One Thousand and One Nights 7
Posted: May 20, 2009 Filed under: One Thousand and One Nights | Tags: BL 1 Comment »Uh… huh. So the story that Sehara tells in this volume is one that takes place during the Iraq war. I was not expecting a “modern” story like that. It’s a clever critique given the fact that the current plot of the story is dealing with the Crusaders invading Baghdad. There’s even a nice segue into the story. The English king doesn’t understand why it is that the citizens of Baghdad aren’t more pleased by the fact he has gotten rid of their tyrant king, and shortly after this question, Sehara tells his story.
I was pretty bummed that the next story was taking place in modern times (because, really, Sehara can tell stories set in the future?), but it was actually a really great story, and made me forget that it was supposed to be commentary. A soldier named Joseph winds up with a young boy who is running a suicide bombing mission to an oil field. Along the way, we learn the boy’s circumstances and how it was he came to do what he’s doing. The boy also tells a story-within-a-story about the Tower of Babel when a sandstorm unearths a ziggurat on the way to the oil field. The boy’s circumstances have nothing to do with religion, and actually, religion doesn’t come up as a driving force for anybody in this story. It worked out much different than I expected, and is in turn sad, uplifting, and horribly depressing. It’s got good and bad people on both sides. Notably, the little boy and his sister look like young versions of Shahryar and Sehara.
Now, the soldiers at the beginning of the story are using RPGs. Yen Press has footnoted this, but I actually ran across the term yesterday in Banana Fish and didn’t know what it meant (Rocket Propelled Grenades). The fact that I ran across this term I had never heard before twice in two days, both times in a girls’ comic, kind of blew my mind.
Aside from Sehara talking with the King of England and Shahryar realizing his mistake and turning back around for Baghdad, not much is going on in the main part of the story. It does leave off on a horrible cliffhanger with the possibility of Sehara being taken by the Crusaders, so I’ll be eagerly awaiting the next volume and the next story to be told. The fact that the storytelling is good enough to pull off a story about the Iraq War in the middle of a story about the Crusaders invading Baghdad says a lot about how good the stories really are in this series, and how much I like Sehara and Shahryar. I’m a bit sad we won’t get to see better times between the two of them any time soon, though.
This is a review copy provided by Yen Press.
Black Jack 4
Posted: May 20, 2009 Filed under: Black Jack 1 Comment »The tone of this volume is much more serious than the last one was. Where volume four seemed to revel in really outlandish, straight-from-left-field situations, most of these stories are comparably grounded and are a great deal more moralistic and emotional.
Not that the Black Jack stories aren’t always a little emotional. But it’s hard to feel a warm, fuzzy feeling inside when a family lands an experimental jet in Black Jack’s front lawn, the mother and son are surgically attached to share a set of lungs, and then the father gets blown up in the plane later. I mean, you’ve got other things to think about in a story like that.
The stories here are things like Black Jack helping a heroin addict recover and get his life back, Black Jack tricking a girl into not using her voice so she can properly recover from an operation, the touching love that even a mob boss has for his son, the difference between doing a surgery right and doing it for notoriety… uh, Rock getting his face eaten by rats… you know, regular Black Jack stuff.
About the only one that goes way over-the-top is the story that involves Pinoko taking a cyanide capsule. Black Jack has 30 minutes to find where it is in her body, including the length of her intestines, before it opens up and kills her. Amusingly, when he pulls it out, he sets it in a tray, where it immediately cracks open. I know that’s not exactly a “gag,” but I was waiting for that to happen as soon as I found out the operation had a time limit. Also, the last page is just Pinoko farting a lot, which doesn’t do much for my image of her, even if she is complaining about it.
My favorite was a story about a huge student who was under pressure from his father and various agents to join up with professional wrestling/sumo teams. He’s not a violent kid, and in fact prefers the company of his carp pond. Black Jack helps him out after he sees his carp breeding skills, and comes up with a couple legitimate and/or entirely fictitious ailments that take the kid out of the running for being a wrestler. I liked the kid a lot, the plot was a really interesting one, and I laughed at the twist ending.
