Ghost in the Shell

By Shirow Masamune
Published in the US by Kodansha


Slugline: Philosophical violence or violent philosophy?

Motoko Kusanagi is a paramilitary police officer unit in near future Tokyo.  Cybernetic enhancements and computer use is near ubiquitous, allowing human brains to be hacked to alter memories or have a full body replacement.  Most of the stories in the volume are stand alone as Motoko and her squad rein in government excesses of the rest of the as rampant corruption and self-serving agendas are behind nearly every case they tackle.  In one Motoko encounters a ghost, a living program, and the experience leaves her shaken.  When it looks like that one of the politicians have finally succeeded in getting Motoko thrown under the bus to further his own schemes, Motoko turns the situation around with the help of the ghost.  This leads to her making an unusual decision though debating what is life and its meaning has a lot of resonance in the volume overall.

Ghost in the Shell is a classic manga in American because Shirow Masamune’s long relationship with Dark Horse Comics meant that his titles have been available in the US long before the rise of popularity and availability of other manga.  This story has been retold several times in anime, though this is a case were the retellings have allowed adaptors to boil the story into a coherent whole.  For instance, the Ghost in the Shell movie melded together a half dozen separate stories from this volume into a single narrative.  This makes the source material suffer in comparison to later versions, which is unusual. The art is much softer and fluid than you would expect in such a hard sci-fi setting.  So expecting to read this and find the great original material that all the adaptations have ruined is not realistic but it is still a good story though fond of its philosophical musings. 



Ghost in the Shell is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

.hack//Legend of the Twilight, the Complete Collection

Art by Rei Idumi with Story by Tatsuya Hamazaki

Published in the US by TokyoPop

Slugline: A secret epilogue

Shugo and Rena have won the online avatars of the legendary dot hackers in the MMORPG The World and gather friends that are not just interested in their famous avatars but in sharing their adventures.  Shugo while dying in The World is gifted with an artifact which allows him to break the game’s rules. The appearance of their avatars and artifact has CC Corp, the owners of The World, in a frenzy to prevent what happened the last time they were around.  Shugo and Rena encounter the avatar of a child claiming that the entity that gave Shugo the artifact is her mother and believe returning the child is their quest.  With that goal they explore the seedy underbelly of The World and overcome resistance by CC Corp to return the daughter and tell her mother their stories.  Along the way, colleagues of the original owners of their avatars help them.

While not precisely a sequel to previous .hack stories, Legend of the Twilight draws heavily on the consequences and characters of them.  Roughly the first half of the volume merely refers to them but in the remainder these previous stories become ever more important until it seems that Legend of the Twilight is just an epilogue not its own story.  As the story becomes more of an epilogue the action/adventure aspects become minimal until the whole point is to tell the story to others rather for it to have its own purpose.  While it manages to avoid most of the metaphysical diversions that other stories in the .hack series fall prey to, it still feels the need to ponder the nature of friends and comrades.  In a way, this being a complete collection means taking the less interesting parts at the end with the more entertaining ones.

.hack//Legend of the Twilight, the Complete Collection is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

.hack//Cell, vol. 1

Art by Akira Mutsuki with Story by Ryo Suzukaze

Published in the US by TokyoPop

Slugline:  Is it surprising that virtual reality screws up your identity?

Midori is a high school girl who becomes ill and is confined to the hospital as she grows weaker.  There is another Midori who is a professional victim in The World, a massively muliplayer computer RPG.  As a victim she allows other Player Character to try to hit her earning money if they fail .  However being a victim can attract Player Killers (PKs) who hunt down and kill other players in the game.  Midori's latest session of being a victim spirals out of a control as a crowd of PKs surround her which attracts the attention of a PK Killer.  The PK Killer is so powerful that the PKs later kidnap Midori's sidekick Adamas who is killed and resurrected repeatedly to attract either Midori or the PK Killer's attention.  Adamas is toughened up by his experience so he asks to meet Midori in real life.  This forces Midori to confront her suppressed memories as the Midori in the hospital struggles to live.

