Cipher 2
November 2, 2008
Something tells me I’m going to have to go out and buy the rest of this series, like, immediately. Not only is it fantastic, but a lot of the story involves being able to tell the twins apart personality-wise and appearance-wise. I could do so pretty well after the end of the volume, but I’m not going to remember their various nuances by the time another sale rolls around and I can get the others. Plus there’s, what, nine more volumes? I think I can handle that type of shoujo marathon after abstaining relatively well for most of a month.
So the contest involving Anise telling the twins apart ended at the end of last volume, but she’s still around a lot, friendly with both of them. More and more at the beginning of the volume, you can see Anise mentally noting the differences between the two. It’s pretty clear right away she can tell the two apart, but the boys don’t mention/notice until around halfway or two thirds of the way through. Siva suggests she actually did win their contest and didn’t want to force them to tell their past if they didn’t want to. Siva thinks she might have some other plans for the two in mind, whereas Cipher doesn’t really believe this.
Anise, for whatever reason, also listens to rumors at school about how “Siva” (the identity the two share) doesn’t care for anyone except the person he likes most in any given situation. She spends a lot of time trying to get them to express any sort of emotion about her. I’m not sure what her aim for this is, but one of her main goals is getting Cipher to admit out loud he actually wants her over in the afternoons.
Another thing that happens is that we find out a bit about Anise’s past. I’m not sure if there’s more to it than that, but she does carry around a lot of guilt. Not only is the scene where she tells the story pretty great, there’s also a really nice scene that leads up to it.
By the end of the volume, we have the beginnings of a romantic triangle, which you knew was coming. Cipher seems to be the more likable of the two, but it’s possible that Siva is actually the one that has his eye on Anise. Very light hints are given along these lines, so I’m waiting to see what else develops.
I’m not sure what it is that I like so much about this. The characters are developed really well as Anise and the twins try and guess what makes each other tick. It’s an extremely unique method. I also like the pace, and the story takes its time around certain scenes, which appear at just the right moment. I love it, and I can’t wait to read more.
Monster 8
November 2, 2008
The question was raised last volume about whether or not Tenma was going to move from a truly innocent man to having blood on his hands since it’s become clear to all the present company that he wishes to kill Johan. I suspect this isn’t something that’s going to be resolved anytime soon, and is probably the plot of the series, so I don’t think that’s too much a spoiler. Tenma’s separated from the main group and is doing some weapons training and some stakeouts of Johan to figure out the best time to do the deed.
Johan seems to know this, and it is implied both men have the same thing in mind by the end of the volume. I’m… curious as to where Johan wants this to go.
Other characters are sort of scrambling around Johan. Some of the more legit authorities try and convince Lunge that he’s wrong, and Lunge… well, it’s hard to tell what he’s thinking. There are some bizarre scenes where he’s trying to put himself in a Tenma state of mind by becoming Tenma, which are plenty weird. And creepy. Lunge is probably only second to Johan in my creepiness meter in this series.
Something else that’s killing me is that a picture book is introduced towards the end of the volume that seems to have something major to do with Johan. The connection is not explained. I want to know.
Bah. I’m starting to violate one of my own rules and am just giving summaries/reactions for the volumes in this series, but there’s really not much else I can say other than this makes for an awesome mystery/thriller. I can’t get enough of it, and I’m glad I’m taking it at such a pace that it seems like I’ll be caught up by the time the last volume comes out. That’ll be awesome.
Cat-Eyed Boy 1
October 31, 2008
How could I not post a review for this series on Halloween? I would say that this is an indispensable piece of Halloween manga. It’s probably not as good as Drifting Classroom, but with the protagonist, the mix of physical and psychological horror, and the frequent run-ins with monsters, it’s hard not to recommend it for the holiday.
