Detroit Metal City 8

Kiminori Wakasugi – Viz – 2011 – 10 volumes

So, the formula started wearing on me a little bit here. I was a little disappointed with this volume, but I think that’s because the “getting Negishi back” story from the last volume was so good that it spoiled me a little. Plus, there was no new storyline this volume, so these were all one-shot chapters that re-used some of the gimmicks and storylines we’ve already seen. But this volume still made me laugh harder than anything else I’ve read recently.

One thing I don’t think I’ve talked about is how well this series sometimes nails awkward situations. There’s a chapter that covers a Jagi solo tour that is pure gold. There are several pages that are entirely wordless, where the audience listens to Jagi in stunned silence as he commits a terrible metal gaffe. This is not commented on at the end of the chapter. I was in complete awe of this scene. It’s easy to get carried away in the profanity and lewdness that brings in a lot of cheap laughs for this series, but scenes like this make you realize that there is still quite a bit of genius at work here.

There are two two-part stories. The first is about Krauser in a match with professional wrestlers. This one is in the style of “Negishi can’t really do whatever-this-is, so he’s fooling the crowd into believing that his ‘hell powers’ make him spectacular at it”-type stories. If that is even a genre of story. But you know what I’m talking about. He can’t actually wrestle, so the crowd invents reasons for everything that he does, like him not tagging in because “Krauser doesn’t know the rules” and “can’t see,” or a scene where “Krauser breaks his own neck” in order to leave because he is so above wrestling. Even though we’ve seen this type of story before, the invented excuses for the wrestling situation are still pretty funny.

The second two-part story is about a set of replacement DMC band members trying to overthrow the real ones. It wasn’t very good, and anyone familiar with the series can tell how it ends based solely on that one-line summary. Other mediocre stories include a pair about Aikawa, where Negishi works himself up over something simple and winds up dressing as Krauser and taking his anger out on her. Actually, one of the Aikawa stories was about Negishi going so “green” that he stopped eating and moving. That one had a lousy ending, but was still pretty great. There was another story with a similar structure a little later where Negishi starts a promising career in Enka, or Japanese folk singing, complete with mentor.

There was a wonderful story about Negishi “killing himself” on stage in preparation for a vacation he was taking, and the fans believe he is really dead this time. For some reason, Nashimoto waits faithfully out in front of the venue for his “dearly departed” owner, the implication being that he doesn’t understand Krauser is “dead” and isn’t coming back. Fans try to break the news to him, policemen try to throw him out, the venue owners are increasingly creeped out, but the fact remains that Nashimoto is just… loyal.

Even with stories that re-tread familiar territory, there’s still a lot to like in this volume, and it is nice to have a break from the longer stories. I do hope we get to see another lengthy story next time though, hopefully a long one that leads up to the conclusion of the series. Will Negishi be unmasked in front of the DMC fans? Hmm.