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    M... Math Again? I Knew It!

    posted @ 11/18/2009 08:00:00 AM by evermore
    If you're the type of person who wants to look like one of the cool kids in school and hide your Calculus textbook deep inside an open Manga, you can now come out in the open about your love for Calculus and Manga.

    In much the same way that the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup combined chocolate and peanut butter, No Starch Press has brought out an English translation of Mangu de Wakura Bibun Sekibun, or The Manga Guide to Calculus.

    The story revolves around Noriko Hikima, a petite aspiring journalist who is starting her first job at a satellite office of the Asagake Times in the small town of Sanda-Cho. Imagine her surprised when she discovers just how small small-town newspapering can get. Instead of a hustling, bustling newsroom, like the one in the movie All the President's Men, the Sanda-Cho office is in a dinky prefab building.

    And, instead of the sound of typewriters and teletype machines clacking away in the background, she enters to the snores of Futoshi Masu, the deputy of Kakeru Seki, the editor of the little paper.

    You know, I've been a newspaper reporter and editor at publications big and small for many years, but Kakeru is unlike any newspaper editor I've ever known. All he wants to talk about are calculus functions. At one point, he asks Noriko, "Did you know a function is often expressed as y=f(x)?" The closest I ever got to a conversation like that in a real newspaper was when we would discuss the point spread of a pro football game.

    Don't get me wrong. I don't want to get off on the wrong foot by inferring that this isn't a good book about calculus. It just makes a lousy journalism primer. I can just imagine that the result would be about the same if it were a Manga about teaching math graduates how to write.

    Actually, the closest thing to a real journalist in the story is Futoshi, a fat, slovenly guy who sleeps on the couch and rises only to ask if his lunch delivery has arrived. That, and he keeps a bottle of liquor hidden away in the office. Now, that's a real newspaper guy.

    The story is interupted every few pages by some actual calculus instruction, describing the points made by Kakeru to Noriko in the previous few pages. It seems to make learning about calculus as enjoyable as humanly possible.

    Along the way, we learn why roller coasters are fast, why bubbles rise to the top of the beer glass, how greenhouse gases cause global warming -- all with the help of calculus!

    They don't seem to do much actual reporting, or writing, editing or page layout, for that matter. And where is the online website? Instead, there's a lot of dining at places like one described as "a posh Italian restaurant." I never could afford posh Italian restaurants on my newspaper salary.

    The trip to the Italian eatery becomes an adventure as Kakeru has an accident while trying to explain how to calculate the road curves he's trying to maneuver. They're unhurt, but still quite a distance away from the Italian restaurant, so Kakeru uses calculus to show why it would be more adventageous to eat at a Ramen shop instead -- it's closer (It doesn't really take calculus to figure that one out).

    The local stories they run in the paper are pretty ordinary -- just like a real small-town paper. But some of the headlines leave a little to be desired. You'd never see a headline like "The Reputation of Sanda-Cho Watermelons Improves in the Prefecture" in a real newspaper.

    At one point, Kakeru reduces fashion, drumming and dancing to mere trigonometric functions, which leads Noriku to complain about Futoshi's ambivalence toward the whole thing, saying, "Futoshi! Why does he get to eat Chow Mein while I have to learn about integrals?"

    Then Noriku does something called the "Calculus Dance Song," which looks suspiciously like the "Time Warp" -- it's just a jump to the left...

    As with most any Manga, Kakeru is hiding a secret that Noriko slowly becomes aware of. Whenever she becomes a little too inquisitive, he changes the subject -- usually by bringing up polynomials.

    Then, going through the paper's archives, Noriku discovers the secret. Kakeru had written an expose on the parent newspaper's biggest advertiser, Burnham Chemical Products, explaining why he was shipped off to a tiny satellite paper in the hinterlands.

    But when Kakeru's research is proven to be true, Burnham Chemical relents and Kakeru is reinstated at the main paper. The Sanda-Cho office is closed and both Futoshi and Noriku are reassigned to other papers in the chain.

    I'm not going to spoil the ending, but you've probably read much more Manga than me, so you can undoubtedly guess.

    As a Calculus textbook, it's very entertaining. But it'll never be confused for a journalism text. Never once do they mention writing in "inverted pyramid" style. Pyramid? I guess that would be geometry.

    Maybe that'll be the sequel.

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