Inu-Yasha 6 (big ed.)
Posted: March 12, 2011 Filed under: Inu-Yasha Leave a comment »Rumiko Takahashi – Viz – 2011 – 56 volumes
this omnibus contains vols. 16-18
See what I mean about the omnibuses we’ve been treated to lately? I can’t get enough of these VizBig series. Inu-Yasha’s a great candidate, since now I don’t have to spend considerable time and money tracking down 56 volumes. Plus, I imagine reading Inu-Yasha a volume at a time feels less rewarding since it moves so fast, even the three volumes of content that I’m getting in the omnibus feels like it goes by just as fast as one.
What can I say? Takahashi is skilled at writing appealing action series. I’m still very drawn to the characters, and I think the battles with the monsters are interesting. Admittedly, I got a little bored of the “this monster is a part of Naraku and therefore invincible!” battles that happened a couple times in this volume, fearing that the rest of the series was going to be similar creatures. But after a couple of those monsters, the third “volume” in the omnibus went back to good old fashioned character drama between Kagome, Inu-Yasha, and Kikyo, which are my favorite parts. There’s something very human and appealing about Inu-Yasha’s inability to chose between Kikyo, the love of his life from the past, and Kagome, the woman he fell in love with after he thought Kikyo was dead. It’s subtle, and admittedly not a major part of the story, but when it does come up, and the drama lasts several chapters like it does here, those are my favorite parts. It also usually means a trip back to the present for Kagome, and that will never get old.
But yes. This volume is mostly battles. The first one is a fight between Naraku and Inu-Yasha, with Naraku’s two new demons helping him out. This is a carryover from last volume. You know how this goes. Everyone is near death, it looks like Inu-Yasha is dead… and then they overcome. Later, a mind-reading demon shows up to fight Inu-Yasha as Naraku minion #3. This fight was interesting, because it involved the power of the Tetsusaiga and its effect on Inu-Yasha, and we are shown a new aspect of Inu-Yasha that’s not just a power-up (though it is that, of course). Later, we go back to the Tetsusaiga’s swordsmith and there’s a battle with a couple familar faces that Inu-Yasha has to fight as a human (another one of my favorite parts of the series, since it so clearly bothers Inu-Yasha). Then we have a fight with Naraku minion #4 that gets Koga in on the action as he happens to be wandering by. At this point, using Tetsusaiga is a challenge, and that’s part of this fight, too. Then the Kikyo stuff comes after this.
It is formulaic… super formulaic. And there were some points that started to drag because of the formula in this volume. But there’s enough to like about characters that I forgave the formula in hopes that I would be rewarded with something I did like, and I frequently was. It’s fun to read, especially in a large format like this, and the volumes are a great value for a really good series. As long as it is, I’m glad I started reading it with these omnibuses.
Itazura na Kiss 3
Posted: March 12, 2011 Filed under: Itazura na Kiss 2 Comments »Kaoru Tada – Digital Manga Publishing – 2010 – 23 volumes
This is an omnibus collecting volumes 5-6.
As I was perusing my to read pile, it occurred to me how lucky English-language manga fans are now. These Itazura na Kiss volumes are such a good value, and it makes me happy to be reading this series, with admittedly low consumer appeal, two volumes at a time for a few dollars more than one volume of most other series. I’ve heard people say that the US manga industry is in quite a slump, but if omnibuses of series like Itazura na Kiss (old), Inu-Yasha and One Piece (long), Fushigi Yugi (out of print), or Gunslinger Girl (just plain value and speed) are the result; I sincerely look forward to what the other side of a slump looks like after this.
Anyway, this is such a sweet series that it’s hard not to look on the bright side after finishing a volume. Not everything is rosy just yet, though. Kotoko and Naoki still aren’t a couple, and quite honestly, Naoki’s rudeness is starting to wear me down. Even Kotoko almost gives up on him towards the end of the volume when it turns out he may be moving out of the family house and in with Kotoko’s romantic rival Matsumoto. That is some serious stuff, and it gets even the cheery Kotoko down. Not even four years of constant rejection get to her like that does.
