I’m hoping to turn my irregular purchase of various graphic novels into a weekly thing, forgoing subscriptions in the process. A couple of weeks ago, this resulted in my purchase of the first volumes of The Walking Dead, Fables, and Monster. In the spirit of wasted time that a blog represents, I reviewed the former two on myspace, but neglected Monster. So I’ll pick up where I left off.
It’s easy to see why Naoki Urasawa’s Monster is so highly regarded. The suspenseful story revolves around Kenzo Tenma, a brilliant young Japanese surgeon who has come to practice at the best hospital in Germany. Tenma is kind-hearted, honest, and trusting, and, despite being the best surgeon in the hospital, is totally unprepared for the office politics surrounding his bosses, fellow doctors, and patients. I’ve always believed that the best horror stories should keep the main character in a constant state of moral confusion and a harsh and tragic environment. Monster pulls this off seamlessly, as Tenma’s co-workers turn against him and as he is forced to take responsibility for his unique abilities. The book also keeps itself suspenseful by introducing unexplainable events, usually surrounding two of Tenma’s patients, the twins Johan and Anna.
The constant shift between hopefulness and despair and happiness and horror highlights strong emotions throughout the book, while the plot twists will leave you confused and frightened. It helps that Urasawa deviates from traditional manga character models, going with something a little more realistic than what you’d find in, like, Girls Bravo (ha!). Altogether, Monster emits the strange sensation of gritty darkness in the odd environment of a place of healing. An excellent read.
Now, I have picked up a few other novels since last week, so I’ll continue this post with the three of them. I continued the Fables and Walking Dead series with vol.2 of each. Fables has yet to impress me. Granted, vol.2 is better than vol.1, but the entire story feels so uninspired. There are a few aspects I enjoyed, like the vague connections to Orwell’s Animal Farm, but this series, so far anyway, seems to rely too much on cameos by various fables – fables who have lost the charm of their legendary selves. For example, Goldilocks is a sadistic, gun-toting, power-hungry freedom fighter. Well, that’s great, but such a radical change from her porridge-loving self is pointless if there’s no character depth below that yellow hair. Bill Willingham writes her in for a scene and seems to designate her as a significant character, then abandons her, turning her into a supporting character for the dozens of other fables that he wants to show up.
This is the theme I’ve picked up from Fables in general. It seems like a good idea, and builds itself up like a good story, then totally deflates as soon as it comes close to being relevant. I mean, the last chapter is a flippin’ FLASHBACK. YOU DON’T MAKE THE LAST CHAPTER A FLIPPIN’ FLASHBACK. It was totally anticlimactic and felt as if it was stapled to the rest of the story out of necessity rather than a significant part of the story altogether. I’ve lost so much interest in the series, I don’t know if I’m even going to pick up the next volumes.
The Walking Dead vol.2 sadly lacked the wonderful artwork that Tony Moore contributed to the first volume, but Charlie Adlard’s inks were a satisfactory replacement. We continue to follow Rick Grimes and company’s fight for survival as they finally leave the edge of Atlanta to find a haven against the zombies. Unlike Fables, which has had zero character development so far, the Walking Dead survivors each have their own means and vendettas with each other and themselves and prove to be deep and interesting characters.
There is a lot of conflict of interest in volume 2, thematically stemming from the feud between Rick and Shane in the last book. Unfortunately, this leads to a lot of repetitive arguments, the bulk of which end up being swearwords. “You fucking bastard, why the fuck won’t you listen to what I’m fucking saying??!” Things like that. Realistic, maybe, but not particularly articulate. Still, the character relations remain profound and stimulating. Oh, and don’t think that this book is all talk. There are still zombies. There are still grisly deaths and buckets of gore. Don’t worry.
Along with Fables and The Walking Dead, I got a manga last week that proved to be far better than my other purchases. Midori Days, or “midori no hibi” vol.2. I had come across midori no hibi online at http://eatsushi.org (warning: some ecchi nudity), but had only read the first volume because of my slow internet connection, so when I discovered it had been physically released in America, I was ecstatic. Of course, Eat Sushi has all the volumes with excellent English translation, so if pics don’t take half a week to load on your connection, you can read them for free here.
Midori Days chronicles the days of a high school tough guy, Seiji Sawamura, whose right hand is unexplainably turned into the upper body of a teenaged girl named Midori. Freaky, yeah? Weirder yet, Midori used to be a normal teen and has had a crush on Seiji since middle school. Of course, Seiji has to keep up his appearance as the toughest guy in town to avoid beatdowns from his countless enemies, so he has to hide Midori from everyone, which, given her excitable nature, proves to be easier said than done.
The manga’s characters are crazy and the comic is funny as hell. Additionally, Seiji is a total bad-ass sometimes, even though his right hand has boobies. Think of Midori Days as a cross between the better parts of Love Hina and Yu Yu Hakusho without demons. Then go further and add Kazurou Inoue’s wonderful timing and talented and effective artwork (IMPACT!!!). Seriously, there are very few manga action-comedies that I would deem worth reading and Midori Days is probably at the top of the list. Of course, it helps that Midori herself makes me want to sing certain parts of Reel Big Fish’s “I want your girlfriend to be my girlfriend too.”
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