|
|
 What Park's Looking At: Mid-January 2010
Written by Park Cooper
Black Jack v8
Vertical
More tales of the world’s greatest outlaw (as in unlicensed) doctor. Old school tales as timely as America’s health-care turmoil.
“The Tattooed Man”: An old-school Yakuza boss needs surgery, but he’s comforted by the fact that if the achieves nothing else in life, the tattoo that covers his body can be preserved for posterity. Black Jack is called in... but he’s not supposed to mar the tattoo! Well, some years later, the man dies. But it’s Old Home Week when, years later, the man’s son sends for Black Jack—Mom has now passed away as well, and it’s time to examine the tattoo Mom wouldn’t allow anyone to examine before now. Once the tattoo is examined, can Black Jack give a convincing reason why the son shouldn’t kill him?
“A Visit From A Killer”: A one-eyed assassin comes to visit Black Jack — he plans to shoot a visiting despot soon, but Black Jack has been hired to be on hand for just such an emergency. The killer is worried that Black Jack’s reputation for saving anyone short of the actually dead will counter his shot — what will happen when each man feels he must do his duty?
And that’s only two of the stories I liked best in this latest issue of Black Jack. Come and drown your sorrows regarding the fact that the recent Astroboy movie didn’t do well with the critics with one of the world’s freakier-lookin’ doctors, courtesy of Tezuka.
Very! Very! Sweet! v4
Yen Press
On one hand, this manhwa is not for me. Because the back cover copy is written as if you know what happened in the previous three volumes and what the setup is, I can understand it, but I still can’t make heads or tails of the contents inside. There are some teens/young people, and they’re looking to form relationships, but things are still very up in the air about the success of such desired relationships. But... there are scenes that are intriguing, I must admit, like a nice one where the guy is like “why’d you go get super-tan?” and she explains she hoped it would impress the guy she likes, and her honesty is so straightforward, he can’t criticize her any more. And then she’s like “if so-and-so said she liked muscle men, would you dash off to the gym?” and the answer is that he would. And they just sort of sit there, a little sad—trapped by the rules of unrequited teen love. But what I really like most is that this conversation is boy-girl, not between guys or between girls like you’d see in America more often. I dunno. There are some Japanese kids and Korean kids and one exchange student who talks in broken Korean because it’s the best she can do and I can’t tell or keep straight who’s interested in whom... but... if I had come in from volume 1, I might be interested, because SOMEONE is doing more than just phoning it in, here. And there’s no adapter, so I wonder if it isn’t the honest-to-goodness creator...
Detroit Metal City v2
Viz Signature
I hate to tell you this: It’s no secret that this is a horrible book. It’s trying very, very hard to be horrible, after all. As a book about death metal of the hardest type, it’s got tons of references to rape, hell, pigs, the combination thereof, and much, much worse in the songs of its titular band. But... and I’m as shocked as you must be to hear this—this one is better than the first one. It’s an improvement. Horrible though it still is.
If you’ve just gotten here, DMC is about a guy who lets out his dark side by becoming the leader of a death metal band. He’s quite a wimp in life, but in his very-made-up persona, he’s hardcore. Well, he’s really not at all, but he FAKES hardcore better than the best in his field. However, the horrible, horrible words and concepts that infuse this shocktabulous fakery turned me off last time.
Well, you’ll be happy to know that, as a civilized member of the human race, they’re still turning me off this time. But that doesn’t mean I don’t actually LOOK at what I’m sent to review. And I have to tell you, this time, there’s more characterization, and some concepts that actually have... well, SOMETHING to them.
For example, there’s a hardcore band of all-females who are bashing DMC. Our protagonist is sent to go disrupt their performance... without his makeup, because that would show WHO was causing (well, attempting) the sabotage. While trying to get up on stage, his shirt is torn open, his chest gets all scratched up, and he’s got a cold, so he keeps sort of sneering because his nose is running—and since he was already scrawny in build, the lead singer girl of the rival band just can’t help but see his presence (her imagination helps her out a lot) as a visit from beyond the grave from her hero, Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols.
Here’s another one—a huge fan of DMC writes that he is sick and needs an operation. So our protagonist decides to go and visit him in his sick bed as his lord-of-the-underworld persona, Krauser. So he’s got to encourage this guy to be brave, and go and get his operation... but that’s a NICE thing to do, and Krauser is ridiculously EVIL. So the protagonist guy is wracking his brains trying to do this nice thing and still stay in character as an infernal avatar of diabolism.