It has been hard to review the .hack titles since they all seem to be too abstract for their own good.  Using computer games as a metaphor to explore reality and identity is all well and good, but .hack tries too hard with characters wondering if anything exists rather than starting smaller such as if they have done what they think they have.  When Midori's view of the world collapses and she is left with nothing, it is hard to care because everything so far in the story has seemed random and meaningless.  The volume also ends abruptly with no satisfying partial resolution or even interesting cliffhanger to draw readers back, just Midori getting more lost and apparently fading away.



.hack//Cell, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Starcraft: Ghost Academy vol. 1

Written by Keith R. A. Decandido with Art by Fernardo Heinz Furukawa
Published by TokyoPop

Slugline: Brain panning is not an "This your brains on drugs" reference.

This manga fills in a missing gap in the Starcraft: Nova novel when Nova goes to the Ghost Academy.  In Starcraft, Ghosts are psionically powerful humans that are drafted to help keep the Dominion secure.  Nova is training to be one after suffering the the standard traumatizing childhood awakening of her psionic powers that both drives and isolates her.  But she is not allowed to be too isolated because the Ghost Academy trains in teams, and because of her isolated nature the others in her team suffer in their grading.  Things come to head when one of her teammates, a son of powerful political leader, helps create a situation in which another teammate who is a drug addict goes off the rails.  Though Nova helps her teammate and graduates to the next stage of her training, she has her memories erased of the incident and gains a new foe she does not even remember.

This is another title where the lack of knowledge about Starcraft handicaps the reader since it seems to expect that you already know background. This is made worse because Nova has already starred in a novel with the manga taking place in a gap in the novel.  As an example, some of the characters seem extraneous but if the reader knew the larger story their presence may make sense. The main character Nova is in a journey to be more connected to her fellow soldiers, but there is a moment of that journey that is missing. In the manga she realizes her behavior is harmful, and there are moments where she connects with the rest of her team, but there the moment in between when she makes the decision to change which is missing. While these are problems, they are not terrible ones since one of the purposes of the manga is to fill out the Starcraft backstory, so as long as it does that the manga has some worth.

Starcraft: Ghost Academy vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Deadman Wonderland, vol. 1

By Jinsei Kataoka and Kazuma Kondou
Published in the US by TokyoPop

Slugline:  Prisons and amusement parks are not a good combination

In the near future Ganta is among the few survivors of the Great Tokyo Earthquake but by the time he is a teenager he barely remembers it and has adapted to high school life.  The mysterious Red Man then kills everyone else in his class and Ganta is convicted of the crime and is quickly sent to Deadman Wonderland, a combination private prison and amusement park built on Tokyo's ruins.  Private prisons are never nice places in fiction and Deadman Wonderland is no exception with prisoners pitted against each other to entertain visitors and earn privileges.  In the case of death row prisoners like Ganta, the privileges include living for another three days.  To help him survive long enough to prove his innocence a childhood friend from pre-earthquake Tokyo is helping him while Ganta also learns to master the powers that the Red Man left in him while killing his classmates.

While there are some similarities to such titles as Battle Royale and Death Note (here are our reviews for Death Note 1-6 and 7-10), here the main tension seems to be from Ganta coming to grips to the mysteries that surround him.  The Red Man is central to these mysteries and at this stage in the series he is like a storm that comes in and upsets the natural order of Ganta's life. Shiro, Ganta's childhood friend, helps lighten the title though still leaving the danger in it intact. That way the story is not too dark though how maniac Shiro is will have to be managed so it doesn't become silly and descend into parody, admittedly not terrible danger. This is a good start to a potentially complex emotionally charged thriller, but it is still only a good beginning not proof of a successful continuing title.

Deadman Wonderland, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga

-Ferdinand

Moyasimon, vol. 1

By Masayuki Ishikawa
Published in the US by Del Rey


Slugline: Who knew that E. coli were so cute?

