29 Nov 2008
Posted by Martin [Tags: Inio Asano, realistic fiction]
I splashed out on Solanin on recommendation and the fact that I was so impressed with Inio Asano’s more recent Nijigahara Holograph but to my surprise they’re actually pretty different. Apart from the general themes of young people’s alienation in today’s society and an examination of how relationships between friends can shape the course of their lives, Solanin is quite a departure from the mind-bending experience that was Nijigahara Holograph but ultimately it was actually the more enjoyable of the two for me.
…Holograph is a labyrinthine, somewhat supernatural piece that came off like a rewrite of Donnie Darko by David Lynch, only even better; Solanin is I guess a slice-of-life story but the impression it’s left on me makes me feel as though I’d do it a disservice by merely calling it ‘just a SoL manga’. The exquisite way in which the lives of the characters are portrayed gives me a feeling that left me speechless for some time afterwards; the truth is, when I look at these people I might as well be staring into a mirror.
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Reading stats: 947 words & 1 image; estimated reading time 3:47 mins
[14 Comments]
01 Nov 2008
Posted by Martin [Tags: Inio Asano]
I originally planned to write a post on this after I fully understood the story but after not one but three visits to Inio Asano’s tangled web of genius, I still can’t say with certainty that I can fully grasp what the manga is actually trying to say. It gives a mixture of feelings - the most immediate one of course being my sensation of mental deficiency at being unable to make all of the numerous connections - but fortunately I’m still able to recommend it with only a partial understanding under my belt. This is a challenging, striking and fascinating piece of work that stands up there with the best of the headscratchers, and it looks stunning too.
One comparison that frequently crops up is with that of the feature film Donnie Darko, which is somewhat similar to Nijigahara Holograph on a number of levels, one being its obtuse nature. I didn’t really get Donnie Darko at first either from a thematic standpoint until certain explanations were e-mailed to me (which are also found in the DVD extras) but I admired its storytelling and its ability to reveal more details with subsequent revisits; the frustration was tempered by a gradual drip-feed of “Ah, I see!” moments as the pieces of the jigsaw began to fall into place. Nijigahara Holograph works in a similar way, except the explanations aren’t included in some sort of omake feature; the reader is very much on his or her own, and in my case ends up feeling simultaneously awed and a little stupid. If I were to wait until I got all the pieces in place, this post may never get written.
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Reading stats: 1001 words & 4 images; estimated reading time 4:00 mins
[9 Comments]
14 Oct 2008
Posted by Martin [Tags: Translucent]
After reading Russell’s favourable review over on UK-A and Anna’s equally glowing appraisal at 2 Screenshot Limit I decided to hang up my shoujo reservations again and check out the first instalment of Translucent.
Firstly, I don’t think it matters a damn if the genre appeals to you or not. The story and its characters have a really appealing warmth and bittersweet quirkiness, regardless of gender or age of the target readership; this is a story about ordinary people, ordinary lives but with a fantastical twist that serves as both an interesting plot device and a metaphor for some of life’s common issues.
As is so often the case, I think there’s a lot of overlap between well-written shoujo and seinen, a comfortable but blurry middle ground that this particular title falls in. It could be a shoujo title I guess but I think it appeals as much, if not more to, the seinen demographic because the topics covered take on slightly different, but nonetheless insightful, relevance when viewed from differing points of view that vary according to age and life experience.
The story focuses on Chizuka Shiroyama, an ordinary teenager with aspirations for a career in theatre but suffers from a mysterious condition whose only symptom is that of rendering her partially invisible. In all other respects she is completely normal and in perfect health but the periodic transparency makes an already quiet and shy individual even more insecure and introverted. Successive chapters explore the day-to-day life of Chizuko, her family and friends, and other people who share the strange ‘Translucent Syndrome’.
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Reading stats: 901 words & 1 image; estimated reading time 3:36 mins
[6 Comments]
05 Feb 2008
Posted by Martin [Tags: Gyo]
It’s been a short but gleefully twisted journey, this - Gyo has in turns been sickening, cheesy, funny and imaginative but with some genuine scares along the way. No matter how serious the plight of our hapless hero was, I still couldn’t take the whole thing entirely seriously: everything from the concept to the execution shows an intuitive knowledge on the part of the author in regards to what makes for a good horror tale but it seems to keep its tongue firmly in cheek.
The second volume got off to a bit of a faltering start with a large jump forward in the timeline, which threw the continuity a bit; I would have liked to have seen the situation progressively worsen, especially with Ito’s striking and detailed art style. It turns out that even after falling unconscious in a pit of dead sea life, Tadashi is even more intent on finding poor Kaori, who is infected with the deadly disease. At this point I ought to give a fuller synopsis but if I outlined cows with mechanical legs, a Death Stench Circus and an airship that runs on pure stink, you’d think I was making it up, right? Truth be told, I couldn’t even begin to come up with half the stuff that Ito does - he’s not afraid to put his characters through extremely unpleasant experiences either. Take for example the Death Stench machines that run on the gas: they draw it from BOTH ENDS of the the victims, which is some sight to behold, I can assure you.
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Reading stats: 900 words & 1 image; estimated reading time 3:36 mins
[No Comments]
27 Nov 2007
Posted by Martin [Tags: Gyo]
“Fearless wretch/Insanity/He watches/Lurking beneath the sea…”
As horror manga goes, Gyo: the Death Stench Creeps is one of the oddest. It’s not scary in the conventional creepy sense, but in terms of hoards of unstoppable, stinking sea life scuttling out of the sea and onto the shore, it takes some beating in the revulsion department. The story begins when Tadashi and his girlfriend Kaori take a holiday in Okinawa but encounter some ocean life that you won’t find on the National Geographic…fish with legs are invading!