It broke my heart to read this alongside the Hino Horror stories I have been going through recently. I’ve always favored Hino over Umezu just because I prefer Hino’s physical horror and comic violence to Umezu’s psychological stories. But these stories were far superior to the Hino Horror stories. To be fair, I think the Hino stories I’ve been reading lately lean more towards the side of humor, but they are short and not as well-developed, and the ideas are not as good as these Cat-Eyed Boy stories.
The stories start out short and get progressively longer. Earlier on, the themes are mostly Cat-Eyed Boy observing the miseries of other people. But the later stories in the volume, the longest and most well-developed, are also about Cat-Eyed Boy himself and have a variety of monsters that drag Cat-Eyed Boy into the story. We also get an origin story for Cat-Eyed Boy.
My favorite story in the volume involved a local one-legged demon that was trying to stop a boy from repeatedly killing insects. It had a lot of the elements I liked from some of the things I read in Scary Books, which included the protagonist who was willfully ignorant of the things going on around him (bonus for being a little kid), a demon, demon possession, mutations, and elaborate comeuppance. It even had a nice anti-moral, when after Cat-Eyed Boy sort of condemns the demon for what it did, he mentions the little kid probably had his eye for an eye-style punishment coming to him, and he was glad since the kid would have grown up to be a murderer anyway. I had to laugh at that. The story develops slowly, with an item being pulled from a tree, and the demon appearing more and more to the horrible little kid, who takes increasingly greater pleasure in impaling insects alive, emptying his trays, then collecting identical specimens. The demon tangles with Cat-Eyed Boy first, who winds up with the demon’s nail in his body. He enlists the help of local cats to find him a cooperative doctor, and while at the kindly doctor’s residence, he is fully possessed and does things like transform himself into a normal boy to blend in with the evil kid, etc. There’s a bug transformation somewhere along the way. It’s great, I promise.
One of the other stories dealt with a local legend about stones washing up on shore that came to life and summoned tsunamis if they got to higher ground. The local evil-looking deity statue protected the people from them until… well, it was vanquished, and then the rocks are given free reign to summon tsunamis. Cat-Eyed Boy is cared for by a very young-looking spinster who has to keep him in the above-mentioned deity’s shrine for fear the locals would kill him for being a goblin. It’s kind of a weird story, but I liked the number of abrupt twists and turns it took.
The last story is extremely lengthy, and even carries over into the next volume. One hundred demons show up to rough up all the rich, successful people they can find. Cat-Eyed Boy feels obligated to stop them, and then they start tangling with him too as he tries to intercept all the victims before the demons can. The first victim was a manga artist, and I couldn’t figure out if he was supposed to be a parody of someone or not. I think he was, and I’m just not familiar enough with 60’s horror manga. I’ll talk more about this story in the second volume review.
With the fantastically drawn monsters, the screams, the eyes peeking through knotholes, the veiled intentions, the tsunami summoners… it’s hard not to recommend this as a perfect Halloween read. I was particularly surprised by how absorbed I got with the stories, I thought they would be more antiquated than they actually were. Plus, it’s like a 500-page volume, so you’re getting a lot of story for your buck. Enjoy.
Suihelibe 1
October 31, 2008
UPDATE: I just got the finished volume, so I can say a little something about the art now, too (arcs are generally not good for showing off the art in a series). It’s pretty cute and functional, with special care given to the various goofy animals that appear throughout the volume. Plus, it’s got color pages, which is always very much appreciated.
This is another ARC from CMX, this time the title looks to have an October 29th release date. The title is kind of weird. It seems to be a contraction based on the first four elements of the periodic table, except the Japanese word for hydrogen, “suiso,” is used. If nothing else, I learned something, because I had to look up the Japanese word for hydrogen when I started reading this so it wouldn’t drive me crazy.
Basically, a cute alien girl lands and causes a bit of mischief that only the main character sees. He is somehow drafted into the Biology club as the only member, and in the position of club president and only member, he decides to stand up against student council to save the club. He needs to get five members, and right away the cute alien girl joins as a new transfer student. The girl’s mission on earth is to collect stray animal species from her planet. Though these can be dangerous, they’re usually kind of goofy animals doing various weird things. While doing this, the pair gradually finds new friends and recruits more members for the club.