Tadayasu and Kei are childhood friends that grew up on farms and have decided to go to an agricultural college. Tadayasu has a mysterious talent to literally see microbes and identify them that the agricultural college can enhance. Since both of theirfamilies rely on fermentation in their agricultural products, Tadayasu's ability means that both could thrive. An old friend of Tadayasu's grandfather teaches at the college and has heard of Tadayasu's ability. The professor hopes to use it further his own research while some of the upperclassmen think that Tadayasu could be useful in their get rich quick schemes. Despite all of the confusing attention Tadayasu and Kei just want to get through and enjoy college.

The major problem with this manga is that is filled with major info-dumps making it read as something between a love letter to Japanese agriculture and a microbial science textbook. Despite that concern the info-dumps are handled well, reminding one of the technical asides that are found on CSI or Numb3rs. The manga can be really disgusting as it show faux food products that people are willing to eat once they have been fermented or pickled, but it isn't too gory. In spite of these concerns the manga was still enjoyable. The characters were fun, the manga managed to give microbes a sense of personality and none of the plots were overwhelming silly. I'm not sure over how manga episodes that this premise could be stretched, but here at least it works.



Moyasimon, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Mikansei, vol. 1

By Majikoi
Published in the US by TokyoPop


Sluglines: Singers who don't pretend to be able to sing.

In the 23rd century, the 21st century is seen as a crude and immodest era. That is also the reason why Neo likes it, especially because of the singing, dancing and short skirts. She is accidentally hurled back in time and immediately finds a reluctant singing partner in Sayaya. Despite early disastrous performances, Neo so loves singing she manages to keep Sayaya involved as they work together as they move towards a seemingly impossible goal of impressing a talent manager. There are additional complications ranging from Neo's inability to contact her future, the resemblance of a 21st century singer to her missing 23rd century childhood friend and who is secretly supporting her in the 21st century.

One of the problems of idol manga is how to represent singing in that format. Since it is nearly impossible to get a tune or melody from reading the lyrics, I tend to just scan over them because if they become important they will be repeated. When the manga tries to have characters hailed as talented musician with only the lyrics to go by it is hard to take it seriously. Mikansei gets around this problem by having the first audiences boo the characters offstage. Considering how often lead characters of manga just have to sing once to become stars, when that didn't happen here it was a pleasant surprise. The characters are putting in the time and effort means that when they finally 'really' perform their applause will have been earned. Neo is facing many challenges not just in her musical profession or romantically, but on different levels as well but none are such thatNeo's sunny attitude appears to be denying reality. Mikansei succeeds because it subverts and deals with the cliches of idol manga rather than ignoring them.



Mikansei, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Battlestar Galactica: Echoes of New Caprica

Stories by Emily Salzfass, Richard Hatch and Mike Wellman and Art by Chrissy Delk, Christopher Schons and Anthony Wu
Published by TokyoPop


Slugline: Just as dark and depressing as the original.

This is an anthology of Battlestar Galactica stories based on New Caprica storyline, when the humans were under Cylon occupation. Former President Roslin becomes a teacher and tries to balance educating and keeping her students safe with the demands that the Resistance and Cylons make on their parents. Temporary President Zarek after the escape from New Caprica makes decisions that are both difficult and easy on how to deal with humans collbators with the Cylons. Kara (the pilot Starbuck) has to decide after New Caprica what her relationship with her false daughter Kacey will be now that she has rejoined the fleet and the only lies left are the ones she tells herself.

Despite not having watched the new series, the volume gives enough information to understand what happened during the New Caprica storyline and why it was important to the characters. But this is probably one of the books that should be read in conjunction with the series in order to get the most enjoyment out of it, since the storyline in Battlestar Galactica was constantly changing and this touches on issues that the series could not take the time to examine. The Roslin story was an interesting view of life under occupation and featured its uncertainty, but the ending was weak and confusing, robbing the story of much of its power. The Zarek story covered ground that was already gone over during the series, but the Kara story did not, exploring the emotional fallout of Kara's time on New Caprica along with how it did not change despite her wanting it to, making it the strongest entry.



Battlestar Galactica: Echoes of New Caprica is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Manga: Bounkenshin

Stories by David Gerrold, Diane Duane, Christine Boylan and F.J. DeSanto with Art by E.J. Su, Chrissy Delk, Don Hudson and Bettina Kurkoski
Published in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline: Can a story be too faithful to its source material?

