New York New York (Manga)
| Manga | |
|---|---|
| title | New York New York |
| Original title | ニ ュ ー ヨ ー ク ・ ニ ュ ー ヨ ー ク |
| transcription | Nyū Yōku Nyū Yōku |
| country |
 Japan
|
| author | Marimo Ragawa |
| publishing company | Hakusensha |
| magazine | Hana to Yume |
| First publication | 1995-1998 |
| expenditure | 4th |
New York New York ( Japanese ニ ュ ー ヨ ー ク ・ ニ ュ ー ヨ ー ク , Nyū Yōku Nyū Yōku ) is a manga series by the Japanese illustrator Marimo Ragawa , which appeared in Japan from 1995 to 1998. The work has been translated into several languages and can be classified into the genres Shōnen-ai and Drama.
action
The 24-year-old Kain Walker was a police officer in New York City in the early 1990s , and he often went on patrol with his colleague Daniel Howard. After work, Kain often goes to gay bars and likes to go to one-night stands . Cain hides his homosexuality from his colleagues and family. One evening he meets 22-year-old Mel Frederics in the bar. He also accompanies Cain home and they both fall in love. A relationship develops between the two, which they always try to keep secret. Cain fears that those around him will reject him after coming out. His colleague Gosh Stoneman, who is also gay, keeps this to himself and neither of them talk about it at work. Mel, who works as a waitress in a café, has no family and until then had an unhappy life.
But when Mel meets a former lover, a significantly older professor who used to help him, the first conflicts arise. Cain cheats out of jealousy, but eventually apologizes. In order to be able to spend more time together, the two now move into a house in Nassau . Then Mel is involved in a robbery, raped, and almost dies. One of the perpetrators soon breaks into her home and threatens Mel again. It is Cain's colleague Daniel, who has long been unhappily in love with him and now wants to take revenge on Mel. When Cain and other police officers arrive, they can save Mel. But Daniel is shot in the process. Through the incident, Cain's boss also learns of his relationship, but shows understanding.
After all, Cain is determined to visit his parents and introduce Mel to them, even though both fear they will reject him. But before they can start the trip, Mel gets a new job in a nearby gay bar. This makes Cain jealous again and he cheats again. But this time with Josh, Mel's former lover, because of whom he almost killed himself, whom he runs into. From him, Cain later learns that Mel was raped by his stepfather and was a prostitute after he ran away from home. Only a professor who met helped him out of this situation. Mel is even more appalled that Cain has cheated again, but he finally forgives him.
The two drive together to see Cain's parents and are welcomed in a friendly manner. Cain's father can accept the relationship between the two - as a teacher, he has also had a number of times with students who were homosexual. But his very conservative wife is very dismissive of Mel. However, after they get to know each other better and Cain's mother learns more about Mel, she accepts him. Back in New York, Kain learns that Gosh Stoneman has AIDS and that he is getting worse and worse. He visits him in the hospital, where he also meets his wife and daughter. Although Gosh told his wife about his homosexuality, he still loves his family and they have lived together ever since. After Gosh dies, at his funeral, Cain meets a young man who was a lover of Gosh. Now after his death and after he probably got infected from him without them being able to have a relationship at all, he hates Gosh Stoneman.
Since they have lived together for so long, Cain and Mel decide to get married. They find a band she trusts and have a big party with the help of the bar where Mel works. But the day after the wedding, Mel disappeared. Cain goes looking for him, not going to work for weeks. Soon his mother will come to help him. When a severed arm with Mel's wedding ring is found, the police finally investigate. After FBI agent Luna Pittsburgh intervenes because she is suspected of being involved in a series of murders, and Kain gives hope that Mel is still alive, he too resumes work and is entrusted with working with agent Pittsburgh. She suspects the same perpetrator as in a series of murders in Wisconsin a few years earlier, in which blonde women and men were kidnapped and cruelly murdered - the men often only a month after they disappeared. She suspects Joey Klein, who was abused as a child and was prone to sadistic violence himself. He hated his stepmother and sister, but his only affection was his stepbrother. He eventually killed his father, but was acquitted and released after psychiatric treatment. But there is only circumstantial evidence, no evidence to support his perpetration, so Agent Pittsburgh has a hard time with the New York police.
In fact, Joey Klein keeps Mel trapped in a cabin in the mountains, treating him as a substitute for his stepbrother, who had refrained from him because of his possessive behavior. Soon Joey kidnaps another woman, abusing and murdering her not long afterwards. After the body is found, FBI investigators and Kain Joey track down. Two agents go to the hut, but Joey kills them there. He sets off into the forest with Mel to flee, but is watched over by Agent Pittsburgh and Kain. Luna Pittsburgh turns out to be Joey's stepsister and shoots him in battle. Mel and Kain barely survive the encounter. In the time after his abduction, Mel can initially only slowly recover from the trauma that stirs up bad memories and fears from his past. Additionally, the couple are harassed by journalists and now that his homosexuality has become widely known, Cain has to endure even more hostility at work. Eventually they escape it all to Cain's parents and live in Boston from then on.
After a few years, Cain and Mel decide to adopt an orphan. Five-year-old Erika is happily growing up with her two fathers. But later in school she too is confronted with prejudices about her parents, but can always react to them with confidence. When she grew up, Mel died of kidney cancer at the age of 52. Cain lived a long time to finally see his great-grandchildren. One day the journalist Erika married asks Cain to tell him the story of their love so that he can write a book.
Creation and publication
The series, for the development of which the author Marimo Ragawa herself traveled to New York, first appeared from issue 19/1995 to 14/1998 in the magazine Hana to Yume of the publishing house Hakusensha . This brought out the chapters in the form of four edited volumes. The short story Von mir für dich also appeared in the fourth volume . A German translation was published in full by Panini in 2002 . The same publisher brought out the series in France in the same year and in Italian in 1999.
In the spring of 1999 a radio play on CD for the manga was released in Japan.
reception
Paul Gravett calls the manga in his book Manga - Sixty Years of Japanese Comics a "moving, 700-page melodrama" . The author "works out the strength of their [the protagonists] mutual affection by confronting their heroes with challenges such as coming out, sexual addiction and the difficulties of living openly as a gay couple." Sometimes the story also turns into a thriller. The German magazine Funime describes New York New York as one of the most moving Shounen Ai manga there is to read . The characters are thought out, the reader empathizes with them, and the story is profound. The “unique”, slightly realistic style with soft lines, “which can make you rave from time to time” , is also praised . And "some male readers have already enjoyed the challenging story ".
In his analysis of stereotypical male roles in manga for girls, Mark McLelland New York names New York as an example of a classic distribution of roles. Mel takes on the part that is occupied by women in heterosexual love stories: weak, subordinate, emotional and repeatedly the victim of crimes from which he is saved by his lover. He is also designed as a figure of identification for many of the female readers.
Individual evidence
- ↑ New York New York Vol. 2, German edition at Planet Manga , author's comments.
- ↑ New York New York Vol. 4, German edition at Planet Manga , author's comments.
- ^ Paul Gravett: Manga - Sixty Years of Japanese Comics. Egmont Manga and Anime, 2004. p. 91.
- ↑ Funime 41 (1/2005), p. 21.
- ↑ Mark McLelland: The "Beautiful Boy" in Japanese Girls' Manga . In: Toni Johnson-Woods (Ed.): Manga - An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspectives . Continuum Publishing, New York 2010, ISBN 978-0-8264-2938-4 , pp. 86f.
Web links
- Entry at Anime News Network (English)