice like Amanda Bynes.
older stuff
“Fanboy” by Alexander Chee at The Morning News
“My fantasy of being a mutant was something that helped me keep going.”
tumblr & beyond
Annihilation fanart by Maryne
“Peter Parker, a millennial who knows what a furry is...”
Luv this “Padme lives” Rogue One/Star Wars AU gifset. <3
“wish pokemon was real so i could move to the country and farm mareep in peace”
“Anyone wanna engage in media criticism in a healthy productive normal manner?”
fanfiction
Courtney Stanton lives on the internet and is the co-host of the podcast JoJo’s Bizarre Explainer. He spends a lot of time thinking about how many belts the Joestar family must own.
JOJO:
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure began as a manga over 30 years ago, written and illustrated by one man, Hirohiko Araki. Over the years its storylines have been adapted into a variety of videogames, OVAs, anime, and it continues to run as a manga, still written and illustrated by the same man. It’s a rare opportunity to watch an artist evolve, returning to certain themes again and again while also growing leaps and bounds creatively. If you can imagine a world where Joss Whedon kept making stories about various Slayers and crammed every idea he had into that universe instead of Firefly/Dollhouse/Dr Horrible/Avengers/etc, that’s the closest analogy I can come up with, except Araki is way more interesting and never pretends to be a feminist. (BOOM, yep, I went there...but that’s not this newsletter! Back to JoJo!)
The story of JoJo covers several generations of the Joestar family—Jonathan, Joseph, Jotaro, Josuke, Giorno, Jolene...all of whom at some point in their lives end up getting nicknamed JoJo (JOnathan JOestar, etc). Each story arc follows a Joestar during some key event in their lives, and a great deal of the series’ freshness over so many years is that it keeps changing characters, defying genres, and rapidly evolving, always staying fresh. And by “fresh” I mean “bananas as all hell.” JoJo is weird, great, fashionable, and sort of like what would happen if someone turned your last 2am Wikipedia-click-bender into an animated fighting show. But with hunks. Lots, and lots of hunks.
The Joestar lineage: (left to right) Jonathan, Joseph, Jotaro, Josuke, Giorno, Jolyne, Johnny and Josuke (sometimes referred to as “Jo2uke”)
RECS:
A thing to know about JoJo doujinshi (fan comics)—a lot of them aren’t in English! (Which makes sense since the original material isn’t in English either.) And while some fans will take doujins and scan and translate them and post them on kind of porny sites online...that is considered rude as hell. In part, this is because people sell their doujins, just like any other artist. Also, Japanese artists have a different culture around reposting work than Americans do (namely: unless it’s explicitly stated that it’s okay, it’s not okay!).
So this rec set is a bunch of links to Mandarake, one of the places where you can buy doujinshi online (other options are Toranoana or Otaku Republic—Toranoana requires knowing a lot of Japanese to navigate, and Otaku Republic is all second-hand books). The doujinshi themselves aren’t in English. Is it possible to find shady translated scans of them online? Yes. I would still recommend actually buying the books.
Also, the ratings on all of these unless otherwise noted is E, Explicit, R-18, Porn, Nudity, Doing It, etc. Because it’s...me.
Part 1: Phantom Blood
“Fall Into A Snare” by Yasumi. Ship: Jonathan x Dio
Rec: Jonathan Joestar and Dio Brando aren’t related, but they’re raised together (with Dio plotting the whole time to destroy Jonathan’s life for...reasons? Watch the show). In this doujin, Jonathan comes to Dio for advice on how to get girls (on behalf of a friend). Dio is obviously like, “we should practice on each other so you can know what you’re doing,” because he wants to humiliate Jonathan...it doesn’t go as planned.
Content warning: Dubious consent (at best)
Part 2: Battle Tendency
“The Boy in the Other Room” by Harumitsu. Ship: Joseph x Caesar
Rec: Joseph Joestar and Caesar Zeppeli are 1) boyfriends who 2) spend most of their relationship training together in Italy. This is set during that time together, with a fairly straightforward “maybe I’ll ~loosen him up with wine~” storyline.
