Slightly Biased Manga

Speaking of last volumes, I totally forgot about the last volume of Dragon Head somehow. It was buried at the bottom of my pile, and while I was tossing aside Pastel and Boys Be and volumes of Bastard I didn’t want to read, I saw that one and remembered.

My roommate disagrees with my conclusion, but I still think my prediction as to the disaster from the beginning of the series was correct. I don’t think I included this in old posts, which is just as well, because I’m not going to spoil it now. But I found it to be interesting, it’s not something that people explore in stories very often, and it can be interesting if done right.

More than what happens, what things come down to is the nature of fear and how it drives people. At the end of the world, the biggest thing that humans fight is their own fear, which is a basic instinct that gets summoned when things go bad, basically. The bald guy from last volume goes on for a bit with the rescue squad who may or may not need rescuing themselves. I was a little confused as to how he and the fearless people fit in, other than he may have been either prepared or may have been behind what happened, at least partially, and his reaction was just something that happens at the end of the world, I suppose. You’ll have that.

The name of the series is explained as the last order of business. It was interesting.

There are about three pages of solid text, like a novel except with larger print. I’ve never seen this technique used in a manga before, but it fit quite nicely, since it was used for the radio broadcast that sort of cut in during a few tense scenes going on in different places.

The last image was particularly good. After everyone speaks of the end of the world, it’s kind of a reminder that… maybe “the world” is a relative term, maybe? Or maybe I’m reading too much into it. I don’t normally, but I really liked this series.

A few things are left up in the air, and the ending was a little anticlimactic (while everything is mostly explained, there is surprisingly little action), I still liked the ending a lot. The series was great all the way through, but probably best right in the beginning. Nothing ever quite compared to Teru’s fear of Nobu, and the claustrophobic subway setting was where the series shined best and the fear point was driven home best. Lots of other messed up things happened after that, but nothing that terrified me more than that.

Thank you, Dragon Head, for providing two years of solid entertainment. I’m glad it finished right before the Tokyopop business took place, I would have been devastated if we missed the ending.