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 What I'm Lookin' At: August 2009
Written by Park Cooper
WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED WHAT I’M LOOKIN’ AT
Naruto v42, Viz
Holy cow.
Someone dies this volume. Someone you actually care about. Probably the most important death that we’ve ever seen happen in this series.
Oh by the way after that SASUKE FINALLY CATCHES UP TO HIS BIG BROTHER. This is it: the start of their final fight. Seriously. By the way, if you were wondering what’s up with the whole killing-the-person-closest-to-you-who’s-like-a-brother-or-a-best-friend that the remaining members of the Uchiha clan seem to have going on, yeah well that’s explained in this volume. By Itachi. Along with a reason why he’s kept his little brother alive up until now.
If you didn’t think things were really going to be happening in this series after the battle at the waterfall, volume 42 tells you that that’s just not true.
Okay, the last fight between Sasuke and Orochimaru probably should have clued you in to that, too, but here’s another clue.
>gulp< >choke<
Naruto v43, Viz
Oh man. The last volume was like around 185 or so pages... this one is around 241. At the start, the creator deeply apologizes for this, because it drove the price of the tankobon up, but he felt it was the only way to bring you the end of the Itachi vs. Sasuke storyline.
But did VIZ make this volume more expensive? THEY DID NOT. Still 7.95, baby. For 241 pages. Enjoy.
Oh also IT’S THE END OF THE SASUKE VS. ITACHI STORYLINE. This is it. For reals. If you figured, last volume, “you say it’s the final fight, but probably Itachi will beat Sasuke and leave him to recover and grow stronger in the future, like he’s done before, or else Sasuke will beat Itachi but he’ll get away”?
No. Neither of those happens. There’s a winner, and no one gets away, as such.
And then the winner wakes up to Madara Uchiha, who starts talking about exactly what this whooooole Uchiha thing has REALLY been about.
Except... geez, he’s MADARA UCHIHA! If stuff he tells you seems to explain some things, fine, but don’t believe EVERYTHING he tells you! And you certainly shouldn’t consider DOING WHAT HE SAYS...!
Barb: “So the fight between the brothers is finally over, right? So that’s the end of that, right? At least THAT’s settled, huh?”
Me: “Yeah, well, but that’s where things start to get REALLY BAD.”
We, the readers, find out the truth about why the whole rest of the Uchiha clan died, and what’s been up with big brother Itachi. So feel free to pick up this extra-big ninja extravaganza.
Eden v1-2, Dark Horse
Picked these up at my local library. Post-apocalyptic story about what happens after a huge plague hits the earth, hardening exterior human tissue until finally one dies, as the last step is the softening of the insides. At a research base, two kids (and a robot they find) survive, having been made immune in the last days of the plague. That’s the end of that story...
The next story is years later. They’ve had kids, and they’ve discovered that other humans survived, too, although a lot of sizable towns are now uninhabited. A cure (the same one that was used to keep the kids from getting it, I guess) was given to everyone else in the world, which froze the progress of the disease, although a lot of people were stuck with unusable body parts, so, by necessity, cyborg mechanical parts made a huge leap forward.
The male kid has started a huge drug plantation in South America. A kidnapping attempt on his wife and kids goes wrong, and his son is cut off from what’s left of the civilized world. Dad sends their old friend the combat robot to help look after the boy. The boy falls in with some sort of freedom fighters or something, and it turns into an even bigger mess...
That’s it so far. Details that would be convenient for us to know, like exactly what year in the future it is now, exactly what level Earth’s current post-plague population is at, or what exactly Dad’s plans and/or goals are, are missing. But... well, if you like this sort of thing, this series might interest you. And Japan loves this sort of thing. Although the very Japanese idea that maybe this plague should’ve been allowed to happen because humanity is kind of a blight on the poor Earth (cf. Knives from Trigun, the guy from Gatekeepers who felt we were all maggots, the bad guys from Alive, etc) is here, too...
DMC (Detroit Metal City) v1, Viz
Hmmm.
I’m not sure I’m the best person to comment on this manga.
