Hoshin Engi 10
Posted: February 15, 2009 Filed under: Hoshin Engi 1 Comment »Hooray! I got myself caught up with this series over the weekend, and somehow I was punished with a cliffhanger at the end of volume 11 that really, REALLY made me want to read volume 12. How is it that I’m not all that into the series when I’m a couple volumes behind (for, like, the last year), and when I catch myself up it’s gotta be in the middle of a story arc I like?
Anyway, the beginnings of the war are dealt with in the first half of this volume. Since Taikobo is some sort of genius, the army has no problem wiping out Dakki’s forces and the Zhou troops march on to the capital pretty much unopposed. They’re actually welcome in Yin most everywhere they pass, and Taikobo seems to have forseen the vast neglect and poverty of the citizens, so the army also has a steady supply line set up in its wake.
The only real opposition comes from the princes, Inchi and Inchon. The elder prince believes he should stand up for Yin no matter what, and he goes so far as to begin to kill humans with his paope when the Yin army loses. The younger brother wants to side with Taikobo, and things get rather ugly. I was actually kind of surprised by the outcome of this scene since some generally horrible things happen, along with a few no-nos for this series. It’s nice to see things get shaken up every once in awhile.
And, I’m sorry for the minor spoiler, but Taikobo’s arm?! What?! I didn’t know he lost his arm! I don’t think it would have caught me so much off guard if I hadn’t just been reading Berserk, one of only two other series I can think of where the main character has only one arm (the other being Trigun). Losing an arm doesn’t seem to bother Taikobo much, and it shouldn’t since judging by the other two one-arm men (who also weren’t that upset when their arms were severed), shounen heroes shouldn’t worry since there will be prosthetics available, no matter where or when their story takes place, and the prosthetic will be as good or better than the arm it is replacing.
Then the fight with Chokomai starts. This will be good and also long. I can only hope the fight that actually involves him won’t take up the entirety of volume 13. Or maybe I DO want that.
Pluto 2
Posted: February 14, 2009 Filed under: Pluto 11 Comments »A few more regular characters make it over from Astro Boy. Superintendent Tawashi, the eternal pessimist when it comes to robots, and Inspector Nakamura, his better half, make an appearance in the first pages of the volume. They discuss a redesign of the police cars, and our friend Professor Ochanomizu appears later to confirm our suspicions: the police will be using the puppy cars. I can stop reading Pluto now, because I’ve gotten what I wanted: Naoki Urasawa drawing puppy cars.
Just kidding. Sort of.
Putting that aside, that may be the only humorous thing that happens all volume. Things start off with a murder in the first chapter, and soon afterwards we see the battle between Brando and Pluto. We don’t see it so much as we see what Brando is seeing, and the reader and the other characters are left to make heads or tails out of it. It’s an interesting way of depicting the fight. Also notable: Brando abandons his human-looking body in favor of a robot fighter body that is probably more consistent with Tezuka’s original Brando design.
Before the Brando fight, Gesicht and Atom have a talk in a cafe. This scene is fantastic, if only because it points out the differences between what we’re seeing (a man and a little boy enjoying themselves in a cafe) and what’s actually happening (neither of them need to eat or drink, they’re just going through the motions to imitate humanity). They talk about a few other things as far as the gap between the most advanced robots and human emotions, and it is… well, just great. It’s difficult to remember, since Gesicht and Atom look so human, that they just aren’t, and I think we’re meant to speculate on what emotions they can and can’t process, and that perhaps both of them are more human than Gesicht realizes.
The contrast is illustrated further a bit later in the book. We get a bit of a history lesson and see a flashback between Brando, Mont Blanc, and Hercules, a robot we’re introduced to this volume. All of them fought in the war, all of them took out thousands and thousands of robot soldiers. None of them can understand exactly why, and all of them seem saddened by the senseless destruction.
At this point, Gesicht and Atom are key players. We don’t find out anything new on Pluto or the murders that Gesicht is investigating, or if the two are even related, but Gesicht and Atom got more character development in this volume than… well, pretty much any other two characters you can think of. There’s a lot of nuances to this series, and I’m really, really looking forward to seeing what kind of story unfolds.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service 8
Posted: February 14, 2009 Filed under: Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service 3 Comments »I actually wasn’t expecting this volume out so soon. I figured we’d need to wait a year between volumes now, but maybe we’re still a couple behind Japan. I certainly can’t complain about getting this series more frequently.