This an anthology title, with the first story being patterned on the tried and true "Wesley Crusher learns an important lesson" style of episode. There is also a scientific mystery story while the final two stories explore the fallout of broadcast episodes. These stores are reminiscent of early Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes in that they are more cerebral rather than action oriented and are humanistic, as in the outcomes are determined by human emotions and instincts. That results in very specific kinds of stories, ones that Star Trek: TNG moved away from in later episodes and in the spirit that Gene Roddenberry created the series in. This is not necessarily a judgment on the stories, but it does describe them and if you are expecting stories from other eras of Star Trek you will be disappointed.

The cover proclaims that one of the stories is written by David Gerrold, who is best known for writing the original series episode The Trouble with Tribbles. However, his contribution is the Wesley Crusher story which feels like it goes over ground that has been covered in many episodes before. David Gerrold has written some very adult oriented material, but in this case it feels like that he wrote a story that was more kid or comic book oriented. All of the stories are relatively self-contained, even the ones that spin out of broadcast episodes, with the only thing that you really need to know is that Picard once was taken over by the Borg. The stories are almost too much like the broadcast episodes, taking on many of the same themes without adding anything new.



Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Manga: Bounkenshin is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Pluto: Urasawa X Tezuka, vol. 1

By Naoki Urasawa and Osamu Tezuka, Co-authored with Takashi Nagasaki and Supervised by Macoto Tezka with the cooperation of Tezuka Productions
Published in the US by Viz

Slugline: A re-imagining of a classic Tezuka/Astro Boy story

Gesicht is a homicide detective in a near future where intelligent robots are common. It has been only recently have robots become difficult to tell apart from humans with robots getting married and having child robots, but robots are still somewhat removed from humanity by an emotional distance. Even Gesicht, himself a robot, can't help but feel some distance from the victims he tries to find justice for. His latest case is the murder of Mont Blanc, has very little emotional distance for everyone in Europe, since Mont Blanc was a beloved and wildly popular forestry robot who was also an environmentalist, poet and former soldier from the Asian wars. Mont Blanc's crime scene is very similar to the crime scene of a human murder which cause a great deal of worry for the authorities. If the two murders are related, only a robot would have the strength to tear apart Mont Blanc but no robot has killed a human in eight years. This disturbing contradiction drives Gesicht to consult with that killer robot, who warns him that there are 8 targets, all powerful robots many with connections to the Asian war. One of them is Atom, better known to American readers as Astro Boy.

This is an authorized extension of a Tezuka's Astro Boy story arc, now told as a murder mystery starring what was then a supporting character. I was not aware of all this back story when I picked up the volume but it was easily able to stand on its own. The characters and the plot are very subtle, holding more than what first appearances would suggest. Sure, there are some silly bits, such as robots with robot children, but once you accept the premises of the story, everything else flows naturally. Knowing Tezuka's titles would deepen one's appreciation for this homage, letting one recognize the off-handed Black Jack mention, but it is strong even without that knowledge.



Pluto: Urasawa X Tezuka, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga

-Ferdinand

20th Century Boys, vol. 1

Story and Art by Naoki Urasawa
Published in the US by Viz


Slugline: What if you were kept to your childish promises to save the world?

When Kenji was young, he and his neighborhood friends had a secret club, with a headquarters in an empty field and a secret sign. Now that they are all adults, they barely remember any of it though many of them still live in the same neighborhood, taking over the stores their parents once ran. Unknown to them at the beginning of the story there is a cult, using some of the same symbols as their childish club and whose leader seems fixated on the neighborhood events of more than 20 years ago. Kenji is drawn into the mystery when one of the old gang commits suicide after seeing the symbol, something the other members of the gang who reunite for the funeral for the first time in years have a hard time believing. As the story flashes back and forward, we see the characters as children and as adults, we realize that this is now how the characters will fulfill their childish desires to save the world.

