Japanese Animation and New Media
Week Thirteen: Chapter Twenty-One: Emergent Positions
Hagio Moto’s “The Poe Family” (Poe no ichizoku) presents a very different coordination of affection-image, perception-image, and action-image. In this two-page sequence, there is action, and yet the action-image is largely subordinated to perception. In fact, the exchange of looks (and words like looks) tends to dominate the pages, and yet those looks are very moody, full attitude. And the layering of roses across the panels reinforces the emphasis on mood and disposition, stressing affective qualities associated with love (symbolically male-male love of the BL variety). In sum, the ‘action’ of the manga will center on the exchange of words and looks, and the ways in which they are interrupted by affective moments and also grounded in affective relations.
