The History of Manga and Early Anime

  This week I read The History of Manga and Early Anime, a general introductory book about the origins and development of manga in Japan. What attracted me most was the origin of Manga, an art born "class", seen as a “million pictures,” with infinite possibilities, as the book says. It was from the irony and complaints of the workers who built Nara’s temples against the bosses who oppressed them. That is to say, this art was not created to show a certain "beauty" or to tell a specific story in the beginning; it was more a "distillation" and dissemination of an idea by means of painting, taking into account the current social situation and the treatment the painter had felt. This quality has been with Manga for thousands of years, and as the artist's position changed, so did the class position and ideology he propagated; as described in the book, during the First and Second World Wars, manga with an imperialist position emerged, and during the period of defeat of the war and Japan's hardship, manga with a desire to break away from reality, such as New Treasure Island also appeared in large numbers. In the 1960s, Japan was influenced by China, and the socialist movement among students flourished, and manga became a powerful weapon to promote socialist ideas. In this process, as with those workers at the Nara temple, it seems that whether the pictures are beautiful and gorgeous is not the initial goal of this art; it is the goal of this art that the viewer can understand the ideas it wants to express even after hundreds of years.

Looking to the future

  In 2030, when Labor Day is coming, I get a ten-day holiday from my work at the Ministry of Social Affairs. For this ten-day Labor Day holiday, I have prepared holiday coupons from the Socialist State of Hawaii for my family as gifts. These holiday coupons are in exchange for the labor points I get from my work; my life is very fulfilling, and I play my due role in my job. My family and I have socially allocated houses and cars, and of course, if I have other requests, I can submit applications as long as I have enough labor points. For now, I live an easy life, and the only problem for me is that my work at the Ministry of Social Affairs takes up almost one third of my day. Although I face a very heavy workload, the ORGA system can automatically calculate labor point for me, so it is never a concern for me that my work will not be rewarded as it should be.

  By 2070, after retiring for 10 years and nearly reaching the age of 75, I have already well adapted to my life in retirement and settled on the seaside of the socialist state of Virginia. The science and technology in 2070 evolves to be more advanced than that in 2030, but it is still based on the ORGA system designed by scientists in the scientific and technological innovation during the Great Revolution. The big data that was used by human beings back in 2010 is now being used in this system to connect people all over the world. The capital market is now completely controlled by algorithms instead of people. Everyone does a job that he or she is good at and get the labor points that he or she deserves. The virtual points allocated by the algorithm have completely replaced money and has become an integral part of one’s entire life. People work with the help of the system, and surplus of products is no longer a concern, because people’s needs can be coordinated and production workers can be guided in production through algorithm. By 2070, the government’s priority is no longer to exercise leadership over its people, but to maintain and constantly update the system, so a large number of scientists have gained access to the system and begun to lead the government, and the government has pruned its overstaffed public sectors to only one or two emergency sectors. The Ministry of Social Affairs is responsible for maintaining law and order in socialist countries, while the Ministry of People is responsible for collecting people’s demands and submitting them directly to the system. The concept of country has become less important. With the exception of a few capitalist countries, most countries in the world have re-socialized and restored the Comintern. Countries no longer set up their borders and allow free mobility of their populations, share educational resources and work together to establish education systems, jointly distribute and produce resources, and people no longer has ethnic consciousness. People of all ethnic groups can communicate in real time through the system. As a result, people around the world are brought much closer and no longer feel distanced from each other. Through the ORGA chip installed on the arm, people can communicate holographically with the people in their contact list. As a builder of this socialist colossus, I feel honored and I work hard to learn the new functions of the system that are updating every year.
  By 2220, nearly 200 years have passed since the completion of ORGA, all countries in the world have completely entered the communist society. ORGA has become the third “hand” of mankind. After two hundred years of update, ORGA still exists and continues to be updated. Although it has become a “the ship of Theseu”, people are still happy to call it ORGA in recognition of the great contribution the system has made to mankind. An increasing number of people are keen on biological transformation, that is, using cell regeneration technology to constantly update their bodies like systems in order to achieve longevity, but because their brains can only store limited resources, these people have to upload their memories to the ORGA cloud for storage every 70 years, which causes them to forget most of the things after storage, unless they download the previous memories to their brains. This controversial technology has caused great controversy at the Comintern People’s Congress. However, most people still choose to transfer their thoughts and consciousness to the ORGA cloud at the end of their life, which are then stored by ORGA. In this way, although they are “dead”, their loved ones can apply for permission to talk to them when commemorating them. For me, I stick to be a traditional communist; I choose not to store any thoughts or consciousness at the end of my life.
My self-calculated score is 15 daily blogs plus an attendance score of 95, which I rate as an A

