Courtney Love's "manga"?

snowcherry · 17-07-2003, 02:41 PM

http://www.cinescape.com/0/editorial...3&obj_id=39164

Uh, I'm not sure of the validity of this, but it's not April Fool's Day so perhaps it really -is- for real.

Anyway, the gist of it if you're too lazy to click the link: Courtney Love--yes, that Courtney Love--is planning on creating a manga illustrated by Yazawa Ai and D.J. Milky. It will be called Princess Ai and it's about a princess from a distant world who came to our world as a performer. If you're familiar with the term "Mary Sue", this is clearly going to be a shining example.

Now, besides the complete and utter absurdity of Courtney-fecking-Love creating a manga, what grabbed my attention was Yazawa Ai. My favorite mangaka. If nothing else, the art in this manga is going to kick ass.
Tokyopop will supposedly be publishing this next year.

(It's probably obvious, but I'm not particularly fond of Ms. Love. Hole was a decent band, and she's a surprisingly good actress, but she herself as a person makes me bristle.)

Anyway...thoughts?

jennwenn · 17-07-2003, 09:15 PM

Wow I have exactly the same impression of Courtney Love. Her music was ok, but she's not exactly a person I'd want (or um IMAGINE) getting into manga.

I still can't really beleive this! It seems like a joke. Since when does she care about comics? And JAPANESE comics? Well I suppose she writes her songs (does she?) so she must be able to passably write...

And seeing her inevitably write about herself...um I'm not looking forward to what her characters are going to be like. Its definitely got Mary Sue-ism all over it. I mean its called Princess Ai, AKA Princess Love in Japanese.

What has Yazawa Ai done again? I can't match artist to manga...
EDIT - Never mind. She did Paradise Kiss.
NOW I understand. Matching Courtney Love to Paradise Kiss actually seems doable. I LOVE Paradise Kiss, so I'll give this a chance.

APF · 17-07-2003, 11:15 PM

What's disturbing is that I can seehow Ai Yazawa would do this; she seems to like that kind of glamorous, showy world that Courtney Love... um, isn't, but wishes she was. Although I can't say that I'm excited about this, it should be... interesting. This is also one of the first times I can recal that this kind of thing, an American directing a Japanese Mangaka, has happened. It should interesting.

On the note of Ai Yazawa, has she done anything other than Paradise Kiss and.. uh... that other one she did? I know it, but I can't think of the name...

Also, any idea when we can expect a Paradise Kiss volume five? Has it even been written?

Project Akira · 18-07-2003, 12:42 AM

After doing some research on the web the apparently the plot goes somthing along these lines

Quote:

Princess Ai comes to planet Earth to sing after her husband the late Lord Aimotalentedthanwifevatobe is forced to kill himself and is chased after by the evil villainous empire called INTERSCOPE and it's villainous emperor Gin Iovino. It's the story of a plucky, young girl who comes to the planet is hated by everyone because she's "independant" and speaks her mind. It has nothing to do with the fact that she's exploiting her dead husband's legacy and treating his bandma- um I mean generals like dirt. Ultimately though Ai wins a Golden Globe because that's what alien princesses on the wrun from INTERSCOPE do goldarnit!

Nope no Mary Sues there.

snowcherry · 18-07-2003, 02:25 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by APF
she seems to like that kind of glamorous, showy world that Courtney Love... um, isn't, but wishes she was.

That's sort of what I thought, too. If any shoujo mangaka was ever going to work with an American rock star (or some vague facsimile thereof), it'd be Yazawa Ai.

She's also done Gokinjo Monogatari (probably the other one you were thinking of), Tenshi Nanka Ja Nai, Nana (her best work, I think, and also the reason why ParaKiss is coming out so slowly), and several shorter, less well-known works. Speaking of ParaKiss, I don't think volume five is out yet in Japan, but I might be wrong. I know that at least that much of the manga has been published in Zipper magazine though; the Zipper installments are surely somewhere in volume six or seven by now.

At any rate, even if the plot is ridiculous and the characters are stupid and pathetic, the art will still kick ass and it will undoubtedly prove interesting. Maybe not good, but certainly interesting.

...assuming it's for real, of course. I'm still trying to decide that.

APF · 18-07-2003, 02:52 AM

Quote:

Snowcherry
Nana (her best work, I think, and also the reason why ParaKiss is coming out so slowly)

Care to elaborate? Is this some other project she is working on simultaniously?

And yes, Gokinjo Monogatari is the one that I was thinking of. She mentions it in one of the ParaKiss "Yaza world" thingies.

snowcherry · 21-07-2003, 10:39 AM

Ah, I've been mistaken about Paradise Kiss; it actually ended recently. Volume five will be the final volume, coming out who knows when. I grossly overestimated the speed at which it was being published, heh.

Nana is Yazawa Ai's current main project. I think it's eight volumes long so far. It's an absolute gem, her most sophisticated work yet. It's also unbelievably popular in Japan--every new volume hits the manga top ten bestsellers without fail.

So anyway...yeah. I guess this whole Princess Ai fiasco just goes to prove that manga really has become frightfully popular in the US, if still just this side of mainstream.

APF · 22-07-2003, 10:55 PM

Well, Nana certainly sounds interesting. Do you know of any plans to bring it to the US?

Jman479 · 23-07-2003, 01:21 AM

courtney love ........sucks to say the least i mean i didnt know she was that popular to warrant a manga series and anyway i question that the people that do enjoy her music are anime/manga interested ............if they wanted to waste money like that make a manga series about me ....thatd be cool

APF · 23-07-2003, 01:23 AM

Seems it's really happening; ANN is carrying the news.