Yotsuba & Charlie, Yotsuba & Calvin, Yotsuba & Bugs, Yotsuba & South Park, Yotsuba & Harry, Yotsuba & Parents.
I’m going to recycle a point I made in a previous column; I only bring up the fact that I posted this previously as I’m about to quote myself verbatim:
Let’s pull a western reference just for kicks: Peanuts. Schultz. As much a part of the Western Canon as anything else I might choose to cite. These ‘kids’ all talk like adults — not in a South Park way, that’s not what I’m saying…
Look, compare Peanuts to Calvin & Hobbes: Calvin is a kid, acts like a kid, thinks and reasons like a kid, daydreams and imagines things fantastically like a kid, and Waterson is a Genius. I simultaneously salute him for abandoning Calvin as a complete conceptual work that couldn’t go further, while lamenting that I can’t read daily new adventures in Calvin’s universe. Waterson drew kids.
— Schultz drew Schultz: good ol’ Charlie Brown is a stand-in, an everyman who comments on the human condition. Peanuts may have been as revolutionary and as on point as Calvin & Hobbes during it’s first decade too (that’s what makes the Fantagraphics collections such a joy and treasure) but Shultz didn’t stop. He should be admired for putting out daily strips over a lifetime, but a lifetime of reflection means it’s about much more than just the adventures of a gang of likeable kids.
but I’ve drifted off point. Charlie Brown is drawn like a kid, but is he?
Unless one counts wah-wah trombone voice-over as meaningful to any degree, they operate in their own sealed universe, talking and reacting like little adults — and when they do act like kids, they tend to be ridiculed by the other characters. (Linus, blanket, et. al.)
No one looks at Peanuts and says, “Hey, these kids are unrealistic!” Hell, can anyone tell me how old Charlie Brown and the gang are supposed to be? No age is ever given, to my recollection. It’s an amorphous age between 8 and what? 18, 16, 13? 80?.
Good Ol’ Charlie Schultz Brown could say and do things, even controversial things, no adult could get away with because the Peanuts gang was ‘just kids’. Peanuts, as a syndicated comic strip that ran in most newspapers for 50 years not only had to appeal to diverse audiences, it had to watch some of those audiences grow up, and perhaps grow out of reading comics – perhaps this is why Peanuts went from slightly-subversive commentary to an increasing focus on the dog (and marketing the dog: t-shirts, lunchboxes, school supplies, plush) until the whole just became a series of running gags punctuated by whatever the dog was doing, which also consisted of a series of running gags.
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Calvin & Hobbes had a much shorter time to impact readers, but if you were of age during it’s run (1985-95) you likely not only harbor fond memories of the strips, I do not doubt that Waterson has coloured your personal philosophy.
Quite a bit of the humor in Calvin & Hobbes is over the heads of the ‘intended’ audience; I remember Calvin’s Dad getting some of the best punchlines (particularly when he flat-out lies to Calvin) and Hobbes, if he is in fact not just a figment, seems much more worldly than his constant companion. (IF Hobbes is just a aspect of Calvin’s imagination, we have a much longer essay/analysis on our hands)
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Bugs Bunny et al., the whole cast of Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies are now (after decades of sanitizing and editing) considered beloved children’s characters and as innocent a thing to give to even the youngest child as any Disney DVD. I, and many others, remember a different Bugs Bunny, the one that cross-dresses, among other things. I remember Warner Bros. characters who drank and smoked, a Daffy Duck who drank gasoline and nitroglycerin before swallowing a lit match, a whole lot of guns and bombs, and even Nazis.
Cartoons were popular entertainment for most of the 20th Century, but it was only late in that century that animation became suitable ‘childrens fare’. [and the production values went into the toilet, too, but that’s a different rant]
Animation, from its earliest inception (1919) right up until Fantasia (1940) — or even Heavy Metal (1981) (and Canadian) was more than just “kids stuff” – it was an art form and a lot of the jokes were ‘adult’ (though perhaps not as adult as Heavy Metal) and while we wink-and-nod at a lot of it now (the black streotypes present in early Tom & Jerry, the fact that both Elmer and Yosemite Sam are always armed and more than willing to fire) we don’t think twice about ‘kids’ watching ‘cartoons’
You’ll note that Fantasia (Disney!) featured cartoon nudity (topless mythological figures) in a celebration of Bacchus (god of wine!) and yet no one seems to care! I doubt kids are watching Fantasia, however, not because parents censor the movie but because it features classical music and no one can be bothered to protest. Let alone has seen it. More’s the pity.
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South Park is the latest animated property that features kid characters, but most obviously is not for kids — much like Simpsons or Family Guy in fact. Kids really shouldn’t be watching any of these (no, not even Simpsons) and only the fact that it is animated, and comedic, gives anyone under 14 the ‘excuse’ they need.
Granted, these can all be really good, really funny shows. I know why the kids want to watch ‘em. The question is whether they should.
Here, perform a little experiment: the day after South Park airs, go to a 6th grade class, and ask the boys what they thought of the most recent episode.
Odds are very good nearly all will have seen it, and thought it was hillarious.
TV-MA means nothing. Parental Supervision? Heh, do you live in the same United States I do? So long as the kids are inside and not getting into trouble – let ‘em watch or play whatever. It’s just a cartoon. It’s just a video game. They seem to like it…
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As Many Other Columnists Have Noted Yotsuba&!, at least in the original, wasn’t necessarily a comic for kids. Peanuts wasn’t necessarily a comic for kids, Calvin & Hobbes has a lot of appeal to readers of all ages, but it wasn’t just a comic for kids, and Bugs & Co. most decidedly weren’t really for kids until a lot of time passed (and the archives were edited).
So let’s look at what Yotsuba&! is: a five-year-old girl discovers her world in a way that reflects both her own ignorance/innocence, with knowing winks to an adult audience, while also remaining appealing to fans of all ages.
Doesn’t seem that far off from Peanuts, which I’ll remind you ran 50 years in syndication in newspapers, or Calvin & Hobbes — or Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wiley Coyote, or numerous other ‘kids’ characters — or Grimm’s (un-disney-fied) fairy tales, or greek myth, or classics like Treasure Island, Huck Finn, Edgar Allen Poe: yes, there are editions of Poe, unedited, aimed at kids.
Kids are marvellously adaptable; they’ll read what they like, and if we present them with stories filled with magic, action, adventure, wonder, likeable & relateable characters, then they’ll read them, and love them. They’ll ignore bits that seem irrevelant (romance) (at least until they’re older) and can put up with quite a bit of scary so long as the young heroes in the story can overcome it, too.
Harry Potter isn’t really suitable for an 11 year old (at least not when we get to book seven) but that doesn’t stop young fans from reading every last page of every last book, and loving it.
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And so:
Yotsuba is a girl who has “adventures” in the world’s safest, least objectionable wilderness: suburban Japan.
So maybe Yotsuba wasn’t intended for a kid audience. Maybe it’s not the story of a 5-year old, but more about what it’s like to raise a 5-year old
The original audience and intention don’t preclude other ways to appreciate a work. And so much as Bugs Bunny and Bart Simpson lunch boxes now feature prominently in elementary school cafeterias, there is nothing about Yotsuba’s origins that necessarily should limit Yotsuba’s appeal.
