Story Resonance

Finding and embracing your frequency

Story Resonance

Resonance is fascinating. I distinctly remember the first time I ever heard about it in some talk somewhere, by some guy, probably at some church thing… okay, so I don’t distinctly remember the details, I do remember the ‘aha!’ moment I experienced though, and how, suddenly, like getting a long-awaited diagnosis for a mysterious illness, a lot of things about my life suddenly made sense.

The word ‘resonance’ itself wasn’t new to me. Neither was the concept of something, like a piece of art or music, 'resonating’ with someone. What I hadn’t known though was that this wasn’t a term that just described an abstract idea, an intangible and enigmatic feeling that people experience, but that it is an actual real, physical phenomenon that occurs between tangible objects. You know, science.

To borrow a definition from the internet, resonance ‘occurs when an object or system is subjected to an external force or vibration that matches its natural frequency’.

The classic example is the effect of a tuning fork on piano strings. If you strike a C note on the tuning fork, it will resonate with the C string in the piano, causing it to vibrate without even being touched. Super cool.

Anyway, my point is that it wasn’t until I understood the physics behind the term that the idea of something ‘resonating’ with someone became more meaningful. And all that leads me on to a thought I had the other day, provoked by a conversation with

Josh Sippie

who writes

MangaCraft

. Josh had written a post about his top ten favourite manga characters and started a chat asking other manga nerds who their favourite characters were. I replied that two of my favourite characters (among many others) are from a manga called Bungo Stray Dogs and Josh, admitting he hadn’t been able to get into the series, asked me what I liked about it so much… which proved a harder question to answer than you’d think.

So, like a Bletchley Park codebreaker embarking on cracking the Enigma, I took up the challenge of trying to explain why I love BSD. Since I don’t usually get to talk much about any of my obsessions with the people in my life (because, as I’ve mentioned before, I really like these people and don’t want them to leave me) I’ve never really had to explain in detail what I like about a particular series to someone who also has an interest and (extensive) knowledge of the medium. And I quickly realised that the answer to Josh’s very valid question was a bit complicated.

First of all, so this next bit makes some sense—and bear with me here whilst I seemingly go off on a long tangent, I am coming back to the resonance idea—Bungo Stray Dogs is about 15-year-old Atsushi Nakajima, who finds himself in Yokohama after being kicked out of his orphanage, and ends up reluctantly joining the Armed Detective Agency. The agency is made up of individuals who have unique powers that they use to solve cases that are too dangerous or difficult for the usual government agencies to handle. This means that they often clash with the only other official supernatural organisation in Yokohama, the Port Mafia.

Aside from the supernatural powers of the cast and a bigger plot involving the search for a book that can alter reality, the unique aspect of the series is that every gifted character and their ability is named after a real life author and a work by that author, hence the adjective ‘Bungo’ in the title, since ‘bungo’ essentially translates to ‘literary’ in English, and is the term used to describe classical Japanese, which is a form of the Japanese language that is no longer spoken or used in modern writing. To give an example, one of the agency members called Osamu Dazai has a nullifying ability called No Longer Human, which is the title of that author’s most famous work. One of the American characters is called John Steinbeck and his ability is The Grapes of Wrath, and there’s a Russian villain called Fyodor Dostoevsky whose ability is called Crime and Punishment. It’s pretty fun being familiar with the western writers and their works and seeing how that’s been translated into the character’s power and sometimes even their personality. And since I wasn’t familiar with any Japanese authors before I came across Bungo Stray Dogs, I now have a whole list of Japanese literature I really want to read.

Anyway, I love BSD, but I can’t hand-on-heart confidently say it’s one of the best manga/anime out there. The premise is fun, but not that unique. Super-powered characters are old, old news. A series that arguably handles this trope better and in a much more detailed and unique way is My Hero Academia.

Agencies that deal with special, secret cases, outside the usual realms of the law? Plenty of those out there too.

A cast of eccentric characters, Mafia rivals, a powerful magical item that everyone in the world is trying to get their hands on, characters learning to control their powers, themes of good versus bad, right versus wrong and the grey area in between? All very standard tropes.

Is the art great? Yes, undoubtedly. Is it outstanding, or unusual, or particularly memorable? Can’t say that it is.

