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 What I'm Keepin' Track Of: June 23rd, 2009
Written by Park Cooper
It's the special dual-company, three-letter, end-of-alphabet episode of What I'm Keepin' Track Of-- Viz and Yen.
Black God v6, Yen:
Hmmm. This is one of those supernatural adventure stories with some fighting in it... like, say, FullMetal Alchemist, only (MOSTLY) set in the real world... it’s okay. I’m a little hampered by coming in on volume 6, and yet, it’s at the start of volume 6 that you get the full backstory of the female lead, Kuro, a mostly-likable (she does get herself into a lot of trouble, the little dope) gal who, in her native village of magicians outside the normal world (like Paradise Island with slightly fewer amazons and even more mysticism), sure liked to run around naked (see picture-- and she’s not the only one who gets naked, either, as we see in one of the scariest, FullMetal-worthiest scenes in the flashback sequence). Sadly, those days are over, as her big brother was offered a prophetic choice between great good and great evil. I don’t know which one he THOUGHT he was choosing, since he’s of the “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger” school of philosophy, but since he ended up killing almost the whole village, it sure smelled like evil to me—and to little sis. Unfortunately, although the book sold me on her and on the evils of big brother, I don’t feel very connected to anyone else in the book so far. But it did make me willing to believe that starting at volume 1 could bring worthwhile rewards... Start at the beginning, or volume 6; choose to be filled in on what’s what and who’s whom, or else jump in right when it seems like it might be starting to really pick up the pace; however you handle it, there’s a chance you’ll be entertained/enthralled by the adventures of Kuro and her little friends as they try to save Man’s World from big brother and whatever the heck the Big Evil Plan is.
Naruto v41, Viz:
Not a review copy— I just up and bought Naruto 41 and 42, and 44, and then ordered 43 from Amazon since it was out of stock at the bookstore. If anyone wants to send me anything they’ve got after 44, though... Very interesting reading, 41, for the first 20 pages or so—stuff about Naruto’s past, and the 4th Hokage, and some stuff one was pretty sure about, confirmed. The rest of the volume, though, features Jiraiya fighting a bad, bad fight. Seriously, not good—he’s up against people from his own past, each with a different power—and they aren’t what he expects, either—I think something has possessed them. Very tough fight! If you’re a fan of Toad Sage skillz, though, your adventure certainly begins HERE.
13th Boy, Yen:
http://www.mangalife.com/reviews/13thBoyv1.htm I was slightly more in synch with Joy on this one—it’s a romantic-comedic-fantasy that isn’t very funny and has no excuse for (barely) having its meager fantasy elements... and so far it isn’t terribly romantic, exactly... I felt there were some strongish moments, but I can’t argue with Joy’s point that there are so many, many, many manga/manhwa stories about 15-year-old-or-so romances, why bother with this one? (Go read Tokyopop’s FORGET ABOUT LOVE!) Also, if I was the author, I wouldn’t have admitted, as she did, that her editor pushed her to make the ages of the kids younger than she was planning—it made me hyper-aware of what a mistake it was to do so. SangEun Lee, your editor was wrong. I’m sorry. On the other hand, maybe your editor was trying to give you an ultimatum that you’d back down from in the hopes that you’d go rethink the concept... or maybe team up with a more experienced writer...?
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya v3, Yen:
http://www.mangalife.com/reviews/TheMelancholyofHaruhiSuzum.htm
I’m kind of with Joy Kim on this one. The anime was on my NetFlix list... after I read this, I took it off. The concept: Haruhi Suzumiya is some sort of cosmic conduit, and when she gets upset or over-excited, we risk tearing a hole in the time-space continuum and destroying the planet, the galaxy, or all of reality. So, we try not to stress her out... like, including not telling her this information. However... she can already be a little high-strung... she’s one of these energetic girls who gets bored really easily, and wishes the world was super-weird and freaky. So she’d get REALLY over-excited if she knew that three of her friends are an alien, a robot, and a time-traveler who’ve been assigned to keep her emotionally stable, which pretty much means letting her boss them around. If Haruhi wants to win the big baseball tournament, we make sure we WIN the tournament. If Haruhi might not like the idea that her only normal friend is starting to have romantic feelings for the time-travelling girl, we make sure Haruhi doesn’t find out, just in case (besides, even if she didn’t mind, she’d tease them unmercifully and seriously get in the way as a third wheel). The problem is that, as Joy notes, the series loses its energy as a manga. Maybe someday I’ll try the anime, but this one has filled my Haruhi quota for a while. Barb: “But... but the concept sounds terrific!” You wanna review this manga, dear wifey? “No, no, I just want to boss people around or else I’ll tear a hole in the time-space continuum.” No comment.
Dragon Drive volumes 7 and 8, Viz:
I was content to stop at 6, but when 7 and 8 showed up at the library, I said sure, why not... 8 contains the end of the storyline... and then starts a new one. Huh? That’s right. Imagine if Rumiko finished the Inu-Yasha storyline and then started up a new storyline set in the same world as Inu-Yasha but with different characters. Oh, and that bad guy who’s so hard to kill from Inu-Yasha was there in the background vaguely causing trouble-- but no one else you knew.