The first chapter alone reaffirms what it is I like about this series, mainly its sense of humor. There’s some really weird stuff going on as far as forensics and what kills people and how, but it’s the weird jokes and jabs it makes at its characters tha stand out the most. The first chapter isn’t that strong as far as its plot goes, but it’s almost like a re-introduction for the series. It opens with a campus club recruitment-type event. There’s one panel of Numata leaning against the recruitment table for the “Kurosagi CMM Club,” which stands for “cash money makin’.” The poster behind him on the wall goes on to elaborate on the qualities new recruits must have: like or have an interest in corpses, be able to speak to or see the dead, or have a special ability others do not. Obviously the entire area around their table is deserted. Despite their attempt to keep the recruits away (this is clearly a ruse so that they get the club funding from their school), a few people show up. Each of the regular characters then proceeds to upstage them in every way possible, from gristly details about embalming to insulting a gothic lolita type with a foul-mouthed puppet. After each ridiculous thing is said or done, there is a panel with their full name and job description, like a freeze frame in a movie. It is hilarious in context. Plus, I haven’t seen most of the character’s full names in awhile. Apparently Numata’s first name is Makoto. Also, Kereellis gets an intro too. His special talent is listed as “puppet (alien).”
The main story, as featured on the cover, is about marriages that take place after one or more people in the pair has died. It’s a pretty good story. It involves a rich wedding planner, some ghosts, a special shrine, a poor guy who gets caught up in things, some yakuza types, and Sasaki getting strangled by a ghost. More and more is implied between Karatsu and Sasaki. I don’t actually know if that’s going anywhere, or if either of the two is in on the implication. The fact that neither seem to be that into one another is just another feather in this series’ hat. This marriage story is also notable for having a suitably epic final scene.
The next story is also a couple chapters long and is about babies abortion, and midwives. I had a harder time with this story than the other two, mostly because it’s sort of unclear what’s happening until the very end, and even then, the explanation isn’t very satisfactory (or at least wasn’t for me). The fact that the spirits of unwanted babies who pass away enroute to the hospital through some sort of black hole are jumping into cadavers… well, you know, that’s sometimes all you need in a story, though, and it takes Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service to provide.
Also, since Castle of Cagliostro was compared to the final scene in the (copious) end notes, now I can’t ever read this series again without seeing Numata as Jigen. Great.
Bambi
Posted: February 13, 2009 Filed under: Bambi 1 Comment »Well, here’s one that flew under the radar. This is a one-shot Korean series published by Infinity Studios. I picked it up because it was based on an old fairy tale, and that’s all the justification I need for a one-shot like this.
I’m not familiar with the fairy tale it’s based on, “The Swan Prince.” Apparently seven brothers are transformed into swans, and when they’re transformed back, something goes wrong and the last brother’s arm stays as a wing, and they all live happily ever after. The author says it was always something that bothered her as a kid since she knew there was more of a story to go along with someone with a wing for an arm. Apparently in the extended version of the tale, his brothers go on to achieve enlightenment while he becomes a beloved king (which seems like kind of a bum deal to me, but I don’t know that much about enlightenment or being a king). The author disliked this too, so she decided to have her own go at the legend.
The story itself is pretty shallow. An amnesiac girl (the titular Bambi) wakes up and is cared for by a couple mountain spirits and Arkid, a boy with a wing for an arm. She decided to stay with them rather than find out about her past, but they are both quickly drawn into Arkid’s family’s plot to overthrow the king. The king apparently murdered Arkid’s father, an his sister and brother have been trying to get revenge for years. Bambi and Arkid both play big parts, and it all gets very tragic, then very happy at the end, because that’s how fairy tales work.
I don’t really have that much to say about it. There’s a few short encounters at the beginning of the volume that are nice (encounters with stray spirits, and also a bit of backstory for the two spirits that Bambi and Arkid live with), but they don’t really develop the characters, and other than their strong friendship and relationship, Bambi and Arkid don’t have that much to them. The plot itself is pretty simple and predictable, and you can pretty much see the twists and endings coming. It’s not necessarily a bad thing since… really, that’s how fairy tales work, and it’s good at being a retelling of a classic story. Just don’t expect anything more from it.
It’s definitely not for me, but it might actually be quite good for little girls. Other than some dark themes at the supposed murder of the father and the whole revenge plot (it’s got a 13+ rating, but I’m not sure why), the story is pretty squeaky clean, and I can imagine the right kinds of little girls getting a big kick out of it. It’s shallow but fun, and that’s what fairy tales are, right?
