Graphic Violence in Graphic Novels

I was having an interesting conversation with my office mate last night on our way out of the office, one that continued all the way to my car a few blocks away. She had, over the weekend, gone to see Watchmen (for full disclosure I have not seen or read it yet. It's on the list so I don't want to hear any crap. I am a few years behind and I know it!). This is not her normal type of movie and she has very little experience with graphic novels or manga, though her son reads them. Her general view of the movie was that the violence was too much - that while certain things (she mentioned specifically splitting a head open with an axe) might have made for striking images on paper, they were disturbingly violent and graphic in a film, especially live action. Her secondary observation was that some films chose to show you everything, every bit of violence and gore (such as Watchmen, apparently) while others leave some measure of the violence up to the human imagination. I thought these were both good observations and deserved more consideration.

I've never been able to stomach much of what I call "realistic violence." Yet when violence is described in literature I do not have a problem with it, nor when I see it in manga and anime or practice it in video games. I know from personal experience that the medium can have a tremendous impact on the quantity and type of violence that a person can take. Where I often find myself tolerating violence in films as the price I pay to enjoy the larger story, I often find myself enjoying it in graphic novels. I believe this is tied to the level of realism and the decision of many Hollywood films to show as much violence and gore as possible. Though I usually find the level of violence in films to be unnecessary, there are times that it is used not just as part of the plot, but for dramatic or psychological tension. The first example that comes to mind is the "would you like to see a magic trick" moment from The Dark Knight. Sudden, violent and unexpected, the absence of blood and gore add to the unsettling aspect of the violence. Instead of opting to "show everything," this scene capitalizes on what is not shown. The moment passes so quickly that there is barely time to process what has happened before the scene moves on - for me, the surprise and shock at the unexpected violence remained for some time as the scene continued.

When taking a narrative from one form to another, as in graphic novel to feature film or manga to anime, there is a review process in which certain aspects may be altered. Sometimes this is a positive force - slight changes can make a positive impact on the visual representation. The clearest example to my mind of a bad example of this occurs early in Naruto. The devastating effect of Kakashi's signature attack (he literally punches a hole directly through an enemy's chest with his bare hand) is an incredibly powerful 2 page image in the manga, that is lead up to by a full page of blood splatter and reaction shots. It's a moment of breathtaking gore. In the anime, however, this was apparently deemed too violent, and instead, Kakashi is left with a palm to the chest of his victim who is covered in blood. Weak. The work up images of blood splatter that add artistic flair and tension to the moment in the manga are distracting in the anime, as they linger too long and draw out the moment (a common and repetitious problem). With both Naruto and Bleach many of the best and most striking manga images are ruined by slow pacing and repetition in the anime.

When this transition from paper to screen is done right, these types of images make for excellent anime. Reaction shots, closeups that focus on small elements, and large frames focusing on large scale devestation are some of the best visual tools for storytelling. For example, Death Note is able to make writing in a book or scheming or even a "casual" game of tennis full of tension and anticipation because the pacing and music are fantastic (and the art quality as well) and it frequently cuts back and forth between primary action shots and background action, or uses split screen to teriffic effect. Unfortunately, the anime versions of popular weekly serializations are lower in art quality, music quality, and tend to drag out terribly. Bookended with recap and preview each episode only contains perhaps 15 minutes of new content (of which, there is often other recycled content) and even the new content tends to progress at an agonizingly slow pace. Rather than presenting the material in the best fashion, it is stretched to take up as much time as possible, and when the anime (which by necessity uses several manga chapters per week) eventually gains enough ground on the manga that it enters into "filler" content that is created by the anime studios. This filler is generally terrible - because it is content that doesn't exist in the manga, it cannot contain any plot or character development. Perhaps it's this watered down format that makes the violence so easily tolerable - without dramatic tension it's not nearly as upsetting as a tightly wound thriller or action movie.

It was an interesting perspective to hear - I've been thoroughly desensitized to violence in black and white. I love violent mangas like Black Lagoon and Bleach and I tolerate the (non filler) anime, but violence in television and film greatly unsettles me. There is an artistic sense to some manga that is, though violent and a bit grotesque, beautiful.