As I’ve mentioned before, I take great delight in picking out Tezuka’s characters in these stories. There’s a lot that appear in this volume, but again, my favorites are always Hamegg and Lamp. Lamp appears twice, once as a rough-looking outlaw that needs an amputation, and again as… er, a policeman, which is weird only because he never plays a good guy. Even more incredibly, he’s going after Shunsaku Ban, a pickpocket in that story, and Ban never plays a bad guy (notably, he gets his fingers cut off, which I suppose is worlds better than MW, where he gets his testicles bitten off by a dog). Even better, the end of the story is all about the weird friendship the two of them have developed over the years, which works really well only because yeah, those two have done a lot of stuff together. Hamegg appears in his usual slimy, sleazy gangster role, but the fact that he always smiles is why I like him so much.
I like pretty much everything about these stories, though. Even in a volume like this, which was relatively normal and even quite touching, there’s still lots of crazy stuff going on like skin transplants, an operation on a boy who has his organs in backwards, operations on dogs… yeah, none of Black Jack’s surgeries are normal, really. It’s quirky, compelling, and enjoyable in a way that most episodic series like this are not. I feel like there’s no way I will ever get tired of it, and I’m so glad it’s coming out in English.
Banana Fish 17
Posted: May 20, 2009 Filed under: Banana Fish 1 Comment »Thankfully, the events last volume did not end with a loop like most of the other hostage situations have, where someone is captured and a bunch of other people go in after them, only to be captured and/or ambushed and captured later. Again, that’s probably the only problem with the series I have at this point, and… while yes, there are hostages, things didn’t exactly play out like they always have. In fact, things went down much differently than I expected.
Ash is kept as a prisoner by the mercenaries, and the leader treats him quite horribly. He eventually gets his revenge on other members of the squad and escapes. This part is quite brief, but pretty powerful. The abuse stuff hasn’t come up in a long time (or at least, hasn’t been done in awhile, he and Max were talking about it a volume or two ago), so seeing it happen while the man begs him to be one of his lieutenants is kind of surreal and disturbing.
Later, we get some dissension between all the gangs that have come together to help Ash. Ash has control of the situation, but Sing’s brother Lao doesn’t like being led by Ash, the murderer of Shorter, even after Sing admits that he can never be half the leader Ash is. Yut-Lung’s plan for the Chinatown gang is revealed, and we find out that part of Lao’s problem is that he doesn’t want to do the thing Yut-Lung asks of him. So Yut-Lung has two other people do it. Two other people that are stupid enough to believe that they can shoot Eiji right in front of Ash and not be totally slaughtered.
It happens, and the aftermath is totally intense and insane. Ash completely flies off the handle. Blanca realizes what Yut-Lung is up to, and amazingly shows up to intervene, but can only stop Ash from rampaging with a bullet wound to the abdomen. This was easily up there with Shorter’s death and Yut-Lung’s hostage scene in the museum as one of the best scenes in the series. There’s also a really great follow-up scene where Ash, all alone in a room, begs God to take his life instead of Eiji’s. Powerful stuff.
Yut-Lung tries to justify himself later by saying that he’s got just as many problems as Ash, and it’s not fair that Ash has Eiji to calm him down. This is kind of a poor motive, but I guess you just can’t have everything.
Next volume: saving Max Lobo & Co from the mental institution! Hopefully they won’t be dosed with Banana Fish in the meantime!
Full House 4
Posted: May 20, 2009 Filed under: Full House 5 Comments »I kind of like this series, but Elle is just so irritating, and she brings out the absolute worst in Ryder, that I have a hard time reading it. Literally, all the two of them do is fight, and most of the time it’s because Elle is being an absolutely rotten human being.
I thought she might have to play nice, or perhaps not get her way, when Ryder decides to remodel the house. She actually shows up to a swank gallery opening and embarrasses the hell out of him in order to get him to go RIGHT NOW and stop the construction. Thankfully he declines, but she sees absolutely nothing wrong with showing up and demanding her way in front of a bunch of people she doesn’t know.
Later, after Ryder agrees to discuss things with her, she sets up a Home Alone-like series of traps in the house and runs Ryder through all of them, in addition to breaking a bunch of expensive stuff in her bedroom, as “revenge” for the remodeling. Ryder agrees to her conditions (*sigh*) as long as she keeps her damn mouth shut. Because she doesn’t really want him to think he won, she does things like dump paint in his hair, ruin expensive clothes he just bought for her, and is just a horrible bitch in general.
