Slightly Biased Manga

So, to use the Divine Design cards against the kids… to beat them at their own game, they have to learn to use them themselves.  Enter the coolest volume of the series ever.

Maria puts Ginji, Ban, Hevn, and Himiko through all sorts of tests to try and get them to unleash the power of Divine Design.  They’ve got to stack eggs, walk through glass, over holes, through traffic, and do lots of other cool-looking things.  Ginji has a knack for it.  Ban, despite his witch’s blood, does not.

Ban’s problem is that he doesn’t want to believe in magic, or maybe dismisses it since his grandma beat him over the head with it constantly when he was younger.  At any rate,  he doesn’t believe, so he can’t do things like put his fist through glass or anything like that.

Maria and Ban have some brief recollections with one another that are cool, and really they just make me want to hear more about Ban’s backstory.  Apparently he’s the only person who carries the blood of a true witch in him, which is awesome.  I’m not sure how that works, since Lucifer and Maria Noches are also both witches, but maybe witches by training and not by blood?  I don’t know.

At any rate: awesome.  We’ll never have it like this again, I think.

So yes, the Divine Design arc is awesome.  Why is it awesome?  Because we get to learn about Ban’s past a bit, and it hasn’t yet drawn in about 10 new regular characters.  I also like the magic element.  While, for whatever reason I was totally put off this series at first by the supernatural powers, I find that I’m okay with the magic explanation for whatever reason.  And Divine Design is certainly magical.

The gang this time involves Kazuki, Ban, Ginji, Hevn, and Himiko.  A respectably small number, especially since it gets pared down gradually as things go on.  In this volume, they take on Divine Design, a group that seems to be using magic cards to control reality like Infinity Fortress, but outside Infinity Fortress, but the group mostly consists of kids.  It was the kid’s moms who hired the GetBackers to retrieve the kids, but unfortunately the kids are on power trips and don’t particularly want to leave.

Since they approach Divine Design as something that can be overtaken with physical strength, they get beaten pretty handily the first time through.  Ban holds his own, but barely escapes with his life.  He refuses to believe the cards are magical, but is saved when he’s about to die, perhaps by his witch blood.  See, it is cool.

Anyway, they dig up a witch named Maria Noches (the only new character so far, not counting Lucifer, the villian).  Maria has larger breasts than Hevn, but to be fair, she’s also 99 years old and doesn’t actually look like that.  The Divine Design training starts next volume.

Ugh, I hate this series so much.  I had to suffer through the last little bit of this Venus story arc, and then a hot springs episode, which is unforgivable.  But since I had a few volumes backlogged and read them all at once, I was able to see where the next story arc goes, and I like it.  A lot.  In fact, I like it better than all other parts of the series combined, times one thousand.

The end of the Venus arc still kind of sucked, and was kind of rushed through in one or two chapters… and had the cop-out ending you were expecting.  The one good thing we got was the Venus making dual peace signs with her arms, courtesy of the evil eye.

The hot springs episode was just stupid.  I’m not even going to dignify that one with any sort of response.

And while the beginning of the next story arc is cool, I can talk more about it in the next volume, where it really gets underway.

Yeah, this arc is definitely better. I’m loving the battles this time around. This volume focuses largely on Ginji vs. Miroku(s), Ban vs. Akabane, and Shido/whipguy vs. the two Chinese bodyguards. Most of the focus is on Ban and Ginji’s individual battles, and that’s pretty much all that happens here. As a result, the volume flies by. I was a little worried that the Miroku Bros were going to be introduced as recurring characters, and they still might be… the last thing this series needs is more characters. But what the hell, I could use a little enlightment as far as Ban’s background goes.

The plot unfortunately didn’t move forward, but if the battles say as cool as Ginji’s, I don’t mind one bit. There were several tantalizing bits that happened that served to advance the plot slightly, so here’s hoping that the next volumes speeds along with lots of fast plot stuff and not so much slow fight scenes. As good as they were here, I’m about done with them, thankyouverymuch.