Kikaider Code 02 1
Posted: February 13, 2009 Filed under: Kikaider Code 02 11 Comments »I decided to go back and try this series after having read the last volume. I read few enough series about robots fighting one another that it would at least be a novelty. I’m not entirely clear on the origins of the Kikaider franchise, but from the essay in the front, it sounds like Shotaro Ishinomori originally devised the plot to be a tokusatsu show, so I’m not sure if there was an original manga, or if this is based off the show, or if the manga and show ran concurrently and this is based off a loose manga adaptation. In any case, it’s an extremely literal interpretation of the source material. I kind of think it was based on the show only because the plot develops faster than would be natural in a manga series, or the original manga was based on the show rather than the other way around, if this is a retelling of the manga.
Most of the volume is actually fighting between robots. There are some interesting ideas developed in the prologue which harken back to Astro Boy (which I see has more of a homage since Ishinomori was an assistant to Tezuka) and apparently take a lot of inspiration from Pinocchio, which I have not read. The prologue sets things up with the main character’s estranged father asking her to perfect his conscience circuit so that his ultimate creation will be good rather than a mix of good and berserk, like he is now. The robot happens to look like her older brother, who was murdered when she was younger and was named Tobio Ichiro. I think much will be made of the conscience and the dynamics of good and evil, but parallels are drawn between God creating man as life and man creating robots as lifelike as possible. Lots of parallels are drawn to Christianity, actually. Some of them are interesting, but a lot of them are pretty typical anime-type fluff.
After these plot preliminaries are explained away (and she picks up a younger sister, who is also clearly a robot), a bunch of huge robots attack, and the malfunctioning robot beats them all up. There are a lot of big robots, and the battles go on for quite some time. There’s also an antagonist that shows up that I assume will be spotlighted later.
It’s a good thing that Mitsuko is actually a robot scientist that can work on Jiro, the robot, but I’m not sure how much she will need to since the conscience circuit seems to work except when Jiro is in battle. Even his wounds are something he can fix himself since he regenerates with nanotechnology. Basically, I think Mitsuko is just going to play keep-away with Jiro and her sister from the bad guys with lots of epic robot fights in between. I’m game, though. It’s not very long, and, like I said, I don’t see robot fights that often, so I’m all about trying this out.
Where Has Love Gone?
Posted: February 13, 2009 Filed under: Where Has Love Gone? | Tags: BL Leave a comment »I reviewed this June title for Manga Recon, so you can click this link to read it there.
See what happens when I judge a book by its cover? I thought most June titles were light comedy/drama types of stories between high school boys. This one’s a comedy-free tale about an office couple, which is exactly what I’m looking for in this type of story. So, what else have I missed out on with all my assumptions?
Berserk 23
Posted: February 13, 2009 Filed under: Berserk 7 Comments »The beginning of this volume was the most satisfaction I’ve gotten out of this series in a while. I was vaguely dissatisfied with the Tower of Conviction section mostly because it went on slightly too long. It’s hard to be dissatisfied with anything in this series, since the Tower of Conviction plot was still better than most other action series, but I think I would prefer to read about Guts traveling, which is exactly what happens next.
The first half or two-thirds of this volume is simply Guts, Puck, and Casca traveling in order to get Casca to a safe place. Casca is still out of it, so the only companion Guts has is Puck, who does well in his role as a real character this volume rather than comic relief. Guts constantly deals with the pressure of having twice as many monsters to slay (having two sacrifices together increases monster appearances), plus having to watch over Casca. He does well at first other than not sleeping, but then the monsters prey on his doubts about his relationship with Casca in her new state, things get ugly, and he finds himself rather depressed. The best part about this section is that it humanizes Guts in a way the series hasn’t done in a long while. You see him going through the motions of daily life more than you see him fighting monsters, and the way he cares for Casca is quite touching. He’s not just a monster-slaying demon, he’s a guy who just has bad luck and also wants to slay a Cenobite. We also see him with his armor off for the first time in a long time. I forget he actually only has one arm.
There’s a big section that deals with the power Griffith is gathering around him, too, and looks at how he uses his invincible (and possibly undead) warriors in battle. He is worshipped as some sort of God by the citizens of Midland, and I have to say his new role is really creepy. Rather than being humanized like Guts is earlier in the volume, he’s portrayed as something other. He’s definitely not human anymore, and I don’t know that he does a single thing to indicate that he is.
Guts gets a little traveling party here. Again, I’m definitely not a fan of Farnese and Serpico, and I guess I’m waiting to see how they come in handy later. Farnese is especially useless, but I can see that’s sort of the point. I do like Isidro, though. He actually works pretty well as Puck’s buddy, even though I still don’t like the humor, and seeing Guts train him on how to use a sword is touching in its way, too. It’s always nice to see Guts interacting with other people.