Kenji is the motivating force among the characters, the one that notices that something weird going on and drags the other characters toward figuring it out. If there hadn't been a flash forward at the beginning of the volume giving you a hint what was going on had global consequences, the story would feel like it is just a slice of life. But once you know the stakes, everything takes on more meaning, and you can spot the signs in the story. The story also speaks of the balance between adult and juvenile urges, the juvenile urge to be the hero, to have meaning, but the reality of the adult life is that you very rarely have a chance to be one, and most of the time you don't realize that the opportunity is at it hand until it past. This is a story of lost chances, and being able to take them again, and what their cost can be.



20th Century Boys, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga

-Ferdinand

Gankutsuou, The Count of Monte Cristo, vol. 1

Manga by Mahiro Maeda, Scenario by Yura Ariwara and Planning by Mahiro Maeda and GONZO
Released in the US by Del Rey


Slugline: Good even for those allergic to reminders of high school English classes

Though I managed to miss reading The Count of Monte Cristo in my journey through high school I remember enough that it is story of revenge. This is a leisurely adaptation as the Count only begins moving his pieces into play in this volume against the three that conspired against him by gaining the friendship of their children, who of course are innocent of their parent's crimes. This is a science fiction adaptation, with spaceships and the like, but it is not too terribly updated, with the sense of old Europe, of nobility and tradition overwhelming any other aspect of the story. This manga is connected to the anime of the same title that was released a few years ago, and shares the same design sensibility, though the full effect is lost in the translation from a full color anime to a black and white manga. Not quite sure who is the protagonist here, the Count is a bit alienated from it seems humanity itself while the children of the villains are a little clueless, naive or distracted to really do that work. So there is no real single character to follow through here, but that just may be just the fault of the original material. I did like the character work, the understated bits and expressions, that work is what makes this interesting, not any newness of the story or the actual characters.



Gankutsuou, The Count of Monte Cristo, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga

-Ferdinand

The Mysterians, vol. 1

Created by Chuck Russel and Michael Uslan, Script by Jay Antani with Art by Matt Hentschel
Published in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline: Not related at all with the cult classic Japanese giant critter movie

Imagine a Earth where Dick Cheney and George Bush were considered environmental wussies. Yes, hard to imagine, but that is the near future of the Mysterians, where the environment is going to hell in a hand-basket, except that there are not enough reeds left growing to weave a hand-basket. But five teenagers whose parents died arguing that the environment and the political situation was deteriorating learn that they have been changed, partly through their own abilities and some of them by genetic/organic engineering derived from alien technology. Wait, alien technology, did I forgot to mention the aliens? Yep, you see the aliens are behind all of the trouble on Earth because they need to reduce the Earth to a polluted wasteland so they can get a decent breath of air. But not to worry, five teenagers who have never meet before will gain strange powers to save the Earth! The only thing that is missing is a few color pages so that we can tell which color each teen's organic bio-armor is, since biologically similar creatures still would never be as tacky to be all in the same color!

Heh, sorry. The environmental message here is a combination of Captain Planet and X-Files, and even some of the classic cult movie THEM. It is so blatant and over the top that it is hard to take seriously. At least from a storytelling perspective, truth always seems so much more illogical since it does not have make sense as a plot. Obviously there is also the sentai/Power Ranger influences on the story are just a little bit obvious. Still, the whole story seems very simplistic, but the creators seem to have decided to compensate for that by having just as much over the top goriness. The disguised aliens are unstoppable unless you pull out their power source, which gives one a lot of reason to rip their corpse apart looking for the important bit. So lots of exposed spines and intestines. Nothing too stomach turning, but it was actually surprising to see it shown. Not sure if the shock value is worth it though.



The Mysterians, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Jyu-Oh-Sei, vol. 1

By Natsumi Itsuki
Released in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline:Classic sci-fi straight out of creature double feature era.