It’s comparable to Kiichi and the Magic Books in that it’s a great title for kids. There’s not much substance to the story, so it’s not likely something that adults will get hooked on, but I kind of like titles like this because I can sell them to kids at book fairs without guiltily thinking about all the breast jokes and panty shots the book may contain. There aren’t very many titles I’ve read that I would feel good giving to little kids, but this and Kiichi are good because not only are they free of any objectionable content, the stories are also fairly engaging. It’s shallow, but a fun read, so it’s something that wouldn’t be a chore for parents to go through with their kids. While I don’t work with kids or have any children of my own, it’s still something I can appreciate.
For my own purposes… well, I liked Kiichi, because I like that kind of story, but light comedies like this are not so much my thing. I got pretty excited because there’s a really weird, WEIRD joke on one of the first pages about one of the alien creatures (in this case, a bunny) growing to gigantic size and getting really funny/horrible expressions on its face, but the visual gags are kept to a minimum after that, unfortunately. There’s a lot of random dialogue humor, which is okay (and sometimes pretty funny), but again, not really my thing, and more aimed at kids. The plot is also sort of without direction at the moment. The alien girl will continue to collect specimens, and the other characters have various slight goals, but nothing that really contributes to the direction of the series. The characters are also very shallow, which isn’t a bad thing considering this isn’t meant to be a deep story, but there really wasn’t much for me to latch on to.
In short: light comedy, some funny jokes, great for kids, but kind of shallow and not really my thing.
July 6th 3:10
Category: Freaks 2
October 31, 2008
Oh man. Things don’t get any better in the second volume. In addition to being really, really confused about the characters, now I’m confused about their genders as well. This is the type of series that you figure is really pretty clear about drawing male and female characters different unless there’s supposed to be some question. Nope. There are at least two characters with ambiguous genders now. Part of the problem, too, is that random shounen ai is thrown in for absolutely no reason. Romance has no place in a series like this, and the way it’s tacked on is really awkward and sloppy and… well, too much blatant fanservice.
More blatant fanservice comes when… I don’t know something that is the main character’s powers?… separates from the main character and turns into an apparently well-liked man. Of course, the two don’t recombine because all the other characters want this new person to stick around, so he’s now hanging around the office all the time. Except he’s not the main character’s source of power after all, so now things make even less sense on that front.
More… professionals like the main characters appear and drop in and out through the volume, and a plotline emerges where an otherworldly being is apparently manufacturing freaks, and the characters are ordered to stop it. A bunch of stuff comes to light about the main character, and as much as I would like to get excited about this, there’s too many things that are frustrating and don’t make any sense, so I just can’t enjoy it. Literally, almost everything that happens, I have to think hard about, because so much just does not connect together for me for some reason.
I’ll read the third volume, because it’s the last. I suspect it won’t be good, though.
Monster 7
October 29, 2008
This will also be short, but only because there’s not much I can say about Monster that won’t spoil the volume.
I’m much happier reading these volumes now that Johan is playing an active part. This volume follows a private investigator. This man, Richard, used to serve on the police force, but was forced off his job and gave up all his cases after he shot a murder suspect while drunk. As he interviews and digs for information surrounding the suicide of the boy from last volume, he realizes more and more that all his past unsolved cases were connected. It’s a really amazing way to introduce all the action and unfold the plot for the main characters in this town.
Tenma doesn’t really appear until the end of the volume. I would kind of like the action to switch back to him since I like the actual plot of the series, Tenma trying to prove he’s not a murderer, so much. Not focusing on him isn’t really boring or detrimental like it is in other series, though. I have yet to find myself uninterested in any of the side characters and the stories, especially since they always, always form a part of the cohesive whole. Of course, we get enough Johan that not having Tenma around very much is forgivable. Johan does… well, a terrible thing. We learn a bit of how exactly he works, and it is most fascinating as well as tragic.
