The personality of Arrietty and her parents, some degree of Haru’s personality, and the rapid cut editing of this first American trailer for Ghibli’s Karigurashi no Arrietty completely reinterpret & misrepresent the spirit and tone of the original Japanese picture.
The fourth and fifth issue of Gen Manga continue to evolve and mature, further developing ongoing stories while more obviously stepping closer to becoming the cutting edge alternative manga showcase that the magazine promises to be.
Shige Nakamura’s “Wolf” continues to unfold as a good old-fashioned sports drama. But a variety of development emerges in the fourth installment. Nakamura’s graphic art is gradually evolving. Chapter four, especially, exhibits a decreased focus on background and more refinement in its character art, making the manga less of a throwback and more of a uniquely stylized contemporary manga influenced by 60′s and 70′s manga aesthetics. Chapter four introduces a new element of humor that does a great job of counterbalancing the dour tone of the drama. And the fourth chapter continues to peel back the psychology of protagonist Naoto’s estranged parents. Whether by accident or in respect for the readers’ intelligence, the fourth chapter alternates the use of “wolf” with “okami” without any translator note explanation. Both installments include some mildly salty language, but the occasionally strong dialogue enhances the narrative, giving it a sense of reality. The fifth chapter allows a typo in the dialogue to slip by: “bait” spelled “bate.” The dialogue translation in the fifth chapter also frequently feels a bit stilted. But the fifth chapter also introduces a prolonged boxing match that keeps the pace and tension of the story high.
The pacing of Yu Suzuki’s romantic melodrama “VS Aliens” picks up considerably in issue four before declining into a stew of absurd, rapid fire plot twists that feel as much like desparation as carefully plotted narrative. As this particular series has done repeatedly, the graphic art quality improves in the fourth chapter then receeds again in the fifth.
Mihara Gunya’s “Kamen” series likewise gains momentum in its fourth and fifth installments. While the art looks just a bit stiff in the early pages of issue four, the action picks up considerably throughout issues four and five. These two installments also begin to suggest some context for the story that may answer some reader questions.
Arisa Karino’s graphic art largely continues to impress in Souls. Fine detail, texture, and ample use of screentone give the visual art a sumptuous depth and tone. Unfortunately, Karino still seems challenged by natural, human looking facial proportions, and dialogue remains periodically difficult to attribute to a speaker, or even difficult to decipher, as though characters speak at each other instead of with each other. Unfortunately, typos and poorly translated lines like, “The saw beyond your the five senses,” and, “Then that’ll the end for us,” make following the dialogue even more difficult. While this new story arc presented in issues four and five seems a bit better developed than the first story arc, situations like a lengthy abstract philosophical debate between two prostitutes regarding their psychological acceptance of their roles and status, using a wounded pigeon as a metaphor, seems near laughably unbelievable.
Issue four concludes on a high note with Takayuki Fujimura’s self-contained short story “Sorako.” This nice story about young adult ennui and the way that small, routine events shape people’s perspective and personality is illustrated with a compact, stylized art that may be called contemporary gekiga. The concise art and storytelling do a fine job of focusing succinctly on expressing action through art & dialogue. This is far from shounen action/adventure, but it’s also not anime-esque iyashikei slice-of-life. This looks and feels like personal transformation presented through graphic storytelling. Not for readers that want tales of ninjas or aliens or even high school romance, this is a pleasant story for readers that appreciate manga as literal visual storytelling.
Taguchi Hajime’s “Alive” that ends Gen Manga issue five aims for a similar effect but succeeds just a little less successfully. This Kafka-esque gekiga drama about hopeless, despair-riddled people who rediscover self-respect and purpose in their lives is intriguing, but the pivotal epihanies that the characters have could be better illustrated, to make the turning point in these characters’ lives more evident to readers. Although not exploitative or sensationalistic, “Alive” does depict some provocative and adult subjects and images that elevate the story into respectable adult literature but may also surprise readers used to the typically all-ages friendly content that Gen Manga has published thus far.
Gen Manga was founded on a principle of being brand new, cutting-edge independent Japanese manga to English speaking readers. The publication’s first three issues have done a commendable job of introducing new Japanese talent and beinging new manga to American readers, but it’s issues four and five that first begin to fulfill the promise of publishing not just new indie manga but new cutting edge manga that aims for an older, more sophisticated audience. Issues four and five don’t eschew the popular genres of action, supernatural, romantic comedy, and fantasy manga; these two issues compliment conventional themes and genres with more provocative, literary, adult-oriented manga tales.
The increasing scarcity of certain domestic anime DVDs has surfaced as a topic of conversation in the American otaku community lately, so here’s my contribution to the discussion. Just because I’ve been collecting domestic anime discs for so long, I’ve got a fairly extensive collection. But there are still some noteable gaps in my collection. Anybody want to assist me?