Yeah, it’s like that. On the other hand, it’s not like you were THAT attached to the people from the first storyline, so your reaction is kind of like... “I’ll flip a coin, and if it’s heads I might as well keep reading this new storyline, and if it’s tails, I’ll stop now. I mean... the start of the new storyline is RIGHT HERE in front of me... which is sort of how I started reading this series in the first place...”
If you’re a “what the heck why not” type of reader, Dragon Drive is just as much still for you as previous volumes...
Barb: “Come on, it’s for little kids and some of the dragons are really cute or nice...”
Yeah, she’s right. Something for kids should be just as good for adults, but we don’t live in a perfect world, and kids would like this even more than me. I should be saluting how good it must be to keep me interested enough all the way through 8 volumes. No one held a gun to my head on this one, after all...
--Yumekui Kenbun: Nightmare Inspector volume 3, Viz:
The first appearance of Stan Lee’s Dr. Strange featured a guy who came to Dr. Strange who was having horrible nightmares... Dr. Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, entered the guy’s dreams, where he found the guy was suffering from guilt about a crime... but while the Doc was there, it proved to be the perfect opportunity for him to be attacked by Nightmare, a sort of demon who’s in charge of nightmares. ...Hence the name.
This manga is kind of like that, only with no Big Bad villain behind it all, just the cracks in people’s psyches. A professional dream-eater (usually a tapir in manga! Wish that was true here, too...) hangs out in a coffee shop and helps people with their dreams, which half the time are their own fault, half the time they actually deserve some help to get over a trauma...
Not unlike The Tarot Café, I feel that this one is too much about the mood and the atmosphere, not enough about the stories... which decreases the effect the mood and atmosphere would normally have on me...
Hikaru no Go volume 13, Viz:
The story of the boy who can see the ghost that was attached to an old Go board remains compelling, but I’m such a softie— I can tell that as the boy gets more confident in his own playing, the ghost is going to lose his connection to this plane of reality... Perhaps this can be explained by the idea that the ghost, being sort of the spirit of Go, will diffuse globally as the love of Go spreads once again throughout the world... but I don’t like it anyway. I’m a big softie. I must admit, though, that this volume does seem to set up an important event—Akira Toya’s dad is in the hospital after a heart attack, and now he (Dad) is going to play Sai (the ghost) online. On one hand, you want Sai to really get to play a game at the top of his power—he deserves it. On the other hand, if Mr. Toya loses, he says he’ll retire from the game forever! But if he wins, he’ll want Sai to reveal/explain his real identity! Either way, it’s intense—and not continued in this volume! Aiiieeee! I’d already determined that I would stop reading with 12... but now I must admit that I’m quite curious to see how this match will turn out... it better not be interrupted by a power failure or anything...
Black Lagoon v001-002, Viz:
Viz sent me two volumes of Black Lagoon.
Uh... Let me summarize as gently as possible while still trying to make my key points:
This is not the worst concept for the adventures of 21st-century John Woo type pirates (which the cover copy notes with its repeated blurb-references to “Ten Thousand Bullets”), if you’re willing to believe that anyone could have such a high profile and not be wiped off the map by the authorities (or business rivals). It could have been a sort of high-octane Master Keaton of illegality for the new century.
The problem is, the storyteller sure ain’t no guys-who-created-Master-Keaton. The plots are so over-the-top that they break credulity, the characterization is over-the-top, the execution of each is also over the top... and a bit amateurish, in my opinion. Plus, the creator is going out of his way to be as M-for-Mature-grade as possible... not with the violence, but just... shock value. In volume 002, in particular, the creator really seems to relish giving a pair of characters just about as sick an origin story as he can think of. And the idea that it turned this particular pair into insane deadly pathological assassins, especially ones who are highly effective at their jobs, is too much. The idea that their past sufferings could make them catatonic cases in a sanatorium? Yes. Deadly assassins? No.
Please don’t think that I’m suggesting that, in general, those who have made careers for themselves as successful artists can’t also turn their hands to writing good thrillers. But in specific, this one shouldn’t have.
Okay, before I wrap this up, I'd like to remind anyone that Yen Press is supposedly going to be publishing the next Yotsuba very soon-- watch for it, it's A+ level stuff.
I'd also like to mention with pride that I saw a list of the top 25 manga for 2009, and that both stuff was on it that had been worked on by not only Barbara and myself, but also the Nibley twins, and our friend Queenie Chan were on it: Higurashi: When They Cry v1 was translated by the twins for Yen (who also translated Nabari No Ou, for Yen, incidentally-- consider checking it out, because it came out recently); Queenie Chan did the illustative duties for In Odd We Trust for Del Rey, by Dean Koontz; and Barb and I adapt Nora for Viz.
So please look forward to them, and to next time!
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