Slightly Biased Manga

Man, I went NUTS over this series. I got this volume in the mail and read it right away, and it left me hungry for more. It’s hard for me to talk about how awesome this volume was because I’ve aready read 4 as well, which was better, but let me go get it off the shelf and remember.

The second case takes the cake here. The one set on the Silk Road was good only because Klaus does seem genuinely uninterested in what Eroica does and doesn’t steal when he’s going after something else. Plus there were plenty of Klaus jokes to be made when they talked about how laid back everything was there and Klaus was not having kisses, coffee, or things being done tomorrow. Quite the cantankerous old man, but funny all the same. One bad thing is that they briefly introduce a boy who seems captivated by and desired somewhat by Eroica, and since the series started out the way it did, it feels awkward and wrong to have the Earl going after anyone but the Major. All other affection seems misplaced, with the exception of the occasional love James gets.

The second case has NATO hiring Eroica to steal some information from the Vatican. Of course, Klaus gets the assignment, and of course Eroica is thrilled to find out. We just get lots of exposition here, and the story itself isn’t that interesting since it’s just about a KGB man going after Klaus, but the reason it’s awesome is the Eroica/Klaus scene at the end. It seems like we get just a little bit of fanservice at the end of every volume, enough to whet our appetites, then it’s over. Klaus always seems to somewhat lay off during these scenes, and it even makes me, a non-yaoi fangirl, squeal in delight, which is I think why I adore this series so much.

I do die a little bit inside everytime I read this, though. How a NATO spy and an Art Thief go globetrotting and meet up with each other everywhere is one of those things that’s in the back of my mind at the start of every chapter. I mean, really. But if that didn’t happen, then the Major and the Earl wouldn’t be able to meet and have wacky hijinks every time, would they?

Ah, yes, this is more like it. No more Caesar, just Dorian and Klaus. And James, but I like James a lot too. The fact he becomes a constant running joke by the end of this volume made me like the series a lot.

I also like the style of heist in this volume. It’s not so much Klaus persuing Dorian a la Zenigata in Lupin, like I thought… it’s more that they keep running into each other on assignments, which is something you have to suspend disbelief over, but is awesome all the same.

Klaus and Dorian stay pretty much true to character here. I wound up liking Klaus a lot more after this, too. He’s quite the cranky old bastard, but he has some sort of… spot, be it soft or otherwise, for Dorian, and it’s interesting to watch the dynamic when they meet face to face.

I hope the assignments keep topping each other, too. The second one in this volume was the best yet, with Klaus needing the Earl’s underwear and not offering up any explanation for it. I also liked the fact that all the world’s thieves and political leaders gathered in one place and nothing happened. Not so much because it’s realistic or not, but I just like that it happened.

I couldn’t get through the one-shot unrelated story in the back of the volume, though. I would’ve preferred more Eroica.

I’d been looking at this series very hard ever since CMX launched. On one hand, I’m all about older series, and I love Lupin III. On the other hand, I only have the first 3 volumes of Lupin and could easily just buy more of that instead of starting another series. But here we are.

I was about to give this up within one page. A gay art thief series does NOT start off laying out the wacky hijinx of three psychic kids. Perfect psychic kids, no less, with stupid names. I HATED those three kids, and I hated how they kept showing up throughout all the cases. Looks like they’re getting phased out towards the end though, because it’s only that whiny boy Caesar in the last story. On one hand, I kind of liked the relationship between Dorian and Caesar in the first story. The other two stories though? No.

Those kids and that progressively more stupid relationship probably would’ve landed this in the discard pile had Dorian himself not been a TOTAL QUEEN. Dorian is the biggest, most flamboyant homosexual in any manga I’ve ever read, and he’s absolutely hilarious as a result. Well, he might come in second to Mr. Number 2 Bon Clay, but Dorian is in a different class of character, to be fair. He doesn’t even flirt with intent that much, he just likes to tease. I love seeing him torment Klaus and James, and I love all the little jokes he makes every chance he gets. I also like Klaus a lot, because he’s got an equally sharp tongue. I realize that theirs is exactly the kind of relationship I wanted in every single gay manga I ever read. I don’t like the whiny, angsty little boys. Give me the sparkling men that take whatever they want, and their matchups who want no part of it, but instead of yelling and screaming, just put in a few well-placed verbal jabs.

But yes. I’m told the three kids are phased out. All the better, because there is room for little else in this manga besides Dorian and Klaus.