Dogs 2

Shirow Miwa – Viz – 2009 – 4+ volumes (+1 for volume 0)

You know, I couldn’t believe it, but the entire time I was reading this, I was wishing it was Black Lagoon. Usually it’s the other way around.  I think that proves that I like Black Lagoon a lot more than I say I do.

I like Dogs quite a bit, but this volume wasn’t a terribly good one.  I love watching Badou and Heine act goofy and then tear through impossibly huge groups of enemies, and I liked the plot that was starting to develop around Heine’s alterations and other people like him, and I also liked the idea of having all the main characters going up against an army of genetically manipulated soldiers, four-against-an-army style.

This volume focused on developing Naoto, my least favorite character.  She follows Badou and Heine into an assignment, and most of the rest of the volume is the three of them in a big melee, mostly with Heine and the other characters probing Naoto for information about who she is, which of course she can’t provide since she has no memory.  Introducing Naoto to the other characters was a necessary evil since I assume that Naoto is going to join up with Badou and Heine, but it was still hard to sit through.

As much as I like the high-contrast, dynamic art in this series, sometimes it makes it hard to follow the action scenes, especially when they are as long and confusing as they were in this volume.  Most of the problems I had with reading the art were with Luki and Noki, who are wearing frilly, ostentatious costumes and fighting with gigantic, unlikely weapons like guns and swords as big as their arms.  It’s hard to tell what is dress and weapon when they fight.  Another big problem was the gigantic, retouched sound effects.  That’s something I normally don’t notice, but in this case, they might have been covering too much of the art.  I suspect the fights may have been a bit easier to read with streamlined effects, but then again, I haven’t seen the originals.

I have to admit, I’m not the biggest fan of Luki and Noki, either.  The series didn’t really need a pair of cutesy, goth-loli-type twins that can beat everyone to the ground, but then again, it’s the kind of silly thing that makes Dogs fun to read.

The volume didn’t lower my opinion of the series at all, I think it was just a slow spot in the story (or slow as far as Dogs goes, which still includes a gigantic, hilarious melee).  We did get to meet one of the other villains in what was admittedly the coolest reveal in the world, and said villain did power away in a gigantic train, so it wasn’t a total wash.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.