Note: This event will take place on 9/29 at 10:00 AM UTC+8.

Speaker: Dr. Rachel Chan Suet Kay, Research Fellow at the Institute of Ethnic Studies, National University of Malaysia

Malaysian youth have reached an advanced stage of manga consumption and begun creating original works. For example, Malaysian manga artist, Kaoru was the first to earn acclaim among local manga consumers and paved the way for newcomers to the mangaka scene. While manga has been described as “culturally odorless” by Iwabuchi (1998), Gan (2011) notes that a significant aspect of Kaoru’s work is a narrative context that is devoid of a fixed locality; instead, it occupies an ambiguous and imaginative space, which enables the creation of a “place free from the ethnic tensions of everyday life.” I add to this discourse by observing that there is now a new wave of Malaysian-made manga that roots itself in locally recognizable depictions of standard ethnicity, gender, and social class dimensions. In doing so, I extend content analysis into a specific manga publication, called “Kepahitan Tersembunyi” by Leoz, published under Gempak Starz. I argue that this particular manga novel reaches beyond the suspended reality of Kaoru’s narrative world, into a recognizable Malaysian landscape. I highlight the way stylistic elements of manga are used to signify identifications of ethnicity, gender, and social class in a way that is recognizable to the Malaysian reader. This suggests that manga may be seen as a platform for the dramaturgy of “everyday-defined” realities (Shamsul Amri Baharuddin, 1996).

In addition, I propose that manga, especially if made available online, has the potential to ameliorate uncertainties in the social context of super-diversity, bridging not only issues of ethnicity, gender, and social class, but also temporal and spatial barriers, given the limited mobilities caused by the coronavirus-based pandemic.

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