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I love looking at multiple works by the same creator as a collection, picking apart recurring themes, motifs, images, figuring out what a specific artist likes to draw or write or think about, but also looking at how creators evolve over time, becoming more thoughtful and sophisticated as they make more and more work. Today, I want to talk about how the mangaka KAITO depicts relationships in his medium-length lacrosse slice of life comic Cross Manage, and his next longform work Blue Flag.
I read most of Blue Flag as it was updating, catching up around chapter 28, and just read all of Cross Manage today because I felt like it and it's on the Jump app, and I think it's really interesting how Blue Flag deconstructs and responds to things that Cross Manage seems to depict without thinking.
First, the good: KAITO seems to enjoy specific, different character designs, giving all of his recurring characters different body types, clothing styles, and caricature forms so they're instantly recognizable in any panel. Cross Manage and Blue Flag are both visual delights. I love the little faces and character details he gives everyone. The world the characters exist in feels full and real, and I'm so into it.
His work is also expertly drawn. I was worried Cross Manage would be shakier, since it's an earlier work, but no. I think KAITO's one of the best draftsmen I've seen in manga recently. His thin, precise lines look almost like academic drawings sometimes, it's nuts. And he's great at gag reactions and visual comedy at the same time! What the heck!
Another thing I like about both works: supportive best friends! for the protagonist but also for other characters. In Blue Flag, Futaba and Taichi have separate friend circles that eventually overlap a bit, but they each have their own close, loyal, weird friends. And in Cross Manage, I really love how Seki and Wakamoto support the lacrosse team.
I actually found Cross Manage really interesting in terms of making me appreciate lacrosse a little. Where I grew up, lacrosse was the preppy WASP girl sport, but to see it protrayed as this weird niche underdog thing with our protagonist team full of unathletic amateurs made it more appealing.
Now for the less good: Cross Manage has a lot of... I've been calling it "Weird Shonen Het Shit", and that's honestly how I feel about it. It's uncomfortable, heterosexual, and in a way I've only really seen in shonen manga. Let me count the ways:
1) There's like three girls in love with our (admittedly very lovable) protagonist Sakurai, who is oblivious to their affections. This isn't actually a harem manga so it's not really about this, but it's still weird and not necessary, imo.
2) Ryu is a college student working at the LAX equipment store who is... weirdly protective of Misora, high school first year. He says he thinks of her as his "cute little sister" but like. It's Weird.
3) The fact that the whole reason Sakurai ends up managing the lacrosse team is because he accidentally touches Misora's chest and she blackmails him into it.
4) There's a lot less fanservice than you see in manga like, for example, My Hero Academia, which makes the moments when you do get an intentional cleavage shot all the more uncomfortably jarring. It's like the audience needs to be occasionally reminded that Sakurai is a Guy and the Girl's LAX team is Girls.
5) Pretty much any time a guy and a girl interact everyone around them is like "omg are you dating. omg do you have a crush. omg"
Which brings me to my next point: why Blue Flag is such an interesting follow-up to Cross Manage.
Blue Flag takes a lot of these tired shonen tropes and actually interrogates them. In Blue Flag, Mami is a pretty girl who likes being friends with guys, but everyone assumes she's dating the boys she hangs out with and she gets to express how annoying it is to have this assumption ruin friendships for her over and over again. She also gets to be frustrated with her guy friends who insist on "protecting" her by trying to control her life.
We also have Masumi and Touma, who people assume are dating because they're a boy and a girl who hang out. (Spoiler: they're gay.)
Actually wait let me expand on Masumi a bit. Spoilers for the finale of Blue Flag here, I guess.
The way Masumi's character is handled in the epilogue is incredibly frustrating, for a series that hit the mark so many times to just whiff it entirely like that. Her main arc in Blue Flag is coming to terms with her identity as a lesbian, navigating comphet and societal pressure to date men she's not attracted to. In chapter 38, she tells Akiko "The people I like... they aren't the same as normal people."
And then in the epilogue she's married to a dude. What. Where'd that come from.
Obviously bisexuality is valid and bi people exist and all that, but the fact that her whole arc in the story is learning it's ok to not be attracted to men, only to then somehow discover she can be attracted to men entirely off panel, is just... what? You couldn't have shown us that in the story? Without any exploration or elaboration on this idea it ends up reinforcing the Schoolgirl Lesbians trope, implying her feelings for Futaba were like practice for her eventual heterosexual marriage. Whack!
Okay Masumi tangent over.
