Super Dramatic Drama
August 3rd, 2008 by Lianne
It’s a little lame, but I only updated the Reviews and Mini Reviews archives and the Vampire Knight review a little bit (I really wanted to link to an amusing MMV in there).
Still, in other news, did you all hear about Youka Nitta? She’s the most recent mangaka to pretty much lose her career over tracing photos. She’s best known for her long BL series Haru wo Daiteita/Embracing Love, and is considered one of the top BL mangaka in Japan. In layman’s terms, this is all a big f’ing deal.
I think nailing mangaka for drawing a few panels off of other manga or photographs is sort of a witch hunt, although I will admit that tracing a large number of artistic photos is a more serious offense then, say, the whole Flower of Eden thing, which destroyed a mangaka’s career for doing what manga how-to books basically forgive aspiring mangaka for (you can copy an occasional panel off another manga if you modify it enough). Anyway, that’s a debate for another time.
The HILARIOUS thing about the Youka Nitta scandal is the reaction from 55DSL, the fashion brand whose unique and artistic ad was blatantly traced by Nitta and drew attention to her tracing in the first place. They pretty much voice my reaction to this kind of scandal: let’s put this all in perspective. If you’re copying ads, for shame, but seriously - you’re probably only spreading the popularity of what you copied. Isn’t that one of the justifications behind doujinshi, broader artistic interpretation notwithstanding? And if a photo isn’t exactly traced, then isn’t your drawing more of an homage? But I did an independent study as an undergrad on how copyright law should allow fanfiction, so maybe I’m biased.
…I can’t believe I just admitted to doing an independent study on fanfiction.
I don’t know…if I find out an artist has been tracing (as opposed to merely photoreferencing) I lose a lot of respect for them. Using someone else’s characters in your story (and acknowledging such) is one thing; flat out using someone else’s images (without attribution) is another.
OTOH, in Western comics, see the work of superhero comics artist Greg Land, who blatantly traces from hardcore pornography and still gets plenty of work…
Yeah, tracing is much worse than close referencing, which is why Nitta has a stronger case against her than some of the other “manga plagiarism” cases. Still, she’d trace PART of a photo, since she was usually tracing a photo of a man and a woman and modifying it so it was now of a man and a man. So…partial tracing?
I think it really comes down to who wants to prosecute and who doesn’t care. Because plenty of mangaka have copied and/or traced off of artistic, fashion photographs before, but the ones who get in trouble for it seem to be picked arbitrarily.
Plagiarism is one of those things that every artist does, but you’re still screwed if you’re caught. It’s more than okay to take ideas from other people, even blocking ideas for panels, but when you start tracing (i.e you can no longer saying that it’s an homage), that’s when the art world is going to turn on you.
The difference is in tracing versus referencing. I mean, there is never, ever a good reason for a professional to trace, and, in fact, even when referencing you should be thinking about how to change it to fit your needs, including the %20 difference there should always be between your work and the original image, not just taking off boobs or changing hair.
Tracing other art, however, is in my mind nothing that anyone, especially a professional, should get away with, unless they want to start paying the artist they’re tracing off of some serious royalties. Using someone else’s hard work for your own benefit is just really low, and anyone who is in the industry should definitely know better than to even try it.
The comparison with the 55DSL ad is pretty damning, what with the background, shadows, etc. being exactly the same. Of the parts not obviously traced (the couple, for instance), the influence is clear, but changed just enough to suit her purpose. I think Nitta realizes now that she should have stopped there. Plenty of artists have learned the difference between using a reference and using one too heavily. Tracing is pretty blatantly crossing that line.
Roy Lichtenstein is a big example of this kind of thing, except he mostly got away with it. He also didn’t trace, which helped a lot. People let him off the hook because his interpretations, however close, changed mediums, scale, and genres re: comics vs. “fine art.” I could also see these justifications being applied to Nitta’s work, however. Manga is not the same as a fashion ad, particularly when the specific brand’s clothing was changed. Photography is under the umbrella of art, but is fundamentally different than a drawing. If Nitta had not actually traced, and changed a little more, I could see her arguing more towards referencing and artistic license, and sadly, not losing her career.
I don’t think she had to resign from the manga industry. It’s such an interesting (and very specific) image she borrowed from I really can’t blame her– if she’d changed it more someone still would’ve seen the similarities to the photo.
Anyway, there’s a lot worse you can do and she did apologize. I wish she hadn’t taken these drastic measures.
