Sleep Is For the Weak

PG-18 for sex and nudity, according to the back of the book, but there was no sex and only partial nudity in Volume 1; official series website

Josei, not unlike seinen, is sometimes heralded by manga critics (either explicitly or implicitly) as being automatically more valid and/or artistic than their counterparts for younger readers: shoujo and shounen, respectively. I think this is a whole lot of crap, and just like I think some of the finest literature on shelves is for young adults – hey, work for younger readers usually has to have a point, and it can’t rely on cheap sex, violence, or pretension to get readers – I don’t think comics featuring adult characters in adult situations that adult critics can relate to means the work is automatically better. That’s subjective and silly. End rant.

That said, it’s still nice to read a good josei or seinen, and it’s also nice that those genres present different situations and viewpoints from shoujo and shounen. And since there aren’t many josei/seinen title out in English, the search can be tough. Suppli is being raised up as a josei for those saddened by the imminent of conclusion of Tramps Like Us (at volume 14, I think?). That kind of talk, of course, made me have to read it to see if it’s as strong a work as the admittedly-often-infuriating Tramps Like Us.

I’m gonna say…Suppli is okay, but not brilliant, and I think the validity most people give it is based on two things: josei is, as mentioned, an underrepresented genre in the West, and the art is quite lovely for a genre often known for its minimalist art. The story itself is pretty typical josei fare about a 27-year-old woman trying to find herself at work and in love while her neuroses slowly eat away at her from the inside. To compare it directly to Tramps Like Us, the lead in Tramps Like Us is a strong but flawed woman whose internal struggles with the power plays that surround her (both real and imagined) make her do some batshit crazy stuff that’s fairly scandalous but more funny. The lead in Suppli (named Minami) isn’t as strong or as sympathetic a person – the story opens with her talking about how her relationship with her boyfriend of 7 years isn’t working, and yet she doesn’t have the guts, maybe, to either make it better or end it. When he breaks up with her, she tries to bond with the women at work, then realizes she never cultivated friendships because she was always rushing home to be with her boyfriend. While she’s idolizing these new women in her life for being better people than she is, she finds herself falling into rebound pseudo-relationships with two men from work. I don’t like Minami, and she highlights some nasty characteristics of limp-wristed, doesn’t-know-what-she-wants, can’t-stand-being-romantically-alone-because-she-needs-a-crutch people in media and real life (but without the pride and blaming her problems on others, which is nice).

However, I do quite like the way the story is told, because it consistently and rather cleverly tells the story from a believable female viewpoint. Many of Minami’s problems are very female, as in true female, not Hollywood female (“I like this guy, so I should force him to like me and it’ll be quirky and funny!” “I’m a bitch but guys will sympathize with me if I cry!”). The power plays women struggle with – wanting to move forward with a man but not wanting to come off as being too desperate or slutty – and the long thread of commentary that runs in women’s heads no matter what’s going on are both pretty standard in josei. But mangaka Mari Okazaki also draws her women beautiful, emotive, and – most specifically in Minami’s case – half-naked and in somewhat provocative positions, while her men look very simple and unexciting. I don’t think it’s homoerotic,* but, rather, I think the art, like the narrative and the focus of the manga, is just another extension of Minami’s viewpoint. The art shows that Minami is most aware of her own body, her own feelings of sex, and how she measures up to the women around her. There are many shots of Minami wandering around her house half-naked, up-close panels of her short skirt or tight pants in her office, and other such scenes that are nearly panty shots. But it’s clear that she’s insecure with how she dresses in her co-ed workplace (short skirts are specifically mentioned), so it’s easy to see that she’d constantly be thinking about how skanky her butt looks in that dress, and when Minami is half-naked on the floor, crying over her lost boyfriend, she looks and thus feels vulnerable and submissive, something women often relate to sex (whether they like that or not), and hey, she’s crying over the loss of a sexual relationship. I like that. Symbolic female nudity. This is one of the few manga I’ve read that carefully walks that line of showing only female bodies but not in an exploitative manner. It also shows the female side of what we see from male characters in media all the time – that your love interest is all about you. Validating you, supporting you, being there when you need some sex. The men are just symbols of how they’ll make Minami feel, shown by the fact that there’s more detail paid to the curve of her back while she’s curled up on the floor thinking about her boyfriend than there is to her boyfriend’s actual face. This manga is the answer to all the seinen and shounen and Hollywood movies (and hey, even shoujo) where the boy has goals and problems and the woman is there on the sidelines just for him to win over at the end. I’d rather read something about both men and women being shown as well-rounded people, personally, but I guess Suppli at least evens out the playing field a bit. An exclusive viewpoint isn’t inherently a bad thing, especially when it’s underrepresented.

So, in summary: this manga is very, very female. It’s about how a realistic, passive aggressive woman deals with her neuroses – sometimes assertively, but other times with yet more passive aggresive behavior. Although the men are one-dimensional characters and only exist for the women to seek, hate, bemoan, etc., that’s the point, since the story is supposed to have an exclusively female viewpoint. This means that plenty of people will like this, and plenty will hate it – both genders included.

Initial impression: See preceding paragraph. And this is a decent josei, but it doesn’t go far beyond the genre. (Lianne)

*=Although Mari Okazaki is also the mangaka of Sweat and Honey, which is about ladies wanting other ladies, so Suppli probably is supposed to be at least a little homoerotic. Like most comics for ladies these days (or comics for boys that ladies read).

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