Included among the numerous discs I’m still looking for affordable (or preferrably inexpensive) copies of are King Gainer volume 6, Zegapain volume 4, all of Sailor Moon S, Panda! Go Panda (particularly a non-Signature Series edition), a set of Ronin Warriors, Night on the Galactic Railroad, the Patlabor Original Series & New Files collections, Shonen Onmyouji volume 5, Dunbine volumes 11 & 12, Maison Ikkoku sets 2 & 4-8, Lupin the 3rd TV series vol. 11, and most of the Gatchaman collections.
And a Kimagure Orange Road TV series volume 6 replacement cover to finish off a second TV series set.
Granted, most of these discs I don’t strictly “need,” but would rather like to own as momentos of the R1 anime DVD era. If anybody feels like doing some trading, drop a message to me. I’ve got some obscure duplicates like AnimeEigo’s Spirit of Wonder, a Night Warriors volume 2, Cat Soup limited edition, Ariel, Gatchaman OVA, Prefectural Earth Defense Force, and a couple extra sets of Fate/stay night. Plus a whole lot of extra copies of more common discs.
I couldn’t resist this adorable Ichigeki Sacchu! Hoihoi-san Legacy diorama that features Hoihoi-san, Combat-san, and Pest-X in pajamas. It’s due out at the end of the year, and I can’t wait.
This past Saturday I attended the 12th annual Anime Festival Orlando convention. I didn’t buy very much, but my dealers room haul is below:
This past Saturday I attended the 12th annual Anime Festival Orlando convention. I didn’t buy very much, but my dealers room haul is below:
The striking, stark and powerful cover images of Gen Manga issues 2 & 3 immediately inform readers that what these books contain is not necessarily the typical mainstream, mass consumption manga that readers may be most familiar with. Gen Manga issues 2 & 3 continue to serialize the four stories begun in issue one. While these subsequent issues reveal some development from the first issue, some of the weaknesses of the first issue also persist.
While none of the four stories serialized in Gen Manga can be called especially unique because all of them draw inspiration from earlier Japanese works, Shige Nakamura’s “Wolf” is the strongest of the stories, not because it’s especially original but because it’s the most fleshed out. As the story expands in issues two and three, new characters are introduced, and the narrative gets more interesting as backgrounds are revealed and characterizations become more developed. For a retro boxing manga, “Wolf” is interesting because it draws more inspiration from the narrative and drawing styles of particularly Fujio Akatsuka and Ikki Kajiwara than from Tetsuya Chiba, its presumed most obvious inspiration. Readers used to contemporary manga may find “Wolf” old-fashioned, but readers that can appreciate its contemporary awareness mixed with reverence for 70′s sports manga should find it quite interesting. Particularly the second issue’s installment introduces a lot more profanity, but the language is all natural and appropriate in context. The second issue’s installment also allows a few translation typos to slip in, including “practive menu” instead of “practice menu” and “with you hand” instead of “with your hand.” The translation in this particular story, unlike the other stories contained in Gen Manga, at times sounds just a bit stilted, but the oddity is minor enough to cause only momentary distraction.
Yu Suzuki’s “Vs Aliens” story is the most kindred to contemporary teen manga, which may make it attractive to readers but also makes it flaws most evident. The story unfolds more slowly, as if it wants to spend more time focusing on its three characters, but instead of revealing anything substantial about its cast’s personalities, the narrative spends its time on superficial trivialities. The narrative development is also weakened by uneven and amateurish development including a cliffhanger in issue three that seems artificially abrupt and unnatural. The art is issue two’s chapters seems especially rushed and careless, evoking the design of a 90′s American indie comic attempt at mimicing Japanese manga. The art in issue’s three’s chapters is cleaner and stronger. Noticably unlike standard practice in Gen Manga, one large panel in issue two’s installment contains a noticable sound-effect translation directly in the panel instead of outside of the artwork. Issue two’s chapters also allow the distracting typo “You can bet they she has a plan,” to slip in.
Gunya Mihara’s fantasy adventure “Kamen” continues to be enigmatic through issues two and three, despite issue two containing a longer than normal installment. The art continues to look nice, although a few drawings of castle walls look like they were drawn with a ruler, which makes them distinctly stand out against the surrounding art’s more rough and evocative look. The character name “Olnela” is distractingly spelled “Onela” the first time it’s introduced, and the typo “”Hiuman language” slips through unchecked. “Kamen” continues to seem like the dark horse of the collection, but readers will have to wait until further issues to determine whether it will develop into something great.
Even more so than the first issue, the art design and use of screen-tone in Arisa Karino’s “Souls” story is lush and gorgeous in its second and third installments. However, the art still suffers from a poor sense of proportion resulting periodically in characters with too-small heads or slightly deformed facial features. This supernatural story of a troubled love between a mother and daughter wants to be very incisive and affecting, but its effectiveness is partially hamstrung because the author’s dialogue and narrative development seem to partially forget that while the writer knows this story inside and out, the readers do not. So motivations and plot developments aren’t always presented literally, forcing readers to guess and interpret from context. Furthermore, extensive use of floating dialogue makes distinguishing who’s saying what difficult to do. The fact that both mother and daugher have similar psychological scars makes the dialogue even more difficult to properly attribute. So instead of immersing in the story and sympathizing with the charactes, readers spend their time trying to analytically process what’s going on and who is saying what. I respect Karino’s goals, but I guess that inexperience with visual storytelling results in her manga having a stronger concept than execution. Translation typos including “Thety all looked down,” “Please listen to be for a moment,” and, “Too much time has past since,” instead of “Too much time has passed since,” also distract a bit.