She needs to be thrown out. Literally. Ryder needs to blow her off, remodel the house, and then throw her out into the street. She won’t compromise on anything. Ryder is all about breaking her pride, which sounds cruel, but after seeing the way she’s acted since page one, it must be done. She needs to not get her way once.
This was unfortunately the last volume published in English, and even more tragically, it ends on one of the worst cliffhangers I’ve ever seen. At this point, I’d keep reading out of a burning need to see Elle a broken human being, but the end brought up concerns about Ryder that will unfortunately never be addressed. Mysteriously, the series is 15-16 volumes long, and has a sequel, so I’m not sure how “permanent” the situation is at the end of the volume here, but it sounds pretty bad, and is a complication not often used. Maybe it turns into a Let Dai-like drama after this, which would be a true tragedy since that’s exactly what I’ve been looking for all this time.
Goong 5
Posted: May 19, 2009 Filed under: Goong 1 Comment »Wow. Things happen very, very fast in this volume. Yul’s Mother pretty much starts in right away knocking Chae-Kyung down a couple more pegs, and there are plenty of plans in place to get Shin in trouble in England. Seeing him squirm is quite fascinating, mostly because his thoughts are generally kept secret. He gets the gist of what’s going on pretty quickly, but there’s no real way for him to stop what’s happening, and you’re left wondering at just how angry/frustrated he really is over the whole situation. It’s a good effect.
Chae-Kyung really isn’t taking the bullying very well. She keeps getting sicker and sicker, and with Shin away and not answering her calls or e-mail, well… that leaves Yul. I’ve actually come to dislike Yul, because while he is the only person who treats Chae-Kyung like a human being, he seems to have no problems scheming and doing things behind people’s backs. But his feelings for Chae-Kyung are at least genuine, which makes me enjoy the scenes between them a little more. At least, when Shin’s not around, because I still don’t think it’s out of the question that he’s sometimes nice to Chae-Kyung to get a rise out of Shin.
There are a couple really amazing scenes that just sort of happen. It’s neat that the storyline sometimes breaks to do this, because its an interesting way to inform the reader without having to explicitly tell about certain situations. The first one was when Chae-Kyung, in full ceremonial dress, helped a small boy grab a snagged balloon out of a tree and put a finger to her lips to let him know not to tell. Other than her wistfulness about the boy being outside the palace wall, it wasn’t particularly deep or meaningful (or, at least, I don’t think it was), but it was a nice scene all the same. The other scene happens when Chae-Kyung’s parents see her on TV and comment on how she looks ill, but has been gaining more and more confidence in her public appearances and seems to be getting further and further away from her family. There’s a couple of sad nuances buried in this scene, but again, I liked the additional and random perspective from Chae-Kyung’s parents that we wouldn’t have otherwise seen, since the main story would never really had occasion to visit their home.
The relationship between Chae-Kyumg and Shin continues to be the biggest draw for me, though. On one hand, it’s almost infuriating to see the two of them together, because at this point it’s clear that Shin also has feelings for Chae-Kyung, and yet the two of them can’t help but say stupid things that hurt the other’s feelings. Chae-Kyung seems the most guilty of this, but after the way Shin treated her all this time, I can’t blame her for her caution. The interaction between the two is almost painful to read though, because there’s something extremely awkward and hostile in the air whenever the two of them are together, regardless of intentions. Of course, the two also have to deal with people constantly interrupting them and otherwise making their lives miserable, so it’s not all on them that they can’t get along.
Uhhh… did SoHee Park just pair Prince William and Eunuch Kong? Is that okay, to slash the Prince of England like that? It’s both terrifying and very amusing.
The volume also leaves off with one of the worst cliffhangers I’ve ever seen. I’m willing to expect anything from this series since horrible things seem to happen to the characters on a regular basis… but something tells me volume 6 won’t really go there. I’m sure there will still be top notch drama, though, and I really have to say that there’s no painfully awkward couple quite like Chae-Kyung and Shin, the Prince and Princess of Korea. I’m very, very, VERY much looking forward to how things will play out next time.