I felt bad for Kotoko throughout the volume. Naoki shows his human side a few times (helping her out at a part-time job, saving her from a yakuza-like thug after she’d been following him on a date, taking her on a date of her own, et cetera), and he does seem to silently take Kotoko’s feelings into consideration much of the time, but man… he can be really mean. I think this is the start of a turnaround, because he admits somewhere in the first half of the book he’s going to accept the Kotoko challenge head-on, and he is looking out for her. But it wouldn’t kill him to be nice to her. After four years, unless he really doesn’t like her romantically at all, you’d think he’d agree to take her out at least a few times (in his defense, he does this, but it’s usually an accident). Unless he really does take pleasure in her longing, in which case he’s an even bigger creep than I thought initially.
If Kotoko makes me feel bad, I feel even worse for her potential suitor Kinnosuke. He’s a gag character, mostly just there to be loud and annoying about Kotoko, but at this point he’s been after her just as long as she’s been after Naoki. And at the end of the volume, he winds up almost freezing to death in a blizzard while looking for her (admittedly for very selfish reasons). This is passed off as a joke. Perhaps the theme of the relationships in this series is that the chase is more meaningful, in some way, than the catch. Which puts it in the same category as Happy Mania. Happy Mania and Itazura na Kiss are two series that should never come up at the same time, but there you go.
I’m still enjoying the one-shot chapter nature of the stories. Each “volume” has four stories, and the omnibus has eight. The whole plotline is usually resolved in one of these, with some circumstances carrying over into multiple stories. The second volume is all about Naoki moving away and Kotoko dealing with not having him in her life anymore and putting up with her horrible rival, but even there, there are stories about Naoki’s job, Kotoko getting sick and Naoki taking care of her, new student recruitment at the tennis club… things like that. It’s a fun format, and the stories are always super-sweet, which is why I spent so much time complaining about the dark stuff here. It just doesn’t go with the general upbeat nature of Kotoko and the stories.
Charming series like this are few and far between. Even though I complain, the characters in this series are easy to like, and it’s so much fun watching Naoki and Kotoko getting badgered by meddling parents, harassed by the anime club, or just to see the lengths poor Kotoko will go through to get a glimpse of Naoki. Actually, the latter is quite sad and depressing in this volume. But I’m hoping her luck will turn around soon, along with Naoki.
Sensual Phrase 4
Posted: March 9, 2011 Filed under: Sensual Phrase Leave a comment »Mayu Shinjo – Viz – 2004 – 18 volumes
To finish off tonight’s parade of bad/questionable taste, here’s a review of Sensual Phrase, a series that falls firmly into that genre of cheesy, skeevy, questionable shoujo. But much like Wounded Man, it is a fem salad of things that girls like to see. A hot guy who is strong, stands up for his girlfriend in any situation, shuts down potential suitors cold, and is 100% faithful. Also, lots and lots of sex (yikes, there’s a disturbing theme for the night).
It’s just as ridiculous as Wounded Man, too. This volume is less crazy than some of the other ones (like where Sakuya flies to America and comes back to Japan in a few months president of a rival music agency), but there’s still lots of drama drama drama. Most of the first half of the volume is about Sakuya and Ayako. Ayako is a former flame of Sakuya’s, and she has her sights set on him again. Aine’s in the way, of course, as is Sakuya’s complete devotion to her. Suicide attempts, smear campaigns in the press, outright power plays… none of it works against Sakuya. He always comes back to Aine. Eventually this gets boring, and the story moves on to a new problem, this time between Aine and another new boy idol named Tomoyuki. Tomoyuki begins moving in on Aine due to the fact she looks identical to his dead sister. Aine has no problems comforting him during what was obviously a recent and painful loss for him, but Sakuya is jealous, violent and protective. Of course things don’t go well. But… you know. You have to read it. It’s pretty twisted stuff, and Sakuya gets pretty violent and out-of-character reacting to things. But things aren’t so bad that I have to read the next volume to see if the two of them are going to be together. No. I’m going to pick up the next volume because I want to see what other crazy and taboo topics this series covers next, and to see just how uncomfortably erotic Sakuya’s songs can really get.