Is the characterisation decent? Definitely. All the characters have their own unique personalities, the style is pretty cool—a modern sort of twist on your classic 1900s—1940s style, where each character dresses according to the era and nationality of their real-life counterpart. And, in typical manga fashion, where the window cleaner that only appears for four panels to deliver an amusing one-liner gets an eight-page backstory and their own spin-off light-novel, all the characters are well-developed, three-dimensional individuals with their own motivations, quirks and personal issues. And yet, despite all of that, I only really care about four of them, and my absolute favourite, Chuuya Nakahara, rarely even appears in the main story arc—though he does get his backstory developed through two of the light novels.

The anime is done well, with some nice visuals here and there (the film, Dead Apple, has some very pretty moments), and the soundtrack across the seasons is great too: a mix of opera, jazz and rock that somehow works. Several of the main themes are by Lotus Juice and GRANRODEO, who have both provided music for other anime. GRANRODEO’s lead singer also voices Chuuya, and gives the character his distinctive rolling ‘r’s’. The English dub for the anime is great too, but then you’ve got to love any VA work that makes good use of Kaiji Tang¹.

But is the series as a whole turn-your-life-upside-down amazing?

Hmm… not really.

I really could go back and forth like this for every element of the series, but, at the end of the day, is it a masterpiece that I’d expect everyone to adore? No.

Did I fall hard for it anyway? Yes.

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Wake Up Call by Toku Iwasaki with Lotus Juice, from the Dead Apple film:

Okay, but why?

Well, that’s the question. And having pondered on it for longer than is perhaps sane, I could only reach one conclusion: I love Bungo Stray Dogs because something about it resonates with me. Even though it’s not a masterpiece, and it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, and it probably won’t even go down in history as one of the best 100 manga series ever created in its genre (which would be quite an achievement anyway considering the volume of similar manga out there)—it’s meaningful to me.

And that brings me back to resonance. Some things just resonate, for no apparent reason at all. There are books, paintings, places, music, animals and plants, countries and cultures, foods, seasons and landscapes that just resonate deep in your soul—like they are an old friend you’ve been missing, or a cure to a homesickness you didn’t realise you had until it was ignited by a particular sight, sound or smell.

To stick purely with stories though, or this is going to get really long and tedious, I remember reading The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time, and feeling not like I was reading words that existed externally on a page, put there by a complete stranger, but more like someone had reached into my own brain, pulled out the Mines of Moria, and slapped them down right on my lap, right before my eyes in all their terrible and dark glory.

And again, when I read Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake for the first time, it wasn’t like discovering somewhere new, but much more like: ‘I’ve been here before. This is familiar. I know this place.’

It was the same when I watched The Cat Returns and instantly fell in love with anime, when I watched figure-skating on T.V. for the first time as a child, when I heard Giorni dispari by Ludovico Einaudi² on the radio in the kitchen one evening, and when I stood in a local art gallery and cried in front of an ink drawing of a boy and a cockerel titled 007.

Do I now have a Mega-fan subscription to Crunchyroll? Yes, I do.

Do I often play the music from Yuri!!! on Ice³ and glide around the house pretending I’m an Olympian? You bet.

Did I sit and sob through the opening number at my first Einaudi concert? For sure… and got side-eyed hard by the guy sitting next to me.

And did I buy that painting that made me cry in the middle of an public art exhibition? Yep, I’m looking at it right now as it hangs on my living room wall.

So, what causes this resonance?

Perhaps it’s just a matter of right place and right time. Maybe you’re feeling a particular way, have a gaping hole that needs filling or something you’re trying to articulate and then, suddenly, here is something that touches that need, expresses that feeling, soothes that ache, provides some sort of comfort in that specific moment. And because the resonance is so powerful, it sticks with you for the rest of your life, even though, perhaps, if you’d come across that very thing on another day, you wouldn’t have had the same response. Maybe that’s why—and please don’t snitch on me to the rest of the writing community, or God-forbid, the British Children’s Literature Secret Police for this—I’ve never got into Harry Potter. I never read it as a child and it just doesn’t appeal as an adult, for entirely subjective reasons that I can’t (and would be too afraid to anyway) explain. And even though I recently watched the first film (mainly for Maggie Smith), I just don’t have any interest in watching the others or in picking up the books. It’s like that boat, if I was ever going to get on it, sailed long ago.

Or maybe these things that resonate so strongly are reflecting something of ourselves back to us: a hunger for adventure or escapism, a wish for empowerment, ideals and desires we can’t satisfy elsewhere, yearning for something more, pieces of our identity that we’ve repressed or hidden away.