This was a review copy provided by Yen Press.
Banana Fish 16
Posted: May 19, 2009 Filed under: Banana Fish 3 Comments »Of all the crazy, insane things that have been going on since volume one of this series, for some reason I found the guerrilla war between youth street gangs and mercenaries from the Democratic Republic of the Congo was what it finally took to give me pause. I mean… they’re fighting using guerrilla tactics in what I assume is downtown New York City. Really?
I have no problem swallowing government conspiracies, communist suppression, mind control techniques, child prostitution rings, Russian assassins, and Ash Lynx in general, but apparently my brain rejects Belgian/French/African mercenaries storming New York. I have no idea why.
Not to say that the entire sequence isn’t really cool. It is. I got a big kick, once again, out of the back and forth between Ash and the man running the show. To see both characters guess and second guess each other, and see the small gains and losses each of them suffer in the prolonged conflict is really, really compelling. There’s not a lot of character dynamics in play here, but there are still one or two good moments. It really is quite touching how much Ash cares for Max Lobo.
While there was a lot of action and a lot of stuff going on in this volume (mostly lengthy explanations of the tactical maneuvers both parties were using), the last volume had a bit more tension. Don’t get me wrong though, I’d take a dozen volumes like this one. It doesn’t leave off in a good place, so I have a feeling the next volume might be another quiet one. About the only criticism I can level at it right now is that… well, how many times is Ash going to be captured and freed? I hope the climax plays out a little differently.
Chocolate Surprise
Posted: May 19, 2009 Filed under: Chocolate Surprise | Tags: BL 2 Comments »I reviewed this volume for this week’s Manga Minis column at the Manga Recon, so you can check it out over there.
Yeah… this one’s just porn. Short stories where chance encounters at school lead to dudes having sex. The naughty bits are all drawn in. You wouldn’t think that would make much of a difference, but it’s… it’s just hard to look at pages of testicles. I’m sorry, I’m just not that into them.
O-Parts Hunter 16
Posted: May 19, 2009 Filed under: O-Parts Hunter Leave a comment »Seishi Kishimoto – Viz – 2009 – 19 volumes total
Now, this was just confusing. I was fine with, and actually very entertained by, the scene where Jio is reunited with Ruby. I was a little confused by the person who was supposed to be “guarding” (?) Ruby, but the entire sequence where she gets her soul back is pretty awesome. Plus, I did get to see Satan, which is always good in a manga. Later, I also got to see… Sandalphon, I think? So there was a little demon action and a little angel action, which is about all it takes to entertain me.
The story kind of breaks down after this point, though. They find out that Miko (?) is elsewhere, and then the story starts jumping around between different groups of people. Not having read any of the earlier volumes, I had no idea who any of these people were, and I was confused initially because I was trying to figure out who these new people were supposed to be among Jio’s party members. There’s also some major exposition, and what seems to be a pretty serious battle gearing up, but all this flew over my head. There’s some business going on with the Kabbalah, but I couldn’t tell you what it was. Apparently things are… being made?
At one point, the main group is fishing. The fishing scene is kind of fun, but it’s capped off when the party is ambushed by a Turtle/Coelcanth/Angler, and is then eaten by a gigantic whale-looking thing. You couldn’t ask for something cooler in a shounen manga.
This is my second volume of this series (I started with 15), and I still think it’s pretty safe to say that there are better shounen action manga out there. But hey, one of my personal favorite plot devices is demons, and it does scratch that itch, so I can’t talk too badly about it.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Sand Chronicles 5
Posted: May 18, 2009 Filed under: Sand Chronicles 3 Comments »Now, I’m going to be hard on this volume, but only because I like this series so much. The characters are well-written and have all of their own individual problems, hopes, dreams, idiosyncrasies, and… well, absolutely everything else that makes a person a person. There are very few shoujo series that are driven by the subtleties of character relationships that this one is, and it’s all about the characters clashing on these minute points. It’s interesting to watch, and it hasn’t really let me down. I’m going to be a bit cranky here, but I’m cranky because I love it so much, and not because it’s doing anything wrong.
