I Have To Tell You All About The Amish BL
Dec. 23rd, 2021 12:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mozaikmageI am haunted at times by memories of Rumspringa no Joukei by Azuma Kaya.
Today I am specifically being haunted by my dear friend retweeting a tweet I made about it when I read it almost two years ago no, but in general, I am haunted by Rumspringa no Joukei.
Once upon a time a friend of mine tweeted a recommendation for a BL comic about an Amish boy and a dancer they'd just finished reading. This friend grew up in Singapore. I grew up twenty minutes away from Amish country and have spent a not-insignificant amount of my life in Lancaster county, as well as driving through the rolling hills on various road trips and buying delicious pretzels from the Amish and Mennonite farmers at the nearby farmer's market. I don't know a whole lot about Amish people and culture, but I know enough and am geographically close enough to it for Rumspringa no Joukei to feel like looking at a stranger's vague impression of my backyard.
And it is a vague impression!
Rumspringa no Joukei (literally "the scene of my rumspringa") is a comic nominally set in Pennsylvania in the 1980s in which an Amish boy named Theo on his Rumspringa (a time when Amish adolescents leave the community and experience the outside world before deciding if they want to stay in the community or leave it) encounters a young rent boy named Oswald (nicknamed Oz) with dreams of making it big on Broadway, and then they Fall In Love and have lots of well-drawn sex. It takes place in the 80s because the author wanted to have Oz's dad die in Vietnam during the moon landing. AIDS is never mentioned, despite the story taking place within the gay community in the tristate area in the 1980s. There's also a recurring metaphor using rainbow trout, for some reason. A lot happens in this thread!
The author cites two entire books as sources for her research on this manga: a photobook of Amish life, and a Japanese book about Amish culture. But she apparently did not do any other research about America in general in this time period, and it shows.
The part that struck me immediately on my first read through and the tweet that my friend retweeted today was this sterile diner in the second chapter that looks nothing like any diner I've ever seen in the tristate area.
Though the landscapes of the settlement Theodore lives in are rendered in loving detail, probably from that photobook Azuma cited as reference, the environments of the urban location Theodore and Oswald lives in are generic and stale, making Theo's decision to run away with Oz in the name of True Love a bit harder to believe.
The characters in this comic are gorgeous to a fault. I mean that literally- don't most Amish men have beards?? Why don't Theo and Danny have beards?! Is it because beards aren't cool in BL? Yes, probably, but come on.
This comic is very beautiful but the story is constructed out of tissue paper and dryer lint. The characters would be good if they were cut out and pasted into a completely different setting. I don't expect this comic to ever get licensed in English because, to anyone with even a passing familiarity of Amish culture and the tristate area in the 1980s, this comic will just feel wrong. Although it might sell well on the sheer novelty factor, because every time I tweet about it I get multiple replies saying "AMISH BL?!!? WHAT??"
But if you don't have that familiarity, check it out! It's pretty! I do admire Azuma's decision to boldly go where no BL has gone before, even if it's criminally underresearched as an excuse to shove all her favorite tropes into one comic.
And if you do know things about the Amish, may this haunt you like it haunts me.
Today I am specifically being haunted by my dear friend retweeting a tweet I made about it when I read it almost two years ago no, but in general, I am haunted by Rumspringa no Joukei.
Once upon a time a friend of mine tweeted a recommendation for a BL comic about an Amish boy and a dancer they'd just finished reading. This friend grew up in Singapore. I grew up twenty minutes away from Amish country and have spent a not-insignificant amount of my life in Lancaster county, as well as driving through the rolling hills on various road trips and buying delicious pretzels from the Amish and Mennonite farmers at the nearby farmer's market. I don't know a whole lot about Amish people and culture, but I know enough and am geographically close enough to it for Rumspringa no Joukei to feel like looking at a stranger's vague impression of my backyard.
And it is a vague impression!
Rumspringa no Joukei (literally "the scene of my rumspringa") is a comic nominally set in Pennsylvania in the 1980s in which an Amish boy named Theo on his Rumspringa (a time when Amish adolescents leave the community and experience the outside world before deciding if they want to stay in the community or leave it) encounters a young rent boy named Oswald (nicknamed Oz) with dreams of making it big on Broadway, and then they Fall In Love and have lots of well-drawn sex. It takes place in the 80s because the author wanted to have Oz's dad die in Vietnam during the moon landing. AIDS is never mentioned, despite the story taking place within the gay community in the tristate area in the 1980s. There's also a recurring metaphor using rainbow trout, for some reason. A lot happens in this thread!
The author cites two entire books as sources for her research on this manga: a photobook of Amish life, and a Japanese book about Amish culture. But she apparently did not do any other research about America in general in this time period, and it shows.
The part that struck me immediately on my first read through and the tweet that my friend retweeted today was this sterile diner in the second chapter that looks nothing like any diner I've ever seen in the tristate area.
Though the landscapes of the settlement Theodore lives in are rendered in loving detail, probably from that photobook Azuma cited as reference, the environments of the urban location Theodore and Oswald lives in are generic and stale, making Theo's decision to run away with Oz in the name of True Love a bit harder to believe.
The characters in this comic are gorgeous to a fault. I mean that literally- don't most Amish men have beards?? Why don't Theo and Danny have beards?! Is it because beards aren't cool in BL? Yes, probably, but come on.
This comic is very beautiful but the story is constructed out of tissue paper and dryer lint. The characters would be good if they were cut out and pasted into a completely different setting. I don't expect this comic to ever get licensed in English because, to anyone with even a passing familiarity of Amish culture and the tristate area in the 1980s, this comic will just feel wrong. Although it might sell well on the sheer novelty factor, because every time I tweet about it I get multiple replies saying "AMISH BL?!!? WHAT??"
But if you don't have that familiarity, check it out! It's pretty! I do admire Azuma's decision to boldly go where no BL has gone before, even if it's criminally underresearched as an excuse to shove all her favorite tropes into one comic.
And if you do know things about the Amish, may this haunt you like it haunts me.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-23 09:41 pm (UTC)I have no idea if I will ever read this, but... Goodness is that a *concept*
no subject
Date: 2021-12-23 11:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-12-29 01:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-12-29 03:14 pm (UTC)it's WILD. the plot makes no sense if you think about it for more than half a second but if you like, cut the characters out of the plot and just look at them in a vacuum it's cute