If you’ve gotten this far down, how about a little story? I read about half this volume, then decided to go to bed. I walked from the living room to the bathroom to remove my contacts on my way to the bedroom. I set the book on the bathroom counter, where it promptly fell directly into the toilet. I stared at it a long time, because I did not believe this had actually happened. I then threw it in the freezer and forgot about it, because I heard this saves wet books sometimes. It does save them from getting moldy (the ice flakes off and keeps the damp out), but it did not save it from being ruined. I had to go out and buy another copy at retail price because I dropped my volume of Berserk in the fucking toilet. The wet copy is still in the freezer. I don’t really want to touch it again.
Basara 5
Posted: February 11, 2009 Filed under: Basara 7 Comments »Somehow, I forgot there was a perilous race to be won in this volume.
In addition to the race, which included things like beheading wires, soldiers picking off runners, alligators eating people, hot air balloons, and swordfights, there was also a LOT of Shuri and Sarasa. So much, in fact, that I was wondering how the two were going to be separated at the end of the volume since they seem very attached to one another after that whole race.
Human sacrifice comes up at one point, as does a series of sleight-of-hand tricks. There was a whole ceremony involved in the ruins of Tokyo. I couldn’t have been more pleased with everything that went on in this volume. Action, romance, death-defying feats, etc.
I saw the whole Blue King situation coming. I suspected the man in the mask or the man with short hair. Both wound up being someone, and I’m kind of glad for the confrontation between the Blue King and Red King at the end. I doubt anything will come of it, but still.
Captive Hearts 3
Posted: February 11, 2009 Filed under: Captive Hearts Leave a comment »Unfortunately, after having read volumes 2 and 3 together, I can say that I’m pretty sure this story isn’t going to be something I can enjoy.
At this point, the story is still messy and there’s not much of a central plot other than curing Megumi from the servant curse. While I still think the “manservant attacks” are pretty awesome, a lot of other things about the series are starting to wear thin. The two main characters need to constantly reaffirm their love for each other, which can get a little annoying. A rival for Megumi’s love is introduced in one chapter and promptly discarded. The thing about Suzuka being sold into child slavery from last volume is not mentioned in this volume, and it seemed like it was a pretty significant event in her past. The weird plot threads and stories are all over the place.
The characters are also still a little off and I can’t bring myself to like them. I do like Megumi all right, mostly because he’s so devoted and for the manservant fits, but Suzuka is fairly two-dimensional and does everything you would expect her to in any given situation with no personality whatsoever. I have to say, I’m also becoming a little uncomfortable with the whole master-servant relationship, because these people are being forced to serve Suzuka against their will, basically. Suzuka doesn’t take advantage of that, but the fact she’s supposedly “better” than Megumi, his father, and the maid character introduced in the last volume is implied off and on, and I’m never sure how I should stand on it. I don’t know.
I did like the flashback to the original pair that started the curse, the master and servant and why it was the dragon decided to curse the ancestor. In that story, it depicted the two as in love, but the girl could not marry the man because they were in different social classes, so the man decided to be her servant, and she thought this was okay and married someone else? This seems a little weird, but maybe I just need to consider the time period. Or something.
Yeah, this isn’t really happening for me. I may finish it though, just to see how things wrap up. And I did buy the first volume just before I read this one, so maybe there is some context I’m missing that will help make the characters better or clarify their roles.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Oh My Goddess 10
Posted: February 10, 2009 Filed under: Oh My Goddess! Leave a comment »One more really quick review before I go to bed.
I was wondering when I would run across the karaoke duel between Mara and Urd. I love the beginning of this story a lot, but I can’t quite remember how it finishes. I seem to remember it being good all the way through. The karaoke battle is just such a silly thing, and it’s these friendly rivalries and challenges and the not-really-enemies stuff that make me like this series a lot, as lame as that sounds. One thing though: The original adaptation had Urd’s special weakness pegged as polkas, which is much funnier than Enka. I know Enka is being true to the original and all that… but I liked the other joke better.
The softball story at the beginning of the volume is pretty classic Oh My Goddess, too. Having a dream and not giving up on it and using everything in your power to try and get it and all that. It’s a nice story, and it’s hard to hate the laid-back feeling of baseball.
Also in this volume, the story about Keiichi and the little puppy the girls want to adopt is probably still one of my favorites. I think the only thing that could make this series cuter is a puppy, and I also thought that all of Keiichi’s points about the pros and cons of pet ownership are valid.