Broken Sentences

Co Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino depicts several moments of the evolution of the universe in a poetic, romantic, and dreamy writing style: the moment when the moon suddenly left the earth far behind; the moment when the nebula gradually condensed and then emitted light and heat to become the sun; the moment when the universe suddenly exploded from the smallest density; the moment when the atmosphere was formed and everything on earth began to have colors. Living beings shuttle through it, witnessing every great moment of change in the universe for us.

The stories in the book seem to be always like this: human plays carefree among the stardust on the one hand, and unable to escape the fate of being emotional creatures on the other hand. While having fun, they can't help feeling dejected. In Calvino's portrayal, human beings seem to be the witnesses to the universe: huddling at an infinitesimal point, they play in thin nebulae, mark the orbits of galaxies, use hydrogen atoms as marble toys, and keen to bet on the future.

The Earth is custom-made for us by Rats

 In the first spiral arm of the Milky Way, there is a star galaxy called the solar system. The most remarkable planet in this galaxy is its third planet because this planet is inhabited by the only intelligent life ever discovered by mankind. But ever since the emergence of “science fiction writers”, the poor planet has endured rather malicious fantasies. 

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a novel full of humor. Using extremely witty yet deliberately solemn words, Mr. Adams shows readers his characteristic British humor like a stand-up comedian.  

To make a joke which may potentially induce awkward silence, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is not so much an excellent science fiction as a novel anthropological paper, which demonstrates to us the extent to which human beings can exert humor through a rather personalized approach.

In most science fiction, the earth is an innocent person with a guilty heart, and its blue body always attracts all kinds of extraterrestrials to plunder or destroy. Among these uncountable malicious visitors, the reasons for destruction brought by the Vogon fleet are undoubtedly the most unexpected. Chinese sci-fi readers know for the first time that evil aliens have come to destroy the earth in order to build public welfare facilities, and they have just learned why these aliens look so indecent—because their ancestors climbed out of the water billions of years ago. That's indeed a pretty good answer.

This is a very different kind of science fiction. With his characteristic cynical writing style, Mr. Adams satirizes all the authority and order of the real world to the readers who are between tears and laughter. When the unparalleled supercomputer, after 7.5 million years of calculation, announces that the final answer that human beings pursue is 42, readers who are tongue-tied like the two parties do not know what else in the world could not be made fun of.

Absurd Galactic Empire, weird president, neurotic robot… With the earth customized by rats as the starting point, the protagonist Arthur begins his bizarre roaming of the universe. In a world as bizarre as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderlands, the so-called “logic” is no different from the queen’s rules of the game—even if it exists, it can be modified at will.

Things really got worse when Arthur felt that things couldn’t get any worse. There has been one turning point after another in the meaningless journey. When the protagonist found that the description of the earth was only "basically harmless" in the great Guide which contained countless materials, and Slartibartfast of Magrathea proudly told him that “the earth is custom-made for us by rats”, the world must have crumbled in his eyes like a plastic jigsaw puzzle.

Bloodchild

 

1.What is your reaction to the text you just read?

At the beginning of the article, I "confirmed" that this story does not seem to be a story about humans, but more similar to a family of insects or arthropods. But as I continued to read it, I found that the setting of this story has become a deformed aesthetic after aliens occupy the earth, and it has the "Eusociality" of the insect world.

2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss what elements of the story with which you were able to connect?