Thor and Rai are identical brothers with radically different personalities. Rai is the studious type wanting to be scientist while Thor wants to be a pilot, but since they are sons of one of the leaders of Earth colonized solar system, they are being pushed more towards leadership positions. But somethings happens, and their parents are killed with the brothers exiled to the secret prison planet Chimera, where the days are months long and the environments are so harsh that most die. Thor and Rai are separated, and Thor learns that his weaker brother has died. In order to get revenge for his family and to get the necessary treatment that all inhabitants of this solar system need to live into their twenties, Thor decides to become the Beast King, leader of Chimera and the sole person allowed off world. In this he assisted by Tiz , one of the few women on the planet that seems astonished by Thor's ability to resist her blunt demands and Third, a character that Thor is rightly suspicious of.

Before cable, you would be able to watch barely logical sci-fi pulp shows and movies on Saturday, dating back to the 50-60s. Popular sci-fi at that them was an uneasy mix of the big idea, the idea of planet's rotation being so slow that it the day/night would be seasons and other little twists on sci-fi tropes. But the big focus of the story would always be the pulp aspects with dramatic rescues, allies who seem to be villains (much like early portrayals of Flash Gordon allies Zarkov and Barin), treacherous environments, even more treacherous enemies and despite the presence of blasters most of the combat being hand to hand. So by the modern styles of sci-fi this is horribly dated, but it also fun and while I would trade my Phillip K. Dick novels for it, it is sci-fi story that many will be able to identify with.



Jyu-Oh-Sei, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Dragon Ball Z, Big Vol. 1

Story and Art by Akira Toriyama
Released in the US by Viz Shonen Jump


Slugline: Who needs plot when you deliver a kick to the head!

It's been five years since the previous volume of DragonBall, and Son Goku has married Chi Chi and has a son named Son Gohan after his dead grandfather, but Son Gohan has not undergone any martial arts training. That is problem, because it turns out that Son Goku is an alien, and the few remaining members of his race want to destroy all life on Earth. Son Goku’s brother shows up, kidnaps Son Gohan and recalls the other two survivors of his race to attack the Earth. Son Goku manages to defeat his brother, at the cost of his own life. While dead, he undergoes further training, and his son Son Gohan undergoes training under the hands of his worst enemy. It takes a year for the two alien Saiyans to reach Earth, and when they do they go through Son Goku's allies, killing several permanently beyond resurrection by the Dragon Balls. Even the Dragon Balls themselves are destroyed by the death of their creator. But SonGoku manages to defeat one of the Saiyans leaving the other, the Saiyan leader Vegeta, ready to rumble.

Thank goodness there are some limits from coming back from the dead, otherwise it would be hard to take any of this seriously. Though taking DragonBall Z seriously is probably something that ought to be discouraged. This is what I think of when I think of Dragon Ball Z. Over the top fighting manga, with ever increasing powerful techniques and secret moves, with stakes increasing until everything... that... we... know is at stake. This is PWP without the sex, just a bash to head, then training to bash the head even better next time. And in this case, the larger BIG format works better than the traditional sized manga volume, because the fight scenes use up pages very quickly, but with almost 600 pages the volume still takes a while to go through. Admittedly, stuff gets a little repetitive (kick to the head, rinse and repeat) but that is just the nature of the fighting manga. So as long as you are not expecting Shakespeare, this delivers (a kick to the head!)

Sorry, couldn't resist that last kick to the head.



Dragon Ball Z, Big Volume 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga

-Ferdinand

The Third, vol. 1

Original Story by Ryo Hoshino, Art by Ariko Itou with Original Character Design by Nao Goto
Released in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline: As a prequel, this manga reminds me of The Phantom Menace

This manga is the prequel of the anime title The Third, another anime title that I have not watched (hrm, I wonder if there is a pattern) so I have to look at this title as is, not as a teaser for the anime. Hundreds of years into the future after a war the majority of the world is desert, and Honoka , who suspiciously habitually wears a bandanna, is a beginning Dune Runner. Dune Runners are the guides and guards of the desert, but Honoka is still working out her approaches and gaining experience. This volume is basically a series of vignettes as she helps her clients and learns about herself.

