|
|
 What I Read: July 30, 2008
Written by Park Cooper
Welcome to What I Read, a newish feature (if you don't count certain previous bits of the Manga Bulletin) in which I catch you up on all the manga and manga-related culture (in this case: manga) I've been sampling for you lately that hasn't quite made it into fully-blown review form. Many of them, like this first one, comes from the local library...
J 741.5 NA 2005
Draw your own manga : beyond the basics
Nagatomo, Haruno.
Publisher: Kodansha International,
With special interview with famous artist Shinji Mizushima. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinji_Mizushima
This book is actually good, and the examples don’t look like typical bad-cartoony manga-pretender stuff. The interview is also good.
Bleach v24
By Tite Kubo
This is not for me. Here, this is BLEACH as I have experienced it so far in volume 24: WHOOOM. You thought that that attack would defeat me? I’ve been using only 20 percent of my power! Special Attack! Really Impressive Bone-Cracking Blade!!! Oh no! You’re not getting away that easily! Where did all this power come from?!?!?
Yeah. One of those. Must be really easy to adapt, though...
Descendants of darkness : Yami no matsuei. Vol. 2
Matsushita, Yoko.
Publisher: Viz,
Pub date: 2004.
Meh. Guardians of the border between life and death (you know, shinigami... if shinigami was a job that plain old dead people could get) do the work of the reaper, often with compassion and sensitivity. Oh and there are evil demons and stuff. Very shojo pretty-boy stuff...
Junk: Record of the Last Hero v7
DrMaster
This manga was poor. I understand that no one wanted a superhero manga (or did they?), but boy, we certainly didn’t give one to anyone... not remotely. A kid has a super power suit. It’s cool how it works by just injecting him with needles and sensors and things inside the suit... but yeah, really, this author (who draws himself as a sort of Batman costume filled with his studio’s logo instead of a human body) watched Power Rangers and stuff, and wrote a story about what it would be like if such heroes existed in the real world. You know what it would be like? It would be really boring, apparently, because everyone would talk about morals and society and responsibility all the time in chapter-long speeches. The bad guy lets the kid kill him in the end because the kid’s motives are purer. Yeah, right. Thank goodness the series ends here.
Dragon drive. Vol. 6, Hope
Sakura, Ken-ichi.
Publisher: VIZ Media,
Pub date: 2008.
Dragon Drive is a sweet little series... a little young for me, though. If I don’t read any more of it ever, I won’t lose any sleep. But it’s all right. A schlub of a kid starts playing a new VR video game where you train dragons to battle. They seem to be based on your personality/brainwaves. His is a tiny, cowardly thing... but sometimes, when the chips are down, it grows huge and blasts away with fire. Eventually he can do this on cue... he’s found something he’s really good at. Then, we rip off THE LAST STARFIGHTER, and that’s all the spoiler I’ll give you. It’s a diverting little read, I guess.
Emma. Vol. 6
Mori, Kaoru, 1978-
Publisher: WildStorm Productions,
Pub date: c2008.
HAH! The library lists it as Wildstorm. It’s CMX.
But the fine print inside says Wildstorm, too. Huh. It’s CMX AND it’s Wildstorm. I did not know that.
Anyway, EMMA is a seven-part manga, and I read part 6. It’s a Victorian Shojo manga. Emma is a maid and she and some young master are in love. He’s ditching his arranged marriage to a perfectly nice girl for Emma. But his own dad has bad guys kidnap Emma and make her write a note saying sorry for ruining everyone’s lives, I’m emigrating. And apparently they ship her off to America against her will.
We also learn some stuff about the family Emma works for, about whom we truly do not care. Except that one of them likes the book THE PRISONER OF ZENDA, which is indeed a great book. Oh, and we are shown the boobies of one of the mistresses of the house—no hiding any part of them at all! Teen Plus indeed, CMX/Wildstorm!
Don’t think the actual events of the story are exciting, though. It’s really not done in an exciting way, it’s done in a Jane Austen way. It’s all very proper and emotionless, except when Dad and Young Master have it out briefly... Mostly, we’re keepin’ the inner turmoil inside where it belongs.
Now if only we could have a WildC.A.T.S./Gen 13/Emma crossover... (Wildstorm joke, folks! Inside American Comic Book Humor! Don’t mind me, I’m just silly.)
Togari v8
Yoshinori Natsume
Very disappointing, because on one hand, it seems to be the last volume, but on the other hand, it doesn’t really wrap up or conclude. A lot of things move forward for some of the supporting cast, but not for the main character. Either they told the creator “you’re cancelled—you’ve got this volume to wrap it up” and the creator is gambling to be picked up again by someone else, or else he KNOWS he’s going to restart again in some new form. You don’t say “this is the story of a guy who is released from Hell and told he can be redeemed if he destroys 108 demons in 108 days in the world of the living” and stop the story as the guy decides he’s not gonna give up on getting the remaining evils he needs. Not on purpose. So either someone was wrong about how long they had to tell this story, or someone’s fibbing about phrases like “exciting conclusion” and “final volume” and “The End”.
That's it for this time-- please look forward to next time...
--P
: :
|
30 August 2010
MangaLife: On Culture
Share 25 August 2010
Words of Truth and Wisdom: I Put A Spell On You
Share 11 August 2010
Words of Truth and Wisdom: Filters
Share 6 August 2010
Maybe You're Not Using It Right :On Japanese Load Words
Share
|