The premise of Gyo has everything that a monster movie-style manga tale could wish for: innocent victims, a thoroughly repulsive and mysterious threat, expendable background characters, a scientist guy trying to find out the truth behind it all…the concepts are born from a long tradition of shlocky B-movie chillers, making it a mixture of Jaws with a bit of Godzilla thrown in for good measure. I can actually imagine this being given the low-budget horror movie treatment and coming out of it pretty well (one of Junji Ito’s previous works, Uzumaki, has been adapted into a live-action film), albeit being a little cheesy and tongue-in-cheek. Hell, it’s all about fish with legs, for crying out loud!
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Reading stats: 570 words & 1 image; estimated reading time 2:17 mins
[3 Comments]
23 Nov 2007
Posted by Martin [Tags: realistic fiction, Self-indulgent nostalgia]
Everyone has a title or two that, against our better taste or judgement, we can’t bring ourselves to dislike. Whether it’s that derivative parade of shiny mecha, overlong Shonen Jump cash cow or high tech girls-with-guns offering, we all have one that we hate to love. I can even name a title from each one of those example categories: I’ve followed the early episodes of Naruto and will continue to do so until the DVD release catches up with the filler arcs, Bubblegum Crisis is a classic and I can’t wait for Macross Frontier either, even if it turns out to suck; nevertheless, I’d like to think that my collection is a worthy collection of artistic and intelligent entertainment…more or less.
Back when I was only just getting into manga, shortly after my in-at-the-deep-end introduction to anime proper (another story), Tokyopop were only just beginning to get a reliable and varied stock on UK shelves; the almighty Death Note had yet to arrive on our shores in paper form and I was still finding my feet (even moreso than now!) as a fan. I also had the brain-melting grind of university with the memories of all-night study sessions, coursework deadlines and frantically legging it to the bus stop to get to the exam room on time fresh in my mind. Maybe this is a valid excuse for reading every volume of the Love Hina manga from cover to cover…read on and I’ll let you weigh up the evidence for yourself.
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Reading stats: 1622 words & 2 images; estimated reading time 6:29 mins
[12 Comments]
08 Nov 2007
Posted by Martin [Tags: Monster]
The sixth instalment focuses very closely on Tenma’s former fianceé Eva, as well as the irrepressible Lunge and highlights how our hero is being hunted down on all sides. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned as the old saying goes; true enough, Eva will stop at nothing (except maybe a bar) to exact her revenge on him. She even goes as far as teaming up with Roberto in order to get what she wants, which really shows how she is at her lowest ebb.
Lunge also exhibits an almost fanatical desire to bring Tenma in - who else would try to arrest someone while suffering from a serious knife wound?! It’s a shame really that Lunge’s suspicions are so all-consuming yet so misplaced - a mind like his only works to its full potential when it is open to alternative possibities. As it is, he is so convinced of Tenma’s guilt that his insight is very blinkered indeed.
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Reading stats: 466 words & 1 image; estimated reading time 1:52 mins
[No Comments]
25 Oct 2007
Posted by Martin [Tags: Death Note]
Ah, L, how I miss you. The crazy snack-addicted guy who sat on the edge of his seat awkwardly holding a teacup and plotting his next move to bring Kira to justice is no more. In all honesty the story should be winding down now, with only a denoument involving Light’s fate left to address. Sadly this is SJ we’re dealing with here so I suppose the show must go on. I wasn’t too keen on reading this far actually, but since I’d already bought the thing and I was waiting for a train with only a pint of cider for company I thought I might as well give it a shot.
Actually, the new arc isn’t half bad. To (mis)quote Mike Myers in Wayne’s World, “Ah, it is like Star Trek: the Next Generation. It is in many ways superior but will never be recognised as the original.” Mello and Near are worthy enough adversaries, with the only sticking point that they’re pretty much clones of L. Seriously guys, if you can create such great characters, why make carbon copies of the important ones? It does spice things up a bit though since the two of them are going after Kira separately: it becomes a three-way battle of wits as the two successors to L become rivals in bringing Light down.
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Reading stats: 554 words & 1 image; estimated reading time 2:13 mins
[1 Comment]
09 Oct 2007
Posted by Martin [Tags: Hayao Miyazaki]
I’m not a prolific graphic novel reader, as the infrequency of the updates in this blog’s manga category will testify. As one of the first manga series I read to completion though, the in-print version of Miyazaki’s futuristic eco-fable left me stunned. Even after experiencing several other titles since, this series is in a league of its own: I’ll leave out a detailed synopsis because I’ll probably be reviewing the feature film soon anyway. Suffice to say it covers everything the anime did and more: what the anime explains, it explains further. What the anime shows, it shows the same but in more detail. Then it takes the whole story in an entirely new direction which is more unexpected, interesting and ambitious than the anime adaptation ever hoped to achieve. It’s also a world apart from child-friendly, Spirited Away-esque adventure for those who are worried about that.
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Reading stats: 901 words & 3 images; estimated reading time 3:36 mins
[5 Comments]
26 Sep 2007
Posted by Martin [Tags: Kare Kano]
In the end, something’s gotta give. When two straight-A students neglect their studies to spend time together, it’s only a matter of time before the school notices. The higher you are, the further there is to fall - the top of the class is a long way up!
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Reading stats: 516 words & 1 image; estimated reading time 2:04 mins
[2 Comments]