Last one: DMC has this little man that they abuse on stage, because, well, the little man gets off on that sort of thing. But our protagonist finds out that the little man has a co-worker he’s got a crush on. So we let the little guy write a song, and sing it for her on stage... and it kinda has a Neil Diamond feel, because that’s the guy’s main musical influence personally... yeah, the attempted craziness just ensues from there.
I can’t recommend this nasty, nasty book to anyone. Please, world, don’t think that I think you should even touch this manga. I hereby officially WARN you that it is a Concerned Mothers of America/CBLDF lawsuit waiting to happen. But if DMC ALREADY sounds like your cup of tea, I can inform you that DMC v2 not only has what you sick, sick people want, it now tries to combine it with things like character and plot as well.
Barb: “What’s so bad about this book, anyway, really?”
Me: “That does it.” >I go to my office, retrieve book, bring to Barb, open book to a given page< “Here, hold this.”
Barb: >reads< “Okay, I hate this.”
Me: “Indeed.”
Barb: “Sure enough, I’m offended.”
Me: “I’m sayin’.”
Barb: “Me, who read the Dark Horse one about the dominatrix who saw ghosts. Me, who read Battle Royale.”
Me: “Uh huh.”
Barb: “And of course you know what really bothered me?”
Me: “Besides the obvious? The art?”
Barb: >Does brief double-take< “Hm? Oh, no. It was... well, I guess the art was... well, I’m not really gonna worry about the art. It really pales in comparison with the main thing.”
Me: “Uh-huh.”
Barb: “That’s right: the adaptation.”
Me: “Beg pardon?”
Barb: “The adaptation! It’s just so clunky! Not smooth! Not... not FUNNY!”
Me: “...”
Barb: “Oh, the _words_ and _what_ they were saying didn’t really offend me. It was the delivery of the lines themselves. That could have been made really funny. But the way it’s done on the page...”
Me: “Uh...huh. Well, I guess with great comedy potential, also inevitably comes great comedic flop potential.”
Barb: “That’s for darn sure.”
Me: “I love how it’s the CRAFT level that’s offended you.”
Barb: “Of course, what else?”
One Thousand and One Nights v8 (see image)
Yen Press
I’d seen this book around for a while, but everyone in it is so pretty, I presumed it was yaoi. Volume 8 suggests that I may have presumed that hastily. Not only am I not seeing boys kissing boys in this volume, but there’s some non-clothedness here, and it seems decidedly female. Basically, this is a story with Middle-Easternish overtones, with crusaders (the Crusades kind, as in Jerusalem), a sultan, Muslim lands, dancing girls, romance, old grudges, you get the idea. It might be interesting to you, especially to those of a history-minded bent, but it’s just not for me.
Kanji in MangaLand v1
JPT Productions
For 24 bucks, this book, printed and apparently created in Spain, but published by Japan Publications Trading Co., Ltd., but distributed here by Kodansha, starts teaching one to read and write kanji. I think its teaching approach is pretty effective, and Barb agrees. They try to associate a given kanji with a little picture that evokes the strokes needed to write it whenever they give you a new one... It looks hard to me, but it also looks like, if anything might work to help teach one kanji, this might. I found it in the library at one of the branch campuses where I teach... I suppose what its existence and presence says about American culture these days is pretty obvious...
And now, a bonus: What Barb Looked At:
Sarasah v1
Yen Press
Barb says: "Wow, this is a rarity: usually, comedic shoujo manga is not particularly romantic nor particularly amusing. But in the case of Sarasah, however, everything works just about the way it's supposed to. The plot, really quickly: girl likes boy, boy very much dislikes girl for no clear reason, complications ensue, she ends up in a coma, and finds out that the problem with this relationship-she-wishes-she-had is due to past-life-issue stuff, so she must go back to the past and fix her karma, or else she'll never get the guy she wants. Neat, huh? The pacing is good, the plot is light and familiar and yet sometimes unpredictable, the situations are genuinely twisty (in a good way), and the quips will genuinely make you smile. The art is beautiful but not the not-uncommon overwhelming level of "OMG my pupils are dialating" Korean-beautiful; you want her to be able to solve her little mystery... you can't quite see what she sees in her love-interest boy, but that's high school for ya... and the fact that it goes to slightly-supernatural past-life areas is just something one didn't quite see comin'. I can see shoujo fans and manhwa-heads liking this. Since I'm not the biggest fan of shoujo in the world, I personally am not the ideal target audience, so I don't know if I'd read this whole series, but that's just me, I think, because I happen to like my supernatural with, well, more stringy-haired ghost-ladies in it. However, even a shoujo-hater might tell you that this one is worthwhile."
: :
|
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
|
![](http://image.ebook30.com/data_images/36/1946540.jpg")