There’s an awesome essay in the back of this volume by Kelly Sue DeConnick, the person who did the English Adaptation for the series. Basically, she berates herself for loving the series as much as she does, because it is ridiculous trash. But it is addictive ridiculous trash, and she points out that if you’ve finished the volume and are reading the essay, that means you’ve read four volumes of this series and are reading the essay because you want more. And dammit, she’s right. I love Sensual Phrase to the core of my black little bad-comic-loving heart.
Under Grand Hotel 1
Posted: March 9, 2011 Filed under: Under Grand Hotel | Tags: BL 1 Comment »Mika Sadahiro – 801 Media – 2010 – 2 volumes
Since I’ve talked about a macho male fantasy world completely divorced from reality, how about continuing the abuse train tonight with this, a series full of sex and female fantasies in a realm completely divorced from reality?
While I knew that one of my most hated BL plot devices was going to come up here (the premise is that it’s a BL romance set in a prison, so duh), I wasn’t expecting the level of brutality that was on display in the first chapter. Sen is raped with a broom handle by a man who was pretending to protect him from a violent gang. From there, we meet Sword Fish (first name Sword, last name Fish), the violent and temperamental “boss” of the prison inmates who initially keeps Sen as his “bitch” because Sen doesn’t like it, then the two of them fall passionately in love.
I wouldn’t have picked this up save for the fact I read several reviews where people raved about it. I wouldn’t normally believe that a prison BL story could be anything but the characters getting raped over and over again. Except this is genuinely passionate. Sen learns to take the abuse that is dished out to him out of fear of violence or death, or worse, getting gang raped rather than raped by Sword Fish. And this is the one time Stockholm Syndrome will ever be believable, because with nothing better to do, after going through the motions of lovemaking again and again in order to spite each other, Sen and Sword Fish really do fall in love. And it is a violent, men-in-prison kind of love, with lots of jealousy, mistrust, people meddling on both sides, and bad stuff in general, like when Sword Fish keeps having people killed.
The prison setting isn’t realistic at all, but it doesn’t really have to be. I don’t think there are any prisons where someone like Sword Fish can have inmates killed again and again, or distribute drugs as freely and under the watchful eye of the warden. Also, I doubt there are very many prison wardens that put a mask on and rape people in solitary confinement. For some reason, these elements take me out of the story, perhaps because the setting is such a big part of what’s going on. It is the story. So it calls attention to itself when anything is slightly wrong.
I read both volumes at once. I’ll talk a little bit about the plot of the series with the next review, but here I’ll talk about Sen and Sword Fish. I do like the way both of them develop over the course of these two books. I also enjoyed the contrast between their lives in and out of prison. We see little outside the routine violence, but it’s fascinating when they reveal little bits of who they were before they were put away. Sen was raped by the husband of his lover, and Sword Fish has a wife and kid that he sees rarely. Both are also straight before they fall in love with each other, deciding that with their life sentences, what use was there to resist their feelings? As much as Sword Fish forced sex on Sen, he was most resistant to homosexual love, saying his abuse was a form of “payment” to keep the other guys off Sen, that it was over if he ever thought Sen was enjoying anything they did together, et cetera. And Sword Fish is the one that denies his feelings longer than Sen does. Sen accepts it, and though the transition to the two of them being a couple is full of drama and abuse and murder, there is no big emotional scene where there is a love confession with lots of denials and whatnot. Both just pick up on it themselves. Sen realizes his feelings before Sword Fish does, but he keeps quiet about it until he thinks Sword Fish is ready to hear it.
I’ll probably talk more about those two next time too, especially when I discuss the Warden and Norman, but for now, there’s a little bit of analysis for you. It is hard to read with all the intense violence and abuse, but there’s also quite a bit of addicting and genuine passion and romance written into the characters, and for that, it succeeds where too many other BL books fail. And what’s the point of the sex if the characters don’t love each other? I think it’s boring without plenty of convincing romance. Though… again, much of the romance in this series is cringe-inducing and makes me sick to my stomach. Seriously. This is probably one of the most graphic BL series published in English.