Content warnings: Dubious consent, alcohol
“Blame it on the boy” by UNKY/Unko Yoshida. Ship: Caesar x Joseph
Rec: Another “training in Italy” scenario, this time with a sparring match that leads to such classic tropes as “we started out yelling and now we are kissing” and “I’m too overwhelmed to jerk myself off...I need you to do it.” Bless.
Content warnings: N/A
Part 3: Stardust Crusaders
“CLAMP in Wonderland 1994 Summer” by Clamp. Ship: (Jotaro x Kakyoin), Rated Gen (except for...the existence of m/m romance).
Rec: Clamp is an extremely successful group of women manga artists who’ve been working since the 1980s, and one year they made this, possibly the most high-profile JoJo doujinshi ever? In the story, “husband” Jotaro and “wife” Kakyoin wake up one day to discover that Kakyoin has produced a giant egg, out of which comes their son, Jouta. The whole thing spirals out of control from there, and it’s hilarious. This thing is basically canon, given its place in JoJo history and how many fans have read it.
Content warnings: N/A
“SUGARLESS” by Tetsuo. Ship: Jotaro x Kakyoin
Rec: Jotaro and Kakyoin spend most of their relationship on a road trip, which means we get lots of great ~sharing a hotel room~ stories, and this is one of them. The art in this one is *cough* very good.
Content warnings: Alcohol, dubious consent
“Fine Line” by kunifusa (Kuroda Ichi). Ship: Jotaro x Kakyoin
Rec: An incredibly sweet story set after the series where they’re both back at school and Jotaro is jealous because of how well Kakyoin gets along with women. (...although compared to Jotaro, everyone gets along well with women.)
Content warnings: N/A
“How to Dio,” “How to Jotaro,” “How to Kakyoin,” and “How to JoJo” by Omomuki High Jump (Konbane). Rated Gen.
Rec: The “How to ___” series is a set of comics that posits “what if the JoJo series, but one of the characters was a tiny chibi version of themselves?” It’s ridiculous and great, especially if you’ve read the manga.
Content warnings: N/A
Part 4: Diamond Is Unbreakable
“Unrequited Love of the Watch Dog of a Town” by Ondo (Nurunuru). Ship: Josuke x Rohan Kishibe
Rec: For some reason, a lot of doujin of Rohan have his character as being...not nearly as prickly and bossy as he is written in canon. (Kakyoin suffers this as well, but there’s a lot more Part 3 fan content than there is for Part 4.) I really like this doujin because it as it goes on, it feels very much like how a relationship between Josuke and Rohan would be—a little standoffish at first, not overly expressive, but eventually very touching.
Content warnings: N/A
[Where are the Part 5 and 6 doujin recs? Well, WHERE IS THE GOOD PART 5 AND 6 DOUJIN??! The real tragedy of my life.]
Part 7: Steel Ball Run
“Texas Fever” by Marion. Ship: Johnny x Gyro
Rec: I’m breaking the “no shady porn site” rule because Marion’s Tumblr is no more and so there’s no other way to read her work. (If I’m wrong about that, please for the love of all that’s holy, tell me so I can read all her stuff again.) This is a modern AU of Steel Ball Run, with brief character bios at the beginning, so of everything linked here, this is possibly the easiest one to dive right into. The coloring and lighting work on is [chef’s kiss]. Marion was probably the best fan artist in JoJo’s fandom (certainly my favorite one), and if her site was still up, I’d absolutely be linking you to the many, many amazing doujins she created.
Content warning: Dubious consent
All of JoJo
Little by Little 1 and 2 by Virginia Room/Virginia Nitouhei. Rated Gen.
Content warnings: N/A
FINAL THOUGHT
In the absence of a fandom-related theme, I’m commandeering the Final Thought section to recommend THE TERROR, a very good show about Victorian men dying horribly in the Arctic circle. Spoiler-free review here; highly recommended for fans of polar history and movies like Master and Commander and, uh, The Thing. — Gav
Have a favorite one-off rec? Please send it our way! We’ll use it in a future list. Other fanworks—comics, vids, etc—are strongly encouraged as well. And if you have any interest in doing an entire rec list or explainer, please get in touch! elizabethandgav at gmail dot com.
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