Black Sun, Silver Moon 2
September 24, 2007
Hm. I think I still really like this series. This volume had about zero action, and was mostly exposition. I did not like the new characters that were introduced. I liked the backstory that was discussed at length (and apparently will go into greater detail next volume), and the little story about the split between the two main characters was to die for… but I don’t know. It still needs to do something awesome to put it over the edge and make it good.
The two new characters… yeah. I think I was soured on the second one, who’s really not that bad, because the first was just irritating. So, it’s a boy. A boy who is drawn with breasts, eyelashes, and a skirt(ish thing) where no other boy in the series is. He gets mad at first for being called a girl, but later we get a really confusing cleavage shot. I don’t know. An identity crisis, at any rate, which may come up later. At the moment, his alignment seems to be of the m/m variety, as he’s got a big crush on the demon priest. He’s irritating because he’s one of those headstrong, loud characters that shows up because he’s got a job to do, is talked out of this job, then sticks around and has stupid fights that are supposed to be funny but aren’t… and said fights happen every few pages when he’s around. OH MY GOD I HATE HIM SO MUCH. Something truly awesome has to occur in order for the series to cancel out the huge amounts of negative energy he’s brought with him. Him being eaten by a fully demonized priest is about what it would take for me.
The other character isn’t actually that bad, but just doesn’t have a place yet. He’s a big creepy undead who has a regular human form and sticks around to menace the priest and harass the assistant.
The best thing about the volume was definitely when the priest sent the assistant home and they had a big weepy man-cry at the end of the chapter. Very nice, but not quite enough to make up for the annoying character.
September 26, 2007 at 6:17 pm
The problem that I had with it was that it didn’t really earn all of the pathos it tried to dish out. I thought that maybe they could dispatch an undead person or two along the way, but it was all kind of weepy teeth-gnashing, and it seemed too soon to get so mopey.
September 28, 2007 at 1:12 am
True. Now that you point that out, I can pretty well understand why those scenes were a little off the mark. I liked them, but they probably would’ve been better once more time had elapsed… or rather, when more stuff was shown to have happened between the two, instead of them just saying time had passed. Maybe it’s as a result of being a BL writer. You need to ratchet up the emotion quick in those things :p
June 17, 2008 at 5:48 am
I’m not so sure what Laz’s deal is, but my guess us he is really a girl who had a hard time being a girl in or trying too become a demon slayer so she faked being a boy too get in or perhaps was put down as a girl so cross dressed too get more respect. There was this one manga I read that had one character that the creator of the manga couldn’t decide what sex to put oh this character and in the end of the series the he/she character ended up marrying his/her best friend from collage who in fact was a girl but still never stated the gender of this character and if I remember correctly said something about still not giving a sex or perhaps was finally decided on it being a boy.
Anyways for those who want to know the manga is called
“Instant Teen” (just add nuts)just add nuts was smaller and kinda off too the side. The cover is set up like a cereal box. It’s weird.
June 19, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Really? I read Instant Teen so long ago that the only thing I remember are the covers, which are still my favorite for any series I’ve read. Which character was it that had the gender issues? I remember the two main characters and the two scientists, but I can’t recall if it was possibly one of the two scientists (the one who had the other transforming nuts seems like a good candidate) or someone else.