Here’s David Rasmussen’s opinion of this title: http://www.mangalife.com/reviews/DetroitMetalCityv1.htm
If the grade doesn’t just jump out at you, since it only appears at the bottom, he seemed to feel it was about a D- or so. I don’t hate it as much as he did... in fact, I don’t feel very passionate about it at all. The idea is that it’s a Spinal-Tap-like story of a death metal band in Japan, where the main guy is mostly just a nice, meek fellow, but this brings out his dirty side, and he finds that a little irresistible. But basically, the creator just decided to sort of Spinal Tap up metal with the most ridiculously over the top dialogue they could. I say “dialogue” instead of “content” because, as many people feel about professional wrestling, all the dirty filth in the world of DMC is fake, just for show. You can be dirty in your heart, but none of these people really wants to, say, bite the head off a chicken or anything. That’s gross. So instead of being about hardcore scary metal type people (if indeed such individuals actually exist in real life at all), the whole thing just comes off as juvenile and silly and potty-mouth and sexist and offensive attempts at humor. It’s not going to ruin the youth of America any faster than anything else is, but it’s hard for me to see it becoming anyone’s favorite new manga.
Sigh... of course, I could be wrong, and my words above could have just made the target audience for this title jump up, run from their computers, and drive like mad to the store to pick this up... presuming they’re old enough to drive... I hope so, because this manga is certainly rated M for Mature... but in my opinion, I think that readers who enjoy the bizarrely stoopid might do better to try Cromartie High School, and I think that Tokyo Tribes has a lot more to offer the truly “street” or “urban” manga reader... Not that Tokyo Tribes is my favorite title in the whole entire world... and technically I can kind of take or leave Cromartie...
I’m pretty sure I am not the right person to review this manga.
If indeed such a person exists in real life at all.
New feature: What I reviewed on my iPhone
The wife's watching an old noir entitled Raw Deal on TV and such is our love that we can't stand to be apart from one another, so it's time to practice my iPhone typing. Welcome to the latest episode of what I'm keeping track of: the typed-from-the-living-room edition.
Alive, Del Rey Manga
Remember that hack Shymalan's _The Happening_ where people start killing themselves all over the place? Well, guess who ripped that concept off from someone? I don't know the answer, but I strongly suspect that _someone_ swiped it from _someone_, because here it is again. This time, it appears that aliens, or maybe something more elemental, have/has tripped a death-is-great trigger in thousands and thousands of brains all over the place. But a couple of dozen people just weren't ready for the big dirt-nap yet, and _those_ folks each seem to have gotten some amazing power out of having their brains messed with. This phenomenon hits three friends, the youngest of which kidnaps the girl, leading the third friend to chase after the two. The two hook up with Team Evil, who're up to big mysterious shenanigans, while our hero rescuer teams up with a kid who can hide things behind invisible force fields and a girl who has cold powers who wants revenge against Team Evil for her own reasons.
Not unlike Del Rey's Psycho Busters, and a lot of other manga, this is a neat little story of the preternatural that soon enough starts devolving into a pretext for kids with cool powers to fight each other. Still, if that's your bag, this will be just up your alley, and if it ain't, well, it's still fun enough to pick up at the store and flip through it so as to at least give it the chance to tempt you... the art’s attractive enough, and the nearly-no-holds-barred attitude toward death will satiate the horror-tinged appetite of many older readers.
Black Jack v5, Vertical
More tales of the world's greatest outlaw surgeon who plays by his own rules, and as time goes on, the stories not only remain quite weird, as in previous volumes, but are starting to get more referential to earlier volumes, which is bad for new readers but cool for old readers... My favorite was the tale of the man who sharpens the scalpels of Black Jack and the acupuncture needles of his old-school counterpart, the blind acupuncturist: namely, the world's greatest swordsmith, who asks for payment of millions of yen... and then uses the bills as the fuel for his forge. Another good story features the head of a hospital who disrespects anyone who didn't go to the same university as himself, who gets served Black Jack style when he insults not only Black Jack, but Black Jack's mentor as well...
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