Charisma Man

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Charisma Man is a fictional character in a comic strip of the same name.

[edit] Publication History

"Charisma Man" first appeared in the February 1998 issue of 'The Alien', a monthly magazine for expatriates in Japan. Larry Rodney created the strip and wrote the first eleven installments, which were illustrated by Glen Schroeder. In January 1998, after Rodney left Japan, Neil Garscadden assumed writing responsibilites while Wayne Wilson illustrated the strip. "Charisma Man" continued when "the Alien" changed its name to the more politically correct Japanzine, but has since been discontinued. It nevertheless remains a popular cultural icon within the expatriate - particularly English teaching - community in Japan. The strip has been discussed in mainstream English Language daily newspapers in Japan and a compendium of Charisma Man's exploits is available both in major Japanese bookshops and online.

[edit] Concept

"Charisma Man" manipulates the superhero genre to ridicule the often unjustified confidence of foreign English teachers in Japan. Although something of a loser in his home country (which in later strips is revealed to be Canada - the home of Charisma Man's creator), when around Japanese people the central character transforms from a skinny nerd into a muscle-bound hunk, attractive to Japanese women and admired by Japanese men. Like other super-heroes, however, Charisma Man has one major weakness: "Western Woman". Whenever in the presence of non-Japanese females his powers disappear and he becomes an unattractive skinny wimp once more.

"Charisma Man" is thus a statement on the relationships between Japanese and non-Japanese in Japan. According to Rodney:

"The Japanese seem to see Westerners through some kind of filter. An obvious example was all the geeks I saw out there walking around with beautiful Japanese girls on their arms. These guys were probably social misfits in their home countries, but in Japan the geek factor didn't seem to translate.
"The dichotomy between the perception of these guys in their home countries and in Japan was amazing to me. This made me think of Superman; on his home planet of Krypton, Superman was nobody special, and he certainly didn't have super powers. But when he arrived on earth -- well, you know the rest.
"He was somebody -- that was the whole premise of the first strip."
The Japan Times, 13 August 2003

Although "Charisma Man" does poke fun at the exotic food, weird English, popularity of cute icons such as "Hello Kitty" and many other aspects of life in Japan that foreign residents find strange, the strip mostly riducules the stereotypes formed by western men about the Japanese, despite Rodney's references to the "filter" through which Japanese view westerners. Charisma Man's girlfriends, colleagues and employers are depicted as constantly amazed by Charisma Man's "powers": his "ability" to speak Japanese (any reasonably fluent Japanese speaker would not think his command of Japanese is terribly impressive), his ability to drink copious amounts of alcohol and his amazing popularity. Japanese women appear as uniformly attractive, constantly complementary and, to Charisma Man, easily obtainable. Western women in Japan, meanwhile, are depicted as sour and, in work settings, coldly professional. From time to time the authors of the strip reveal that they are aware of the superficiality of such western stereotypes about Japan, by attributing minor Japanese characters the same "powers" as Charisma Man. In one strip, for example, Charisma Man's girlfriend is depicted as tall and incredibly attractive when no Western woman is present. After Charisma Man's mother arrives for a visit, however, she is depicted as short and somewhat plump. In later strips Japanese female characters are depicted as openly ridiculing the protagonist without his knowledge. The stories in the strip are thus mainly told from a western - not Japanese - perspective and mostly poke fun at common ideas westerners in Japan often hold about their own superiority vis-a-vis the Japanese.

[edit] Stylistic Changes in Later Strips

Under Garscadden, certain "Charisma Man" strips were injected with even more fantasy. Charisma Man was sometimes depicted in his own thoughts as an astronaut, a pilot, a doctor or a psychologist in order to ridicule an aspect of expatriate life in Japan. Usually the last panel of the strip would cut away to "reality", where the "geek" version of the character would be engaged in mudane activity (usually English teaching) that he had elevated in his own dreams to more noble pursuits. Unlike Rodney, Garscadden would often have Charisma Man appear in his "geek" incarnation alongside doting Japanese in the last panel of these strips.