Speaking of the Tezuka character cameos from Black Jack I talked about earlier today… this bothered me last volume, but the scientist in this series… he’s Shunsaku Ban, Tezuka’s oldest and most-used character. There’s no arguing this point, that’s just who he is. I don’t think his name is ever given, but I think that’s because everyone already knows (not that he doesn’t have a name in the series; I’m sure he does, I just haven’t seen it yet). I would have my doubts normally, but obviously Urasawa is a big Tezuka fan, given the fact he remade a single Astro Boy story into an entire series and that his main character in this series, Dr. Tenma, shares a name with Tobio’s father in Astro Boy.
Hino Horror 11: Gallery of Horrors
October 29, 2008
This will be short and sweet, just like all the stories in this volume.
Well, I like Hideshi Hino. A lot. I’m not going to lie to you. I liked this volume far more than I should have, but it’s the sort of thing I could see a lot of people easily disliking. To be fair, the stories are not that good. They are all based around simple ideas and play out over the space of a few pages. There’s not much to them. But they are pure physical horror tinged with humor, just like I like ‘em, so I still eat it up despite the fact this is probably not one of the better volumes of Hino Horror.
The title comes from the framing device, which is sort of like Night Gallery, except there’s a Vincent Price-looking narrator. Each story is based off a color and an initial painted image introduced by Mr. Price. My favorite was the green story, which was about a boy who was literally and figuratively a vegetable. The ending was surprisingly heartbreaking for what it was. I also kind of liked the red story, which was sort of abrupt, but had what I suspect was a cameo from the main character of Panorama of Hell, save he was weilding a knife instead of an axe (the story itself is about a little girl with an aversion for the color red and a repressed memory). The gray story, about a statue and a scientist, had an excellent premise, and would have been much better in an expanded format.
I can’t really comment too much on the stories themselves since they’re so short. The critique mainly comes from their shortness since there’s not much to them. They tell their stories well though, and they get across the bizarre idea in Hino shorthand in only a few pages, so they accomplish what they set out to do.
Meh. It’s good enough for me just by virtue of being Hino Horror.
Sugar Sugar Rune 8
October 29, 2008
Final volume! It’s been so long since I read the last one, it took me a little bit to get re-oriented with things here, especially since this series is so manic. I didn’t recall the connection between Chocolat and Glacier, but I’ll take Sugar Sugar Rune’s word for it. I definitely still like the novelty of the new familiar characters, and I especially love Duke now.
The final battle was vaguely unsatisfying in the way that all magical girl-type final battles are. They fight with magic and feelings, and usually the strength of the heart is what conquers as opposed to any sort of brute force or cunning trickery. Plus, a few characters from earlier in the series come back, along with… well, Cinnamon, who we’ve been waiting all series for. Cinnamon’s role was pretty satisfying. I also kind of liked the little twist given to the heart gem system during the final battle. I’m not sure about the “human” implications of it, but I thought it was a nice final move. Otherwise, the whole final battle, which takes place in two stages and pretty much fills the entire volume, felt a little rushed and messy. Again, though, it follows most of the rules of the magical girl genre. I think KKJ is the closest I’ve come to a satisfying magical girl finale, and even that had some weird stuff. I can’t fault Sugar Sugar Rune for being what it is. Magical girl endings (or at least the ones I’ve read) often feel like they’re made with animated versions in mind, and it seems like the ideas just don’t transfer to manga as well.
I liked the little epilogue. I didn’t like the convenient excuse as to what Chocolat had been doing, and I didn’t like the character boost Vanilla was being given by the other characters… I feel like Chocolat EARNED something, and didn’t get it in the end. But it’s hard to fault a happy ending like that, even one with semi-dark stuff running through it.