Having grown up in a small town, I watched the (figuratively) incestuous dating practices between people who had known each other their whole lives. They would routinely sweep in to hook up with their best friend’s partner when the relationship went south. These relationships rarely lasted more than a few months, and the feelings associated with them were quickly forgotten. At least until those two people decided to go out again. Because, really, you just didn’t have a whole lot of options.
I think a lot of why I like this series is because it’s easy for me to identify with the kids in Shimane. Fuji likes Ann, Ann likes Daigo, Daigo likes Ann, Fuji’s sister Shika likes Daigo, Daigo and Fuji are friends, and Ann and Shika are friends, and they all grew up together (or were together six years, in Ann’s case). This is a situation that’s easy for me to understand, because it totally happened all the time when I was growing up. It’s also unusual in manga, where normally people seem to drift apart between elementary/junior high/high school.
Now, there can always be drama, even when you’ve known someone long enough to remember the last time they wet their pants, but NOT THIS MUCH. It’s really hard for me to identify so well with the early volumes, and then get to this one to find that the characters have all maintained their positions in each other’s lives for six (or five, was it?) years of adolescence. Ann and Daigo are still going out, and Fuji still hasn’t made a move on Ann. Kids fight, break up, go out with their friends, break up again, and then go back out, all while staying friends with everybody. That’s just how that works. Even the people who wind up getting married do this. There just aren’t very many kids who are mature enough to maintain a relationship unbroken through junior high and high school, especially long distance. Certain scenes between Daigo and Ann made me realize the unlikeliness, and I just felt so let down.
The other thing that bothered me was how constantly dark things seem. The specter of Ann’s mother always seems to hang over everything, which is understandable, but I’m not sure why it has to. I can understand how she would get worried about Shika because of it, but I don’t understand what that had to do with her relationship to Daigo. Is it because Daigo helped her when her mother passed away? It’s going to be very depressing if she can’t bring herself to be happy because of her mother’s death. The depressing situation isn’t really helped out by the fact she loves Daigo and can’t bring herself to be happy with the relationship between the two. She initiated events herself this volume, and yet they both still love each other, and neither seems all that willing to let go of their feelings. It’s kind of hard to read.
But maybe next volume will be more positive.
Banana Fish 15
Posted: May 18, 2009 Filed under: Banana Fish 6 Comments »Wow. Again, I thought it couldn’t get any better than the chase through the sewers in the second half of last volume. I was totally wrong, and this series once again surpasses my highest expectations.
To give you an idea, the chase through the sewer is still going on, but that was actually the most boring part of this book. I have no idea how that works, but there you go.
So Ash is causing a diversion on the streets in order to draw attention away from everyone still caught in the sewer. I was pretty confident this would just get him busted by Yut-Lung really fast, but then he ran into the Museum of Natural History. And stayed in there. The totally creepy atmosphere as person after person got sent in and just mercilessly and silently slain by Ash in the dark was just… it was beyond words. Ash also had another plan going, which resulted in a hostage situation. An AMAZING hostage situation. I did not see that coming at all, and it’s unfortunate that it didn’t work more to his advantage. Of course, maybe it did. Maybe he planned that all along thinking that the guys in the sewer would get caught.
Literally, this series just gets more and more tense and action-packed in every volume. This description is somewhat weak and inadequate compared to what was going on in this book. I don’t know how to properly tell you how good it is. Just believe me. Most seinen action series can’t pull off these levels of unbelievable tension.
The end of the book was less interesting, though. A new character was introduced that appears to be a slightly more evil version of Blanca, but he seems slightly unnecessary since Blanca hasn’t really been around long and still hasn’t shown his true colors yet. But we’ll see what happens with him.
Also, it was totally bogus the way Yut-Lung bosses Blanca around and blamed him for almost failing his contract. Yut-Lung repeatedly went against Blanca’s advice both in the last volume and in this one. How can he then blame Blanca for what happened? Bah.
There are a couple scenes at the very end with Max and Ash. These two always manage to be hilarious as well as touching when they appear together, and this was no exception. I love the really strange father/son relationship the two seem to have worked out.
The cover of this book relates to the Museum of Natural History part, but it’s intrigued me ever since I first saw it a few years ago. I mean, what’s a dinosaur skeleton doing on the cover of a shoujo manga? I guess I missed the subtle clue that let me know just how awesome this volume really is.