Anyway, I think it's interesting that Cross Manage has characters who reinforce heteronormative ideas about friendships while Blue Flag unpacks them and digs deeper into potential friendship and relationship dynamics. That's it for now, I guess!
I read most of Blue Flag as it was updating, catching up around chapter 28, and just read all of Cross Manage today because I felt like it and it's on the Jump app, and I think it's really interesting how Blue Flag deconstructs and responds to things that Cross Manage seems to depict without thinking.
First, the good: KAITO seems to enjoy specific, different character designs, giving all of his recurring characters different body types, clothing styles, and caricature forms so they're instantly recognizable in any panel. Cross Manage and Blue Flag are both visual delights. I love the little faces and character details he gives everyone. The world the characters exist in feels full and real, and I'm so into it.
His work is also expertly drawn. I was worried Cross Manage would be shakier, since it's an earlier work, but no. I think KAITO's one of the best draftsmen I've seen in manga recently. His thin, precise lines look almost like academic drawings sometimes, it's nuts. And he's great at gag reactions and visual comedy at the same time! What the heck!
Another thing I like about both works: supportive best friends! for the protagonist but also for other characters. In Blue Flag, Futaba and Taichi have separate friend circles that eventually overlap a bit, but they each have their own close, loyal, weird friends. And in Cross Manage, I really love how Seki and Wakamoto support the lacrosse team.
I actually found Cross Manage really interesting in terms of making me appreciate lacrosse a little. Where I grew up, lacrosse was the preppy WASP girl sport, but to see it protrayed as this weird niche underdog thing with our protagonist team full of unathletic amateurs made it more appealing.
Now for the less good: Cross Manage has a lot of... I've been calling it "Weird Shonen Het Shit", and that's honestly how I feel about it. It's uncomfortable, heterosexual, and in a way I've only really seen in shonen manga. Let me count the ways:
1) There's like three girls in love with our (admittedly very lovable) protagonist Sakurai, who is oblivious to their affections. This isn't actually a harem manga so it's not really about this, but it's still weird and not necessary, imo.
2) Ryu is a college student working at the LAX equipment store who is... weirdly protective of Misora, high school first year. He says he thinks of her as his "cute little sister" but like. It's Weird.
3) The fact that the whole reason Sakurai ends up managing the lacrosse team is because he accidentally touches Misora's chest and she blackmails him into it.
4) There's a lot less fanservice than you see in manga like, for example, My Hero Academia, which makes the moments when you do get an intentional cleavage shot all the more uncomfortably jarring. It's like the audience needs to be occasionally reminded that Sakurai is a Guy and the Girl's LAX team is Girls.
5) Pretty much any time a guy and a girl interact everyone around them is like "omg are you dating. omg do you have a crush. omg"
Which brings me to my next point: why Blue Flag is such an interesting follow-up to Cross Manage.
Blue Flag takes a lot of these tired shonen tropes and actually interrogates them. In Blue Flag, Mami is a pretty girl who likes being friends with guys, but everyone assumes she's dating the boys she hangs out with and she gets to express how annoying it is to have this assumption ruin friendships for her over and over again. She also gets to be frustrated with her guy friends who insist on "protecting" her by trying to control her life.
We also have Masumi and Touma, who people assume are dating because they're a boy and a girl who hang out. (Spoiler: they're gay.)
Actually wait let me expand on Masumi a bit. Spoilers for the finale of Blue Flag here, I guess.
The way Masumi's character is handled in the epilogue is incredibly frustrating, for a series that hit the mark so many times to just whiff it entirely like that. Her main arc in Blue Flag is coming to terms with her identity as a lesbian, navigating comphet and societal pressure to date men she's not attracted to. In chapter 38, she tells Akiko "The people I like... they aren't the same as normal people."
And then in the epilogue she's married to a dude. What. Where'd that come from.
Obviously bisexuality is valid and bi people exist and all that, but the fact that her whole arc in the story is learning it's ok to not be attracted to men, only to then somehow discover she can be attracted to men entirely off panel, is just... what? You couldn't have shown us that in the story? Without any exploration or elaboration on this idea it ends up reinforcing the Schoolgirl Lesbians trope, implying her feelings for Futaba were like practice for her eventual heterosexual marriage. Whack!
Okay Masumi tangent over.
Anyway, I think it's interesting that Cross Manage has characters who reinforce heteronormative ideas about friendships while Blue Flag unpacks them and digs deeper into potential friendship and relationship dynamics. That's it for now, I guess!