Wounded Man 1
Posted: March 9, 2011 Filed under: Wounded Man Leave a comment »Kazuo Koike / Ryoichi Ikegami – ComicsOne – 2001 – 9 volumes
I finished this up a couple days ago, and it’s funny that such an old, obscure, and terrible series is suddenly getting some coverage. Kate wrote it up over at the Manga Critic as a recent inductee in the Manga Hall of Shame. Yes, this really is that bad, but to be fair, it is far from the worst manga I’ve ever read. While its aims are reprehensible in some ways, it accomplishes what it sets out to do, and it isn’t boring. That’s really what drives a manga into no man’s land for me – if it has aspirations that it completely fails at, or it’s just so mediocre that it’s difficult to slog through. Or both. Wounded Man is delightful in its terrible raunchiness.
In some ways, I was disappointed. I was hoping that this would be far more insane than Offered, another Ichigami/Koike collaboration that was only two volumes to Wounded Man’s nine. Sadly, that is not the case, and I believe there will never be another story that is as insane as Offered, perfect just how it is at two volumes. Wounded Man comes close, though.
The story starts off with a look at the life of Yuko, the female main character. She’s an ace judo practitioner, a beautiful television news reporter, and a complete ice queen towards all the men that come onto her. The plot picks up when she’s assigned to a story in Brazil, covering a recent gold rush and finding a Japanese man said to be taking part in all the recent prospecting (?!). Once there, Yuko finds the man she is looking for, Rio Barakki, who promptly rapes her in an attempt to drive her out of Brazil. She is undeterred, and in a second attempt to contact Barakki, Yuko and her entire camera crew are kidnapped by shady miners who assault her. Barakki steps in and saves the day, and Yuko dismisses her camera crew and sets out on an annoying quest to follow Barakki everywhere and be as irritating as possible, simultaneously stimulating and denying him sexually, loving and hating him. Later, we find out that Barakki is up against an organization called “God’s Pornographic X-Rated Films”, or GPX. GPX is after Barakki after he declined an offer to be in one of their pornographic X-rated films opposite a famous tennis celebrity, even after GPX threw a football-shaped wad of money at him.
The thing about Kazuo Koike, the writer of this series… he has his good and bad days. In my mind, Wounded Man is pretty much a Koike writing style guide. Sure, Koike wrote Lone Wolf and Cub, but underneath all that respectability beats a heart full of true insanity, where an assassin baits his prey with his infant son, pulls off impossible missions, does all manner of manly things, and there’s not a woman in sight that doesn’t throw herself at him and/or is a potential rape victim. This is just how Koike writes. I’ve read enough of his stories to know that… his semi-fame from the late 90s-early 00s in the US was probably just a form of awe with his craziness and poor taste.
And what’s most amazing is that there is no irony or failure in his writing whatsoever. It really does set out to be a manly man fantasy trip in a world completely divorced from reality. As terrible and incoherent as Wounded Man is… it’s entertaining, because it takes everything very seriously and honestly doesn’t seem to be failing at anything it sets out to do, and is full of the most awful kind of macho topics that move from one to another with no connection whatsoever. The quick story shifts, the way that Yuko turns from strong female character into one of the most awful portrayals of a woman in any comic I’ve ever read, the nonsense about Barakki being chased by pornographers, the urine fetish… random things happen, like Barakki beating a ring of bad guys with a tree he uproots that also happens to have Yuko tied to it, or when he dives into a nest of piranhas and explains that he isn’t eaten because he swims really fast. It’s like Saint Seiya for men. Man salad, like I mentioned when I reviewed Lives a few days ago.
The volumes that ComicsOne published are omnibus-style volumes that are 400 pages long. In these 400 pages of volume one… an overarching plot has yet to emerge. We are introduced to GPX at the end of the volume, and we know that Barakki is “after them,” although exactly what this means or entails is anyone’s guess, as is the fact that a pornography organization apparently hired the shady miners to assault Yuko, a stranger, in order to torture Barakki. Actually, I’m not even sure that the miners are connected to GPX, but Barakki seems to think they are. Anything involving Yuko’s character is thrown out as soon as she’s raped. She becomes an annoying, contradictory, and constantly whining shadow to Barakki. I normally don’t pick up on misogyny, but this is about as blatant and offensive as it comes. And for most of the book, when they are not being tortured, Yuko and Barakki wander around naked and have sex A LOT.
