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 More Stuff I'm Looking At: Mid-November
Written by Park Cooper
Black Jack v7
Vertical
Well, it's time once again to sell you on the wonderfulness that is Black Jack, my favorite entirely-unlicensed genius Japanese doctor, and the best way I've figured out is to tell you about some key stories in a given volume.
"The Gray Mansion": Even Barbara enjoyed this Hammer-Horror-esque tale of siblings gone violent... after I cleverly edited it so Pinoko wasn't in it (Barbara finds Black Jack's assistant Pinoko eye-roll-worthy).
"Unexploded Bomb": Tezuka parcels out yet another story of Black Jack's youth-- this one a huge reveal instead of a tiny hint, since Black Jack here gets revenge on the guy who was most responsible for certain unexploded land mines-- revenge for Black Jack, but especially for Black Jack's late mother...
"High and Low": Barbara also enjoyed this story of a low-class construction worker and the head of a huge company who come to befriend one another because they're the same rare blood type...
It's good! It's good, I tell you! Please don't miss this volume of Black Jack, brought to you by Vertical! Dr. Tenzo Kenma of SyFy's MONSTER is a piker compared to Black Jack!
Barb also enjoyed the writing at this link:
http://www.vertical-inc.com/news/2009/09/23/new-services-added-to-black-jacks-health-package/
You're So Cool, v5
Yen Press
This just arrived at my house recently. This extremely Kare-Kano-like manhwa (or so I felt last time) kind of amused me a month or so ago, with its tale of a very goofy girl and her very troubled-by-a-bad-uncaring-mother boyfriend (by the way, V.B.Rose volume 6 is now on sale!). Well, things take a slightly less derivative turn this volume as the boyfriend finds out mom has cancer and is probably gonna die. He reacts to this news by being really cold to her, and promptly shows up at goofy girlfriend's house with a really high fever. She and her almost-certifiably-insane-and-yet-somehow-she's-a-doctor? mom nurse him back to health. He decides he's had enough of this life, and will go study abroad in America. He dumps girl-girl and becomes a recluse. Girl-girl (who incidentally is extremely terrible at speaking English, so this new plan is anathema to her on every level) checks around for her tall dark man, and a dream suggests to her what her next move should be.
The art in this story is of that bizarre kind where it sometimes feels like I'm reading a high-school soap-opera story from another planet where the humanoids have INSANELY HUGE EYES and INSANELY TALL BODIES WITH HUGE HANDS. "Isn't that sort of like a lot of manga/manhwa?" you ask. No no-- those beings don't really look human at all, _realistically_, but they do look like vaguely-proportionate _cartoons_ of humans. These creatures in this series look like realistic humans... but 8-foot-tall humans with triple-sized eyes and giant hands. Maybe it's a future where people have been genetically engineered to play basketball. In the dark. But nonetheless, I find their emotional struggles kind of engaging. Best Supporting Alien Oscar nomination to the girl's insane mom.
You're So Cool will conclude with the next volume. A manga that wraps up its story in just six volumes? What a country! Sign on for You're So Cool now, commitmentphobes, and enjoy a short-for-manga/manhwa story of a man who could be your hero and the girl whose mom has (perhaps not entirely inadvertently) prepared her for dealing with any amount of insanity.
Slam Dunk v7
Viz
I have to say, I was a bit disappointed by this volume of Slam Dunk; most of it is one big long fight, without the cool powers or even special moves or even clever banter that make all the other manga volumes in the world that consist mostly of one big long fight cool. Big Red and his new rival for coolness make friends, in a very nice couple of scenes where they discover their common ground: they're both fools for love, losers with the ladies. Compassion and mutual respect is born! But unless you need to see this meeting of the lonely hearts and minds for yourself, I feel I must warn you that this volume is kind of skippable in my opinion. The cover's a very pretty shade of orange, though.
Cat Paradise v2
Yen Press
Well, I told you Cat Paradise was pretty good last month, and it continues to maintain its quality this time as well. The main cat and heroine work on moves to try to increase their usefulness... a bad bad villainess is set loose on her and a few other members of Team Good Guys-- it's a rather long fight, but quite a suspenseful one! One really gets a life-or-death feeling from it. We also introduce a new hero/cat duo's powers: The cat likes to take naps. When his human gives the signal, the cat falls asleep, and everyone nearby enters the cat's dream, where reality is exactly like reality-- except with a special spin that the human and cat dream up-- and they imagine themselves to be unstoppable! The problem: the cat's nap only ever lasts a handful of minutes (it feels like about 10). If we can't defeat Team Bad Guys in that amount of time, Team Good Guys is on its own, and weaker than ever... I like the Little Romeo personality of the new (human) character, I like the suspense of a battle that really felt life and death, and I like the creator's sense of pacing this story in general. If you're man enough (or girl enough?) to like stories with lots of cats, it's one of Yen's best titles, frankly. Feel free to check it out!
Oishinbo a La Carte: Vegetables
Viz Media
I really didn’t like the first volume of Oishinbo. I didn’t like the art, and I didn’t like the story, such as there was of one. This one, I like better. I’m surprised, because the art’s about the same. However, this one hardly has any of the main character’s dad in it, thus losing the forced aspect of the series’ conflict that is their adversarial relationship, and that’s what most irritated me last time. Somehow, this time, a second exposure to the art softened my feelings about it, and grouping the stories in the book by theme—vegetables—helped make the book seem like it had more of a purpose than the hodgepodge of the first volume. (My complaining probably caused my Viz contact to remember not to send me the second volume, which focuses on wine and sake. I don’t have a big moral objection to it, but I don’t actually drink much myself, so it’s just as well.) This volume’s focus on vegetables helped give it an added raison d’etre, and indeed, a number of the stories focus on helping children not hate vegetables, so that felt like it had a doubly-important purpose, since it doesn’t suggest you trick them, or even dress the food up, but advises actual tips on how to cook them so kids don’t hate them. The tips seem plausible, too. So, for this volume, at least, I retract my former intense dislike of Oishinbo in general. It’s still not very pleasing to the eye, but at least I feel like it has a purpose for existing (this time, anyway). So, while it’s rather dated in its style... hey, vegetables are still vegetables. It got Barb and I to go tempura some eggplant. Yay!
Kieli: The Dead Sleep in the Wilderness
Yen Press
Normally I don’t review things translated by members of ML, including friends, and the Nibleys are both. And I’m not doing so now, either: this isn’t a review, it’s what I’m looking at. And right now what I’m looking at is this prose novel—not a manga, although it does have occasional pictures. A girl and a boy can both see ghosts. In fact, he’s a special breed of person who was created for the purpose of warfare. The two of them help a ghost find rest, and have a bit of romance in the meantime. If you love supernatural manga but wish you could combine them with the pleasures you get from reading prose novels, well, allow me to make you aware of this book brought to you by Yen Press. While I’m at it, volumes 1 and 2 of the Nibley-translated Higurashi: When They Cry are also on sale right now from the same company. There’s some twins, and some trespassing on sacred ground, and some murders and maybe some curses and demons. I’m not reviewing it. I’m just makin’ you aware of certain facts, people. So be aware.
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