While the last volume didn’t really satisfy me, a twentysomething adult, I’m sure little girls would eat it up. I did like the rest of the series a LOT, and I’m still shocked that Moyoco Anno could make such a fantastic magical girl series. Flowers and Bees may be more my thing, but Sugar Sugar Rune is still gold, and it’s hard for me to deny my love for a story about two little witch girls trying to become queen of the magical world by collecting boy’s hearts. There’s just something irresistible about it.
Black Jack 1 (hardcover ed.)
October 28, 2008
Do you know how long I’ve waited for this? I spotted this series in the spring 1999 Viz catalog, and didn’t bite back then since it sounded incomplete, which it was (I’m not sure how it “sounded” incomplete, but I was also right about Ogre Slayer and Eat-Man in the same catalog). But that means I had to wait ten years for the definitive edition to come out. It was worth it.
I went to great lengths to procure the hardcover edition, because I had to know about the stories that were in such poor taste that they were not collected in Japan. I assumed one of them was the first story in the volume, where a boy wrecks a car that he was driving stupidly (he almost ran over several people), then his father grabs a random boy from the accident scene and has him sentenced to death so that his body parts can be used to replace his son’s damaged ones. I found this to be pretty deplorable (though it all works out in the end, of course), and was shocked when I found out that wasn’t actually the story. The uncollected story is in the back of the book, and is about Black Jacks separating a pair of conjoined twins that share a body with two faces on the skull. He keeps the brain of the removed twin alive after it is extracted by request of the scientists who asked him to perform the operation. The moral of the story is that the brain shouldn’t have been kept alive, because then it could be used for experiments like the Nazis performed during WWII. Until the last two pages, after having read the rest of the book I thought maybe the brain was being kept alive so it could be put back in a donor body later (something that Black Jack could do). I assume the hint that the brain would be experimented on was what kept it out of the Japanese editions? Up til that point, though, I thought it was pretty significant the brain was being kept alive at all, a sort of “all life is sacred”-type thing.
Anyway. My mind boggled at the surgeries performed during these stories. Black Jack does everything you can think of and then some, including the above-mentioned conjoined twin surgery and another twin surgery where he excises a growth that contains a parasitic twin that he then puts in some sort of robot body and keeps with him as his assistant. I… had no idea that was the true identity of Pinoko. Pinoko bugged me a bit, but I can see how he wanted to include her as a little comedy relief and to give Black Jack more humanity when he’s at home.
My favorite story was one about a little boy with Polio who walks from one major city to another in order to aid his recovery and raise awareness for his disease. Not only is it a nice message, we also get some back story about Black Jack. I was surprised that two or three of the stories were actually pretty detailed accounts of Black Jack’s background, I didn’t think it was ever alluded to during the series.
There were some things I didn’t like. As much as I liked the stories, I hated the antiquated device that was used in the last panel of nearly every single one where the moral was summed up in one line. I hate things like that since it makes me feel like I can’t be trusted to pick up on the obvious themes, plus it seems like sort of a sloppy technique to tack something like that onto the end after the rest of the story is so well-told.
I also took serious issue with a story about a woman who had her ovaries and uterus removed due to cancer. Apparently, without these female organs, she was no longer female and not only lost her romantic relationships, but also was unable to live her life as a female anymore. I didn’t quite understand why the other characters had to view her differently after this life-saving surgery, nor why she felt that not having female sex organs meant that she had to live her life as a man, nor why her identity was kept secret while the story was being told (perhaps it was the character’s wish, but Black Jack is the one that tells the fib at the beginning). I was also pretty appalled that patients were never told when they had a terminal illness, and Black Jack was considered coldhearted for being honest with her. Of course, one of the later stories in the volume is set in North Dakota and features a blackface character, so… yeah.