Yeah, I definitely like this arc a lot better than Infinity Fortress. Lots of good fights going on here, particularly Ban’s struggle and brief meeting with Akabane, and Ginji’s encounter with the seven Miroku Bros. Or rather, three Miroku Bros. Plus the plot got a lot better after Ginji linked himself up with someone, and there’s just a ton of good things going on here.

Yeah, Ban was being real funny. The one thing I still don’t agree with is the presence of Bloody Joker and Shido. I don’t mind either of those characters, and Emishi is probably my favorite introduced during Infinity Fortress, but I just hate the millions of characters in this series. But at least the story’s getting better. 13 is available, I’ll have to see about picking it up.

Now that the Infinity Fortress arc is over, I’m really getting into the series again. There were a bunch of interludes in this volume, and although the Infinity Fortress crowd shows up again and again throughout (all 500 characters that were introduced), I still liked it. Largely due to a variety of stupid jokes that kept showing up. A lot of them referencing HEVN. I liked the interludes, but when the next Clayman case got underway, I realized we might be in for another long haul. Well, I seem to remember liking this case a bit better anyway… Ban’s past remained a mystery even in the anime, and I like the little tidbits that get thrown our way. Same with Himiko, the Voodoo Child possibilities interest me greatly. I just… I just wish it were a better manga. It made a great anime, but the manga just lacks something, somehow.

God, FINALLY! The end of Infinity Fortress. I know there’ll be a chapter or two wrapup in the next volume, and I know we’ll see those fifty million characters popping up in “familiar” ways throughout the rest of the series, but it’s over and done with, once and for all.

Was the ending surprising? Not really. There was some cool stuff revealed that made sense, but in the nonsensical world of Infinity Fortress, where apparently anything can happen, it wasn’t as Earth-shattering as I think they were intended to be. I can’t remember what the next case is, nor how they get screwed out of the money for this one (as they inevitably do), but I do remember a hot springs episode in the anime, and I certainly hope we don’t have to put up with that.

I am DONE with Infinity Fortress at this point. The fight between Jubei and Kazuki was silly, as I knew it would be, and took up a large part of the volume. The Himiko fight was slightly more interesting, but only because I forgot she was a Voodoo child (which was not explained here nor was it explained through the duration of the anime). Plus I like Ban a lot, but his next fight really doesn’t interest me. Ginji’s fight at the end of the volume was also totally awesome, and it gets better at the beginning of next volume. I’m stalled currently in the middle of ten, and the good lasts all the way up until the final battle. But I am most definitely not looking forward to the final battle.

So yes, it’s turned into a tournament-style fighting manga. Not a particularly good one, either. Everyone meets up and goes off to their fights with their opponents provided by MakubeX, and the focus on this volume is Emishi v. Shido and Jubei v. Kazuki. Much of the drama lies in the relationships between the characters, and of course since you know next to nothing about Emishi and Jubei, they really don’t have much of an emotional impact. Shido’s fight was really underwhelming, but I thought it had a pretty awesome ending. Kazuki’s fight is going to be painfully annoying, since it seems to be insisting on drawing out the emotional backstory between him and Jubei, and frankly, Jubei is some sort of cold-blooded assassin, and always will be at this point. Some sob story about them being best friends isn’t going to make me care about Jubei. Once again, the series weakness. I really hope the next volume ends these stupid fights.

Ugh. Still in Infinity Fortress, still introducing new characters who were dear dear friends of Ginji, Shido, and Kazuki, still fighting to outdo one another, etc. Even some friends of Ban’s start showing up. Jesus Christ.

The plot is advancing more, and the volume is less tournament-based than previous ones, though there’s still plenty of fights, certainly, the best two being between Ban and two newly introduced future “main” characters, if the anime is anything to judge by.

Everyone also figures out more or less what’s going on with the exception of Ginji and Akabane, but they at least get pointed in the right direction. Lots more Ginji and Akabane in this volume, and I really like those two characters together.

Hm. Still a few volumes to go before I’m out of Infinity Fortress. This volume was better than the last, and I expect the volumes to get better and better until the end of the arc unless they stall on battles, but this is still not my favorite part of GetBackers, and I need to hurry through it.