It truly is awful stuff, but it’s also fascinating in its… drive. It honestly makes no attempt to connect unrelated events together, quickly moving from one scene to the next with little more than sex scenes. And what is there is just insane. An evil pornography organization? What were formidable self-defense moves in Japan are rendered useless in Brazil against surly miners? Yuko decides to go after Barakki undeterred after he rapes her, and then falls in love with him? The nudity for no reason? It does all this with a completely straight face and with what appears to be a great deal of intention.
I don’t even know. Less crazy than Offered, way more insane than all other non-Koike insane manga combined? Reading it is like watching a train wreck, unable to look away. I’m probably going to keep at it, because I want to see how much crazier and more offensive it gets from here. I mean, this is just the first volume, surely it must top itself several times over throughout the course of the series.
Bakuman 3
Posted: March 8, 2011 Filed under: Bakuman Leave a comment »Tsugumi Ohba / Takeshi Obata – Viz – 2011 – 12+ volumes
I like this series. I really do. I think it’s neat to see a bunch of characters who love manga sit around and talk about what makes a manga good. It’s something I do every day, after all, so it’s hard not to feel at least a little bit of affinity for it. Especially when all the criticism is so valid.
Hattori tells Mashiro and Akito what makes a popular battle manga, including a cute girl, a cause the readers can sympathize with, and sadness without making the reader feel like they are being manipulated. Later, Mashiro talks out some valid dynamic points about chapters ending with an unexpected cliche, not letting things get too monotonous, things like that. On one hand, I don’t really want to read about formulaic shounen battle manga, because I’ve read more than one person ever should. On the other hand, hearing them break down the genre for an entire volume is still really, really fascinating. They discuss things I hadn’t thought about, but still recognize as the stuff that boys’ dreams are made of and whatnot.
There’s a great scene where Nizuma draws the eyes of a handful of popular main Jump characters when he talks about the passion in Mashiro’s eyes. It’s something I hadn’t thought of before, but even the eyes of all those characters are distinctive enough that I recognized all of them.
On the other hand, the characters in Bakuman are still not all that interesting. I do like Akito, and I’m fond of all the crazy ideas he comes up with for his manga. I also think he’s the most normal person, which… when that’s one of the good points of a character, it’s kind of sad. I still can’t really wrap my head around Mashiro’s urgent dream of becoming a popular enough artist to have his series animated by the time he’s 19 because otherwise he can never see his sweetheart again since they will have failed to fulfill their dream. Also, it will be a failure if his sweetheart isn’t cast as the voice actress for the lead heroine in the anime. And they are all super-serious about this. I just… I can’t symathize with them. I’m sorry, I can’t. And they don’t really have much personality other than that. I like Mashiro for the way he spews manga statistics like it’s going out of style, but the way he sullenly rejects even the best ideas because they aren’t good enough to become popular and animated by the time he is 19… urgh. Azuki doesn’t have a lot of depth either, and her friend Miyoshi is… well, as Mashiro says, she’s more of what a boy thinks a girl should be like than a real girl.
And don’t get me started on Nizuma. He’s just a completely off-the-wall abnormal genius, who yells and rejects good advice and goes against instructions from professionals and doesn’t know what he’s doing… rude to a fault… I could keep going. I have no idea why anybody takes him seriously. But he probably needs to be there, yes, for Mashiro to learn from.
And that’s what it comes down to. This manga is almost a black comedy, a manga that critiques other manga while still being rather mediocre itself, other than the incredibly valuable advice it offers. I’m pretty sure the boring characters are intentional. I mean, they have to be. There’s no way that anybody could write a line where Mashiro calls for a stereotypical female character and rejects a female stereotype’s offer to write a realistic female character. There are so many meta levels there it blows my mind.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Kobato 3
Posted: March 8, 2011 Filed under: Kobato. Leave a comment »CLAMP – Yen Press – 2010 – 5+ volumes
Sigh. So I just read a manga about textbook shounen manga, and what they are made of. If such a thing existed for feelgood shoujo manga, this would be it. It’s formulaic to a fault. The characters are boring, I can’t get into the conflict here, and the mysteries offered just aren’t enticing enough yet to make me want to continue. And yet here I am, three volumes in, and I’ll probably keep reading because I like CLAMP that much. They wrote X, after all. Maybe they’ll finish up that series after they finish work on this.