Other than that, I pretty much enjoyed everything about these stories. There’s a pretty wide range of surgeries, and while Black Jack is often working for or on criminals, there are a fair number of good things he does too, like helping that little boy with polio on his mission. He’s seen as evil by many, and maintains this image for himself by saying he’ll only do things for exorbitant fees, but I suppose he’s popular for having a heart of gold. I like him well enough, and it’s actually his character that makes almost all these stories worthwhile; there are only one or two other stories in the volume driven by other characters.
Not only are these really great stories, they also have all of Tezuka’s stock characters in them, which was kind of unexpected. Hamegg (my favorite), Lamp, Duke Red, and Ochanomizu appear in the first story, and Hamegg and Lamp reappear in one or two other stories. Higeoyaji is in somewhere, as is Rock, and where there’s Rock, there’s also Kenichi, who I almost missed save for the way his eyes were drawn, which clued me in that it was an older character (he’s the polio victim). Sapphire’s in there for a minute. There’s even an appearance from Makeru Butamo, a character I’ve only seen once or twice before, but I like him because he’s sort of a jerk whenever he appears. Not a bad guy, just a jerk. Saruta appears as an important series-related character. We also have two appearances by Tezuka himself (one blatant, one more subtle), and several appearances of the hyoutan-tsugi cartoon face, which I had to cheat and look up the name for. I could keep going, I’m sure there’s more if I look, including a whole ton of minor characters I didn’t catch. But I’ll stop for now. Know that spotting these characters in every Tezuka manga gives me great pleasure.
But yes. Was there any question I wasn’t going to like this?
Dororo 3
October 28, 2008
When I started reading this series, I was really shocked to find that there was a recent video game based on it, and it was brought out in the US. This struck me as unlikely enough that I bought and played it, and even more unlikely, the game is actually pretty fantastic, unlike almost every other license-type game I’ve ever played. The plot sticks really close to the manga, close enough that I put off reading the last volume until I had gotten far enough in the game that I hit these stories.
It’s called “Blood Will Tell” for the PS2. The character designs are, oddly enough, by Hiroaki Samura, of Blade of the Immortal and Ohikkoshi fame (Ohikkoshi being the review posted below this one, for later reference when this drops off the front page).
I’m not sure how I felt about this volume. I didn’t like the first story dealing with the bandits from Dororo’s past, and the map on Dororo’s back came into play a little sooner than I thought it would. I was disappointed with the outcome of that story, though it got suitably epic towards the end when Dororo and the leader of the bandits take on an entire army from a mountaintop and a one-legged Hyakkimaru helps them out down below. I also liked the demon-possessed shark duo. That one of the demons was possessing sharks was a pretty awesome plot device.
It was also a little disappointing that Hyakkimaru kept trying to split with Dororo. Two of the stories dealt with Hyakkimaru forcing a parting of ways, then coming to Dororo’s rescue, the latter one dealing with a storming of Daigo’s castle (this was also the final chapter). The demon battles leading up to the final battle were pretty good… one was a gluttony demon and one was some sort of animal demon that had taken over the spirit of a priest. The stories themselves were a little weak, though. We also meet Saburota, a ronin who has some sort of macho battle with Hyakkimaru and then teams up with Daigo since he seems to be the dominant lord in the area. It kind of felt like he was going to be a recurring character, except the series ends a few chapters after he was introduced.
The ultimate ending was pretty disappointing, mostly because it was cut short. We see one more demon battle with a chimera-like monster (that gives out multiple body parts, which struck me as kind of lazy) before Hyakkimaru strikes out on his own, there’s a really random plot point involving Dororo that I would say was tagged on if not for the fact it was vaguely referenced earlier in the volume, and it just wasn’t satisfying. It’s a shame it didn’t have a proper ending, because it was otherwise a great series.
I wound up loving this series. A lot. Even with no ending. Enough so that after I finished this volume, I dove right into Black Jack because I wanted more. Enough that I went out and bought the video game. If you want more of the same from the manga and have a PS2, I highly recommend the video game.