“…I can’t believe I just admitted to doing an independent study on fanfiction.”
I’m writing my MA thesis on BL manga.
Nothing wrong with using fanfiction for course credit.
I had no idea this site was still up. Wow. And so much cool stuff.
I’ve had a photographer tell me that he would be very angry if someone traced his images in such a way, and for commercial purpose, to boot. After all ads are not snapshots, setup and arrangement are hard work and take up a lot of time, and the people involved do this for a living. I can see why not every photographer will be a-OK with his product being traced almost 1:1 by another commercial artist, and consider this kind of act “theft”.
I agree the Japanese publishers’ reactions to these cases can be quite melodramatic though. Japanese buisnessmen are deadly afraid of losing face I suppose. ^^;
While the photographer may be taking an “angry” stance, he probably wouldn’t want anyone to look too closely at his work. Did he credit the architects whose work featured in the background? Did he make a contract with the woman in the red dress whose splash of color made the perfect balance of color? Perhaps the arrangement of the photo itself was a group effort - with interns making suggestions or colleagues giving feedback, but only the “name” photographer getting credit (much as how professors exploit research assistants).
Perhaps the arrangement of elements also deliberately quoted something else famous. Would quoting a work in that’s in the Museum of Modern Art be different from quoting a work that was made famous as an advertisement? It seems to depend on one’s definition of art (both for the person doing the quoting and what is chosen to be quoted).
Everything about the way Youka Nitta was telling her story made it appropriate for her to embed her story in the fashion/advertising world. It’s not like she copied this stuff because she was just lazy. Most of the people doing the scolding now aren’t even familiar with what she was trying to do. Furthermore, Nitta’s case shouldn’t be compared with other notorious manga tracing cases because those were about tracing other manga (out of laziness and lack of creativity), not about quoting work from another medium.
The biggest mistake Nitta made was to apologize. The few people that pleased (who wanted to say “she knew she was wrong, but it was big of her to apologize) aren’t enough to balance out the damage this apology did to her career. She should have asked why the problem wasn’t taken to her publisher in the first place and perhaps offered this as an interesting case for art students to discuss. As it is there, not everyone agrees that what she did was wrong, and it seems to me that there’s just some parties trying to manipulate public opinion in order to extort some sort of lawsuit settlement and their GREEDY actions deprived fans of one of the best BL works.
Well, Seshet, by definition quoting someone else’s work involves somehow setting it off from the rest of the work, so there is no confusion between the author’s work and the other person’s. If you don’t set separate the two categories, it’s not quoting it’s plagiarism.
The bigger question if plagiarism is wrong. I have my own strong opinions on this (I’m a university TA and served on my university’s academic misconduct board, so I know where _I_ stand_), but reasonable people can disagree.
I’m a bit hazy on what you’re trying to say here Seshet, I’m getting that you don’t see anything wrong with what she did, but are you insinuating that she was doing it as more of an homage, deliberately making the image similar for an artistic purpose, or are you merely saying that since she copied a photograph it isn’t really copying?
I would have a hard time seeing the first one as being true since, and I may be wrong here, it doesn’t seem like a wildly popular or affluent image, nothing that the average person would look at and say “oh, obviously it’s a play on-”, and it’s not just referenced, but traced. As for the second one, I still hold that a photograph is art, just as much as a manga panel would be, and that tracing someone else’s work for your own profit is wrong. Whether or not that someone else is a photographer or the company that owns the copywrite of the image makes little difference to me, and a stand that “well, the photographer stole it too” doesn’t really factor into my views.
My point is partially about intent. Nitta was not copying to save time. She was embedding her characters in the fashion world, and that was appropriate for the work. In the photos she used, at the very least she usually had to change a woman into a man. That’s making a whole different comment.
The problem here is a lot of people commented on the accusations without looking at the whole context of her work. People who have read Nitta would see that she is one of the few people who makes an effort to be creative in her genre. Reproducing the fashion world where she could made her story better, and IMHO importing from another medium is a “quote”: plagiarism would have been tracing the page layout of another mangaka frame by frame.
Mangaka profit from the *sequential* art, not the layout of a single picture. Even if it’s the single picture that’s on sale, the buyers are people interested in the story told behind that picture. That’s why at best what Nitta did is a point of interesting academic conversation, but certainly not a simple case plagiarism as random commenters seem to assume it to be.
Anyway, I made a livejournal as a special place to discuss this issue if anyone is interested in commenting: http://manga-copyright.livejournal.com/