Back to the slugline, for us old school fanboys, when we went into to see The Phantom Menace, we were subconsciously comparing it to our memories of the original series, which had achieved an unrealistic perfection over time. I got that feeling in reading The Third, that somehow that as a prequel it was not as powerful or simply as well structured as the anime it is based on. The writing and art itself is competent, but it just seems to lack a unifying plot or theme to bind it together. Maybe the characters that were introduced in this volume show up in the anime, and you needed to know that in order to bind the plot together, but at that point that is information outside of manga that I had no way in knowing, especially if I just picked this manga off a store's bookshelf.



The Third, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

-Ferdinand

eV, vol. 1

Created by Roger Mincheff, written by James Farr with art by Alfa Robbi and Papillon Studio
Published by TokyoPop


Slugline: Beware the Evil Bunnies

The slugline makes me want to sprinkle some of the lines from the Buffy:the Vampire Slayer musical, Once More with Feeling in the review, but I am afraid most people won't get people the reference. For the people who do, just remember Anya's bunny song.

Now that I have that digression out of the way, eV is set 20 minutes and five year's from now. Ev's father is a scientist specializing in nanotechnology and with the arrival of aliens asking for a Earth representative for an interstellar congress. Ev has some issues with her father basically disappearing for 5 years while preparing nanite enhancements for whomever eventually ends planetary representative, but car accident at the last minutes forces Ev's father to sacrifice the last five year's work to save her. But in return, she ends up having to become Earth's planetary rep, and let's just say aliens can be suckered just as well as humans by multi-dimensional creatures beyond anything's ken.

I wanted to like this more, but the pacing of the story seemed to be way off, sometimes skipping past things with barely any explanation, other times slowing down to show us details that don't seem to forward the story that much. I suspect that this was originally intended to be in another format (not manga) simply because of how the pacing seems off. There are some big sci-fi ideas, please I am always a sucker for Lovecraftian horrors.

And if the last scene doesn't scream out "sequel" I don't know what does. Is this the continuation of the trend of TV/Movie types getting involved in comics? Comic publishers have had an influx of Hollywood creators, is it nowmanga's turn? And is that a good or bad thing? I don't know, but in this particular instance, maybe the creators needed to acclimate more to the format.



eV, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

-Ferdinand

CBG Review: Agent Boo, vol. 1

I have written a review for Agent Boo, vol. 1, available on The Comic Buyer's Guide website. Please remember that the CBG website uses a 4 star rating. Check it out!



Agent Boo, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in manga and anime.

- Ferdinand

CBG Review: 0/6, vols. 1 + 2

As a way to get around the Conflict of Interest problem that I mentioned yesterday, I will be featuring (for a little while anyways) some of the my CBGXtra reviews that I have not previously linked to that date from before the conflict.

I have written a review for 0/6, vols. 1 + 2, available on The Comic Buyer's Guide website. Please remember that the CBG website uses a 4 star rating. Check it out!



0/6, vols. 1 and vol. 2 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

-Ferdinand

.hack//G.U.+, vol. 1

Story by Tatsuya Hamazaki with Art by Yuzuka Morita (corrected)
Released in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline: Griefers can cause real grief over the fuzzy line of reality and the computer in the .hack world.

I may be one of the five people on the planet that doesn't know or apparently care that much about the .hack franchise. I do like the fact they are talking aboutgriefers AKA Player-Killers. Those are the folks whose game is to deny others the game. But many of the other elements of the story come from any one a half dozen cyberpunk, the computer is alive style games that date all the way back to TRON. Oh look, player's injuries affecting their real life status, the idea of rogue systems, missing mentors wandering back into people's life and so on. Add into it a heavy amount of the traditional fighting story elements, such as revenge and the desire for one to be stronger, as if you can suddenly add muscle mass just by yelling really loudly. Yet I am still giving this an average rating, despite those issues. Maybe I have been reading too muchshoujo and the like recently, but I do find most of the characters well done and they take full advantage of the possibility of the non-logical appearance in the computer world and run with it. If I had just read a bunch ofshonen I would have been less forgiving, but I find this okay, even if it does not make much of an impression.



.hack//G.U.+, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

-Ferdinand