The End of the World

[Manga Reviews]

Gyo volume #2: the deeper vileness

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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[Manga Reviews]

Gyo volume #1: fish with legs!

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!

[3 Comments]

[Manga Reviews, OAVs, Movies and Full Series]

Love Hina manga

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.

[8 Comments]

[Manga Reviews]

Monster volume 6

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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[Manga Reviews]

Death Note volume 8

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.

[1 Comment]

[Manga Reviews, OAVs, Movies and Full Series]

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind manga

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.

[5 Comments]

[Manga Reviews]

Kare Kano (His and Her Circumstances) volume #3

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!

[2 Comments]

[Manga Reviews]

Kare Kano (His and Her Circumstances) volume #2

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Kare Kano]

“I stop but I stare too much/afraid that I care too much/and I hardly dare to touch/for fear that the spell may be broken…”

This is where it all goes official as Yukino and Souichiro are a couple now…but they hardly get time to see each other due to school commitments! There are some great comedy moments with everyone flying around to get festival arrangements finalised and so on, but the main impression is that the two of them aren’t used to being a couple yet. They still exhibit the nervousness and insecurity - Yukino is so afraid to tell Souichiro her feelings that she can’t do it through words alone. This gives what is to my mind the volume’s best scene in which she shows him by a simple gesture; putting to an end her selfish notion of protecting her own feelings.

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[Manga Reviews]

Monster volume 5

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Monster]

The fifth volume shows little of Johan’s larger plan but makes up for this with portraying Tenma’s efforts in trying to understand him and track him down. There’s a great side-story featuring Lunge, who is still convinced that Johan is Tenma’s alter-ego but the main event is Tenma’s effort to understand Johan at a criminal psychologist level, which causes him to cross paths with an old friend and, ultimately, face Lunge himself.

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[Manga Reviews]

Kare Kano (His and Her Circumstances) volume #1

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Kare Kano]

As you may be aware, the animated series of His and Her Circumstances (or Kare Kano to its fans) is one of my all-time favourites. My only criticism was the sudden ending, which will hopefully be solved by reading Masame Tsuda’s original manga - at twenty-one volumes in length though, I’m in for the long haul! Hopefully I’ll be able to give accurate impressions of the series without falling into fanboy rave territory.

[3 Comments]