Anyway. While nowhere near as rotten as the first volume, there’s still not a whole lot going on here. The loan sharks are still closing in on the daycare, that much hasn’t changed, and it doesn’t get resolved by the end of the volume. We only find out that they are very determined, and that the head loan shark has a vested interest in the company. We also find out what Fujimoto’s link to Sakaya is. All of this is really… gripping stuff.
More interesting are the hints dropped by Ioryogi about his true identity and that of all the other vicious little animals he hangs out with. The more they talk, the more I want to know, and the more certain I am that they are somehow connected to Wish, especially since they discuss Usyagi (or Ushagi here, I guess) at length in this volume. That, more than anything else, is what makes me want to keep reading. Well… also, the art is still really amazing. I can never fault CLAMP for that. But art can only take you so far in a continuing series.
But all the other talk about love and helping people with their sad feelings and their wounded hearts and whatnot is putting me to sleep otherwise. Ioryogi keeps it from getting too stagnant, but I’m really hoping this daycare plot resolves itself sooner rather than later so that we can move on to something else.
Hikaru no Go 22
Posted: March 6, 2011 Filed under: Hikaru no Go 1 Comment »Yumi Hotta / Takeshi Obata – Viz – 2011 – 23 volumes
Hmm… on one hand, I am still ridiculously addicted to this series. On the other hand, I can sorta recognize that it’s because of a lingering attachment to the characters. While the Hokuto Cup is still pretty exciting stuff, I can’t say I was all that fond of the fact that most of this volume’s conflict was based on a misunderstanding/mistranslation of trash talk about Shusaku. This comes up a lot, and if the Hokuto Cup wasn’t tense enough for you, Hikaru is suddenly playing for the privilege of first chair in the match against Korea, so that he can school the boy who riled him up over Shusaku. I wish that wasn’t so much a part of it, I miss the rivalry between Akira and Hikaru.
Speaking of, all signs pointed to Akira and Hikaru having a heart-to-heart about just what is up with Hikaru’s go, but for some reason, I wasn’t falling for it. As much as the story hints that Akira is ready to ask about it and Hikaru might be ready to talk… just how would that conversation take place? “I got help from the ghost that played for Shusaku?” No. Sai is a secret that Hikaru needs to keep with him. Not even Akira will ever know.
I don’t have that much to say on this volume, actually. Team Japan has their match against Team China in the Hokuto Cup. It’s somewhat abbreviated compared to other games, but still interesting stuff in the context of the story.
Next volume will be the last game against Korea, and the conclusion of the series. Will the Hokuto Cup outcome be all that exciting for me? Not really. I haven’t ever read the ending to this series, though, and while I know it cuts off suddenly, I am looking forward to at least a little wrap-up for things.
Black Butler 4
Posted: March 6, 2011 Filed under: Black Butler 1 Comment »Yana Toboso – Yen Press – 2011 – 10+ volumes
I’m still rather torn on this series. I love Ciel and Sebastian. They’re both pretty great, and Ciel gets to shine in all his gloomy glory in this volume. A cheery Indian prince comes and irritates him for the better part of the volume, and when things go wrong for the prince, Sebastian gets to rub his face in it, then Ciel tells him that giving up will never get you anywhere in life. Then we get to see most of how it was that Sebastian and Ciel met. Both of them are perfect bearers of bad news, and this volume only cemented that role for both of them. They were the perfect opposites of the cheery prince and his “butler,” a man with powers that rivaled Sebastian’s.
