GetBackers 20
January 17, 2008
Umm. Here’s another shounen action series, this time aimed at an older audience. GetBackers is infinitely more tolerable than Elemental Gelade, mostly because there is plenty of action as well as… well, actual lechery (Ban does like to grab and squeeze). If it’s going to be in there, do it right. I don’t mind the fanservice as long as the stuff is up-front and the characters are willing to indulge themselves without regret.
I grabbed this volume to read on the train to work, thinking that it would be infinitely more safe to read than MPD Psycho, which is potentially horribly violent, or Garden Dreams, which may feature sex scenes (there was no sex; I didn’t realize it wasn’t a Juné title). Unfortunately, I forgot that Rando Ayamine draws HUGE breasts, and there was a rather long scene where the enemy tempts Ban Mido by surrounding him with large-breasted women. Actually, that was most of the volume. Ban Mido gratefully fell into the obvious trap, squeezing a breast in each hand all the while. It was not something I felt comfortable reading on the train, unfortunately.
It feels like things are still getting off the ground as far as the plot to this story arc goes. We learn a lot about the rivalry between the beast and bug clans, and things are set up as a rescue mission for Madoka. There is a lot of introduction for the bug clan (apparently we had already met two of them, I do remember the bee guy from the last story arc, but I do not remember the son of the spider lady), and a lot of time dedicated to the bug clan’s analysis of the main character’s fighting abilities. There’s still plenty of fighting amid all the exposition, though. Lady Poison gets into a scuffle, and Ban and Ginji each get into light fights of their own. Ginji almost turns lightening lord, and Ban is just plain cool.
I’m not generally fond of the plots to the stories in this series, and I’m not really looking forward to the fight between the two clans. As I mentioned some time ago, I would much prefer backstory for Ban, Ginji, or someone, instead of introducing a new cast of characters each time where some are destined to become allies eventually. While I feel MakubeX is an important enough character to warrant his brief appearances every so often, I just don’t think we need to keep involving the whip guy and the needle guy, and it seems like eliminating either Kazuki or Shido would make things a lot simpler. But alas.
The series does action well, though, which is about all I can ask of it. As a bonus, I also really love Ban, Ginji, and a lot of other characters as well even though most of them are pretty shallow. They’re just so cool.
January 17, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Have you seen the anime? They return a little to the Infinite Fortress at the end, but it feels very truncated and doesn’t make a lot of sense. I haven’t read past volume 15 of the manga, so I don’t know if they’ll eventually return there too, but it did seem we’d be getting at least a little more of Ginji’s story.
January 20, 2008 at 1:18 am
Yeah, I did see the anime a long time ago. I was a little put off by the end to the anime, mostly because they left a ton of stuff unresolved. My biggest pet peeve was the lack of explanation for the Voodoo Children. At 40 volumes, I sincerely hope that they fill in some of those blanks with the manga ^_^;
January 20, 2008 at 1:45 am
I don’t even /remember/ the Voodoo Children. :) But yeah, the end was really rushed.
January 20, 2008 at 10:53 pm
They were Lady Poison and her brother, as far as I remember. I just remember they kept alluding to it in the anime, and then it was never explained. I always assumed they’d do a sequel series. The manga has only mentioned it once or twice, but I think it’ll probably get explained eventually.
January 26, 2008 at 2:11 pm
The son of the Spider-lady appeared briefly in vol 11 as a chump encounter a bit before the whole ‘Venus’ arc. GBs is really a story where it asks you to go back occasionally, since it can be hard to tell if someone’s a random unimportant fight or will have major plot later on (Personally I like a big cast so I forgive it for the confusion).