  In the story, "egg" and "fertility" seem to be constantly emphasized. This also highlights the contradiction of the article, that is, some people have been brainwashed as a fertility tool since childhood, but they still have personality and self-thinking. This may be an exaggeration in real life, but the status of women in human society, especially in the East, has been a tool-like existence attached to men in the East; they are not allowed to participate in social activities, but only in In life wholeheartedly raising the family and helping the husband, and being encouraged to have children, and even some places have developed the "deformed aesthetics" mentioned in this article-people think that the larger the pelvis, the more beautiful women, and more in terms of fertility There are advantages. This abnormal aesthetic and the materialization of women are the people's thirst for labor caused by the excessive social productivity, and it is transformed into the worship of fertility, which is somewhat in line with the human beings who have been a fertility tool since childhood and their concepts in the article. inner relationship.

3. What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you choose; what changes would you make?

I think this short science fiction with social thinking can be adapted into a movie, and in the movie, I think that some background should be added to the beginning part, which will help the viewer to quickly enter the scene and let the viewer be behind The long dialogue of's set the background.

4. Are there elements of this work that you would consider afto-futurist?

Yes, this highly imaginative article does construct a not-so-good future world, but the author also uses the future world he created to bring thinking and enlightenment to our current real society.

Cyberpunk

 

Dark, cold, apocalyptic tones

    The first manifestation of the postmodern quality of Count Zero is its bleak, cold, apocalyptic tone. Ridley Scott's Blade Runner concludes with a memorable line: "I have seen things that you humans cannot imagine. On Orion's flank, the attacking starship burns, and next to the Tanhauser gate, I see C rays gleaming in the darkness. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain." This line seems to predict the general, revealed the human society that magnificent and bleak "future". William Gibson was deeply influenced by Blade Runner, and his future world is dark and strange. Count Zero, for example, is an overgrown, dirty, rain-drenched, gothic junkyard. There are some descriptions in the book, "The table is peppered with candle tears and wine stains. Grotesque imprints intermingled in a dark mass, and the dark burn of hundreds of cigarette butts "; "Crooked aisles extending from the area in front of the coffee kiosk, kerosene lamps hissing white flames... Toshiba monitor robot whines through corridors, dragging scarred plastic carts." The writer's style is a perfect mix of dark rhapsody and retro, with a sentimental touch of new Wave poetic realism. The flood of material, the decrepit, damp buildings, the eerie lights, the foggy streets, the listless, zombie-like crowds make for a gloomy, desperate, and wondrous doomsday. The urban forests created by the cool colors drawn by the author show us the grotesque wasteland in the post-modern era, reflecting his anxious reflection and deep questioning on the excessive development of material and the future technological world.

   

    Fragmentation

    The third manifestation of postmodernism in Count Zero is the fragmented narrative feature in the work. There are two dimensions, one is the constant switching of reality and virtual, the other is the constant switching of narrative perspective. "Cyberspace implies a computer-generated dimension, where we move information around and we look for ways around it," says philosopher Michael Heym. In Cyberpunk literature, most stories take place on the Internet, in digital space. The line between reality and virtual reality is so blurry that it often uses a direct connection between the brain and a computer, hence the name "digital science fiction." Count Zero is a perfect example of "digital sci-fi." It's fast-paced, information-dense, and often as quick as a movie shot. It's also full of slang, headless phrases, and constantly changing reality and fantasy as it goes. For example, after that Mary meets Varek in "The Matrix", "the night is like wings, sweeping the Barcelona sky like a flash of a huge, quick press of a door, dark and The Quire Park both disappear, and she finds herself back on the leather stool". Turner "slips into the shallow sea of dreams, the images spin, and fragments from the Mitchell archive blend into his own life. He and Mitchell drove the bus through a cascade of glass and into the lobby of the Hotel in Marrakech.” This kind of transformation of reality and dream is very visual sense, wonderful. In addition, the transformation is reflected in the change of narrative perspective, such as the following description, which uses the ingenious structure of third-person - omniscient - second-person - third-person："Bones, gold circuit boards, dead ribbons, white clay balls. Mary shook her head. How can one simply arrange all these bits and pieces, all this garbage, in such a way as to grab your heart and dive into your soul like a fishhook? But then she nodded.” The fully mature, freely switching narrative perspective reveals the protagonist's limited perspective, complex emotions, and the author's critical attitude. These two fragmentary narrative features combine to construct a kaleidoscopic cyberpunk world.