I also liked the mystery. Someone is hanging British Indian returnees upside-down as a kind of prank, and Ciel has to find out why. He winds up tangling with Prince Soma, who insists on “helping” Ciel, sure that the culprit of the pranks is the same man who kidnapped a beloved servant of his. The unwinds and more or less concludes by the end of the volume, and we have most of our answers. It’s not straightforward at all, and the showdown for next volume is so unusual that I was laughing at how straight-faced everyone was taking the news.
But this joke was one of the unintended ones, I think. Well, it was certainly intentional, but it wasn’t set up like a joke. Many, many other jokes make an appearance, though. I hate this series’ sense of humor, and it tries very hard to be funny. The jokes fall flat, since they are mostly gags and are completely out of place in such a dark series. The back-and-forth between Ciel and Sebastian is fairly light and enjoyable, and I love how the gloomy Earl Phantomhive reacts to most of the other characters. But the other characters in this volume, especially Prince Soma, just aren’t funny. Prince Soma spends the better part of an entire chapter simply annoying Ciel, and it’s just… too much. The Phantomhive staff are still hanging around, though. Prince Soma’s butler, Agni, gets the most interesting scene I’ve seen the three staff members in so far, where Agni brings out the most useful qualities in them all, but otherwise… they’re simply there to make silly jokes that are too tired to be funny.
I like this series a lot. I really do. I want to see how the bizarre finale to this prank situation will play out next volume. But reading it is just… so annoying. At least the staff members have fallen further and further into the background. That gives me hope that the sense of humor may be downplayed later. But Prince Soma does not.
Lives 1
Posted: March 4, 2011 Filed under: Lives Leave a comment »Masayuki Taguchi – Tokyopop – 2011 – 2 volumes
Aw, man. I just found out that this is only two volumes long. It had a really promising first volume, with a lot of interesting ideas, but… there’s no way it will resolve in an interesting way with just one more volume. Bummer. Hopefully I’m wrong.
So I read this after I finished the first volume of Wounded Man, and it occurred to me that both belong to a genre of comics I’m just going to call man salad. Man salad comics are… hm. You’d know if you read one. Violent, fanservicey, borderline or overtly misogynistic, and they almost never follow a coherent plot. Lives ran in a Champion magazine, and Champion’s editorial policies seem to cultivate man salad series like hothouse flowers. Don’t get me wrong, though. I love man salad. It is 100% entertaining, cover to cover.
I couldn’t put Lives down, and I’m not even sure why. Well, I know why. I wanted answers. I desperately needed to know what was going on. Meteor showers, horrible man/monster hybrids, a possible realm of the dead populated by only manmonsters, and big-breasted crying teenage girls. It doesn’t make any more sense than that. I don’t even know where to begin.
Actually, I do. It opens with an all-girl idol group concert, complete with the most skimpy costumes I’ve ever seen in a manga, and I’ve read plenty of manga porn. They all die, and the survivor is hunted down as a meal by her manager, who suddenly turns into a crocodile man. She is saved by what appears to be Devilman. Crocodile manager then slinks off into the woods, apparently devoid of human emotion.
Then it cuts to the story of two completely unrelated characters. All the characters are being transported into a thick jungle after presumably being killed in a meteor shower on Earth (and by presumably, I mean we see them hit by meteors and messily disintegrated). This jungle is populated by people in similar situations. Apparently everyone has the power to turn into a monster here. some turn into fish with the faces of men, begging for their lives. Others turn into t-rexes with human faces stretched over what appears to be a Predator mouth. Some are ox-men. Some are bee-men. One is Devilman.
There is some narrative there. The two unrelated characters, whose story is second, but the first that is told in its entirety, is an okay story. It’s full of hand-wringing, tears, and desperate optimism similar to the most moralistic parts of Battle Royale (Taguchi was the artist on that series). It, at least, makes sense, or as much sense as can be made in the insane context of this series.
No effort is made to explain things by the end of the volume. Our best lead is a naked angel that tells one of the characters to “follow their instincts” to save mankind.
I… don’t think most people will like this series. I thought it was rad. It makes no sense, but it is clearly having a ball while doing so, and full of, at the very least, interesting ideas. As I said, I can’t see that this will be resolved in only one more volume, and I’m sad. It deserves a longer run.