I’m inclined to think it’s a bit of both, but mostly the latter. When I look at the stories I love, it always comes down to the characters and their dynamics. My favourite thing of all about Bungo Stray Dogs is the dynamic between Dazai and Chuuya, reluctant-partners-turned-enemies who have a I-hate-your-guts-but-I-trust-you-with-my-life type of relationship that is always entertaining and at times, especially in the light-novels, even quite moving. I love them individually too, of course, but they are at their best when you take them as a dysfunctional-but-we-always-get-the-job-done pair.

Dazai and Chuuya reuniting after four years, since Dazai switched sides.

When I read The Lord of the Rings, I was deeply invested in the fellowship of the nine, particularly the friendships between Sam and Frodo, Merry and Pippin, Legolas and Gimli. One of the books I re-read the most as a child was The Three Musketeers—I really, really wanted to be a musketeer and part of that kind of ride-or-die brotherhood. And as for Peake’s trilogy, the characters that inhabit Gormenghast really are something else and the most compelling part of the story. We’d need a whole series of posts to go there, but if you haven’t read it, then you are missing out on Steerpike, who is one of the most deliciously diabolical anti-heroes ever written. And, of course, my favourite character. Let’s not unpack that.

Did I struggle to form healthy friendships when I was a child? Yes, I did. Was I lonely for a long time? Yes, I was. Were fictional characters a substitute for real-life friends? Only my future therapist knows.

Am I lonely now? No. I have a handful of very deep and meaningful relationships that enrich my life in many, many wonderful ways.

Am I still obsessed with fictional characters and their relationships? Absolutely. Would I care about them as much if I’d had better friends when I was growing up? We’ll never know for sure, but somehow I don’t think so. I think there’s an innate part of me that loves relationships and finds the dynamics between people endlessly fascinating.

Last question then: do I write stories myself because I’m trying to create something that will resonate back to me? Am I trying to be my own tuning fork? I don’t know, but it’s certainly a possibility.

What’s the take-away?

There’s a reason why creativity and art in all its forms is so subjective; why there are always such huge differences of opinion on whether something is good or not. Of course there are always arguments to be made for what is great or terrible art, what is technically skilful, what is culturally meaningful, what is exemplary or capable of standing the test of time. These are valid measures to consider and worthwhile debates to engage in. And of course, if you are an artist, it is always a good thing to pursue the mastering of your craft, and it’s always nice to be critically acclaimed or praised for the quality of your work. But, at the end of the day, I don’t think all of that matters as much as some would like us to believe.

Creating art is a subjective process, and so, equally, is receiving it. What resonates with me, won’t necessarily resonate with you. The thing that strikes a chord in your heart, won’t always touch mine. The key thing is to find your frequency and embrace it: take time to figure it out, explore how you got there, and trust that whatever you produce as an artist will be the tuning fork to someone else’s piano string.

The chances are that your work will resonate somewhere with someone. They’ll fall in love with it for reasons that can’t be adequately explained by ticking the boxes of an ‘objective’ criteria. It will speak to them in ways you probably never expected and could never anticipate, and it doesn’t even have to be that deep and meaningful. Perhaps it will just make them smile. Perhaps it will help them to escape for a while to somewhere that feels like home. Perhaps it will inspire them to create their own work.

So, if there’s a piece of music or art you want to create, or a story you want to tell, then go ahead and create it, go ahead and tell it. Bring it to life. Strike that note. You never know who might be out there, on the same frequency.

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1. What’s your frequency? Is there a story, or a particular theme, or genre that resonates with you?

2. Is there something you’ve heard, or seen, or watched that spoke to you or in the moment felt like it was made just for you?

3. Anyone else read Peake’s work? He’s my favourite author, but I don’t know many people who have read him. This seems to be a pattern in my life! 😅

Tell me your favourite things of all time. I’d LOVE to hear about them.

PJ

1. Also the voice of Satoru Gojo in Jujutsu Kaisen, another of my favourite manga characters. And the voice over for the English dub of Physical 100.

2. Check it out here: Ludovico Einaudi’s Giorni dispari

3. Yuri!!! on Ice is another anime I recommend. You can tell this is an anime, by the way, because it has three completely unnecessary exclamation marks in the middle of the title. Japanese figure-skaters, Miu Suzaki and Ryuichi Kihara, skated to the theme from the anime in the pairs competition at PyeongChang 2018. I also recommend checking that out too.