Pam's Book Log

8 January, 2004

Okay, it's obvious that, over the last few months, I've somehow managed to become an avid comics reader. This is partly due to the fact that the Borders where I usually shop has a humongous graphic novels section, and a not-so-great selection of mystery and SF novels. It is also partly due to my lack of time for sitting down and reading (very bad the last few months, because I was taking a class in addition to work)-- I go through comics much more quickly than I do text novels, so I can have a satisfying story-reading experience in a reasonable amount of time.

I am, however, woefully behind on book logging all these comics. So, I'm going to torture my regular readers (hi, all two of you) and do a few long entries to clear the deck, as it were. Regular book-logging will resume in a few weeks. This should, at least, amuse any traffic thrown my way by this shout-out by comics blogger Shawn Fumo.

Without further ado, here are quick comments on books which I don't have much to say about, from series I don't intend to follow any further.

Contrary to what one might expect from the title, this is not a porn comic. The Big O is, in fact, an art-deco giant robot. I picked these up because I read a review somewhere or other that said, "If you like the anime, you should give the manga a try." I did like the anime (at least up until the completely incomprehensible ending of the second season--what was up with that?), so I gave the manga a try.

Basic idea: Robert Smith is a professional "negotiator" in post-apocalyptic Paradigm City. As part of the apocalypse, everybody in the city lost their memories 40 years ago, so nobody knows what happened to wipe out the rest of civilization, and leave Paradigm City standing, but with no past. Roger has acquired an impressive piece of pre-apocalyptic technology-- the giant robot, Big O, which he puts to use when his negotiations become heated. He's kind of like Batman, but with less bitterness and better fashion sense.

The comic is not a complete rehash of the anime, it's got different stories. But, they don't really add much to the story established in the TV series, so I'm not really interested in buying more. My recommendation: if the idea of art-deco giant robots appeals to you, watch the anime.

Unsurprisingly, the conflict with Evil Overlord Freeza comes down to a one-on-one battle between Freeza and Son Goku. There is a lot of fighting in these books. Many things blow up, including the planet Namek. (Actually, Goku and Freeza duking it out while the planet disintegrates around them is pretty cool.) In the end, most of the good guys are okay, as is my favorite bad guy, Vegeta. (He's just too cool to kill off permanently. Somebody needs to act as a foil for the goody-goody heroes.)

The next storyline begins in Vol. 12, with the arrival of a strange young man from the future, bearing a warning of future calamity-- the coming of a group of killer androids who will kill all the heroes, and impose a reign of terror on the Earth. But, if our boys can train hard enough, and be prepared, maybe they can change the future.

With these volumes, I'm caught up to the part of the story I've seen on TV, so I think I'll pass on the following umpteen-zillion installments. I've got a lot more manga to read and review.

(Previous volumes of DBZ)

One of the reasons I read more Japanese comics than American ones is simple practicality. American graphic novels are physically larger (i.e. harder to carry around), and cost more money for fewer pages of entertainment. Another reason is that I'm not really into the standard Marvel/DC superhero stuff. (Nothing wrong with superhero stuff, it's just not my cup of fish.) I was pleasantly surprised when I came across this book from Crossgen. It's published in a smaller, cheaper, manga-size format, and it's straight-up fantasy adventure.

The world of Meridian is cool--there's a bunch of floating city-states which lord it over the impoverished surface-dwellers. Sephie is the daughter of the leader of one of these city-states, Meridian. Her father dies in a very strange incident, and Sephie becomes titular leader of her city. In reality, she's little more than a puppet for her powerful, less-than-scrupulous uncle. As an added twist, the incident which killed Sephie's dad left both her and her uncle with magical powers: hers is the power of creation, his that of destruction. Eventually Sephie escapes from her uncle's clutches, and sets out on a quest to free her people from his dominion.

The story is good, the art is absolutely beautiful, and I'd keep reading the series if the publisher wasn't going out of business, and hadn't canceled the series. Boo.

I don't really care for Anne Rice-esque vampires, but I do like stories about vampire hunters. Hellsing is a secret organization, affiliated with the British government and Church of England, which is dedicated to hunting down and destroying vampires and other creatures of the night. Their secret weapon is a super-powerful vampire, Alucard (yes, that's Dracula spelled backwards), who is magically bound to serve the head of the Hellsing family, Integra Hellsing. It sounds like something I'd enjoy, so I was predisposed to like this.

Unfortunately, Hellsing suffers from Preacher-itis, or Garth Ennis Syndrome. That is to say, an overemphasis on gore and shock value at the expense of plot and character development. The quality of the art varies from decent to mediocre. And, if the author wanted to do a manga dealing with organized religion, he really ought to have done a bit of research into the religious groups he portrays, if only for the sake of supporting the reader's willing suspension of disbelief. Really, what the hell is "The Protestant Church" supposed to be? Also-- and this is a Dark Horse error-- the accents used for the Irish and German characters are ridiculous and, in the Irish case, nigh-incomprehensible.

The manga does have some redeeming features. I liked the chapter which told the story of how Integra became the head of the Hellsing family and how she acquired Alucard ('cause it had, like, plot and stuff), and some of the visuals are quite nifty-- the part where Alucard revives himself after being decapitated by an insane Catholic priest is cool. I'd say the book is worth what I spent on it-- a couple of lazy hours on a Sunday morning. (I borrowed it from a friend, so fortunately I didn't expend any of my hard-earned treasure on it.

After I read FAKE, I surfed around on the Web, looking to find out more about the series and the author. I thereby discovered that gay-romance-written-for-a-female-audience is a popular genre in Japan (referred to as "shonen-ai," or "boys' love"). This struck me as an interesting example of Busse's Law of Japanese Culture, and I wanted to find out more about it. Since this seems to be the only widely-available example of that genre available in English (except for FAKE), I decided to check it out.

Gravitation is about Shuichi Shindou, an 18-year-old gay Japanese boy whose dream is to become a rock star. He and his bandmate have some unrefined talent, but haven't made it past doing opening acts in the local club scene. One night, Shuichi meets famous romance novelist Eiri Yuki, who thoroughly disses the aspiring musician's song-writing. Shuichi gets very depressed by this, and becomes determined to prove his critic wrong. He also develops a major crush on the sexy novelist, and pursues him relentlessly. Eiri eventually agrees to have sex with Shuichi, probably just to shut him up, but he doesn't like his songs any better.

The first volume is not bad. I was interested enough to get the second book, mostly because I found Eiri Yuki to be a potentially-interesting character. He's jaded and bitter beyond his years (a scant 22), and I wondered, "What the hell happened to him to make him that way?" Unfortunately, by the end of Volume 2, I'd lost interest in the plot. Murakami does not, IMO, do a good job of showing the reader why these characters are attracted to each other. Shuichi's a whiny drama-queen, and Eiri is cold and cruel; they have nothing in common; they barely know each other, even. I just don't find the relationship the least bit believable.

It's conceivable that the series could improve in future volumes as the characters are developed more thoroughly, but I'm not interested enough to keep buying it to find out. To be fair, I think this is more a case of "not my thing," rather than "objectively bad." I think I'd like it better if: 1. the story was told from Eiri's point of view, rather than Shuichi's, or 2. I was a lot younger--like 15 or so.

Phew. Next up: clearing my backlog of comics from series I'm going to keep reading.