With its second and third issues, Gen Manga continues to challenge manga publishing convention in America, and for that, the magazine deserves commendation. Gen Manga issues two and three, like the first issue, may not suit the tastes of all American manga readers. But Gen Manga does an excellent job of exposing Americans to another facet of Japanese manga and offering American readers the opportunity to read brand new grassroots manga. These early issues demonstrate growth and development from both the publisher and the manga artists represented. It’s rewarding to experience and support this fledgling effort, and I’m sure that the minor flaws will iron out with more experience and future issues.
In terms of cinematic quality, the 90 minute long Tekken: Blood Vengeance 3D CG movie falls in-between the Resident Evil: Degeneration and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children CG pictures, landing significantly closer to Advent Children, thankfully, than the atrocious Degeneration. However, seemingly by design, fans hoping for and expecting the thrills, gritty cyberpunk atmosphere, and bone-crushing fights of the popular Tekken game series and its wonderful CG movie sequences may find themselves disappointed by the feature film.
The movie revolves around schoolgirl Ling Xiaoyu. After she’s drafted to serve as a high school spy for the G Corporation, she bumps into classmate Alisa Bosconovich, a plant for the rival Mishima Conglomerate. Both girls are tasked with getting close to schoolboy Shin Kamiya, whom both the G Corporation and Mishima Zaibatsu have their eyes on, for a mysterious reason. In the post film interview, screenwriter Dai Sato reveals that he consciously wrote a screenplay that would differ from the Tekken games. His intention was to create a movie that would give viewers a different look at Tekken, offering plot & character development and action unlike the games. And the movie succeeds in that aim, for better or worse. Revealing Sato’s experience as an anime screenwriter, the bulk of Tekken: Blood Vengeance is a high school mystery in which two teen girls bare their hearts to each other. While the picture moves along briskly, it actually includes only three martial arts fights in its entire running time (arguably four depending on how one chooses to define the first half of the climactic battle). More troubling is the fact that its central mystery is not only a MacGuffin, it’s largely counterproductive. In effect, the movie’s narrative seems to be several disparate ideas crudely mashed together, ideas that don’t effectively compliment each other or effectively develop their themes. However, with the briskness of the plot development and its frequent cuts to supporting characters, viewers aren’t likely to notice the plot holes until after the film is finished. To its credit, the movie is never aggravatingly stupid, but it’s also never fully engrossing. The few fight scenes are nicely rendered and satisfyingly lengthy, but the movie never consistently develops the suspense or intensity that characterize the Tekken games’ cut scenes. The film does benefit from a subtle and effective sense of humor. Further to its credit, the movie includes nods to the Tekken cast but doesn’t get bogged down with character cameos. The movie concentrates on being faithful to its narrative which results in a substantial ten or so game characters appearing in the film but not a roster of unnecessary and distracting character cameos.
The film’s animation is fluid and natural. Faces are never especially expressive, but their animation is adequate. Details like clothing and hair are nicely modeled, and textures throughout the picture are good with the exception of a few shots at the beginning of the film that are noticeably simplified and look unfinished. The English dub is usually adequate, although some moments seem forced or unnatural, and some lines of dialogue seem as though they may be loose localizations. The bigger problem with the dub is the fact that it’s noticeably a post-animation dub. Since the animation was designed around spoken Japanese language, character expressions and reactions are sometimes barely but noticeably out of synch with the spoken English dialogue due to the natural differences in Japanese and English grammar. In effect, at times a character’s physical motion will seem a half-second ahead or behind of the triggering dialogue. The film score is used sparingly, and while serviceable, it’s not memorable or even particularly noticeable.
The audience reaction in the theater I watched the movie in was positive, reacting at all of the right beats. But the audience was also noticeably deflated as the credits rolled, pleased to have seen a decent film but disappointed that the film was a typical anime starring Tekken characters rather than a movie which really expanded the excitement, intensity, and tone of the Tekken games onto the silver screen. The film doesn’t disregard its core audience of Tekken faithful, but at the same time, by conscious design, it doesn’t deliver precisely what’s made the games so popular. According to Tekken project leader Katsuhiro Harada, “We want to make a movie that everyone can enjoy… Not just Tekken fans.” Having Digital Frontier, the CG animation studio that rendered the game’s FMV sequences, animate the movie was a wise decision. However, bringing in screenwriter Dai Sato, who is an avowed fan of the Tekken franchise but not especially familiar with the games’ narrative, results in a movie that refers to Tekken plot points and stars Tekken characters but feels like a conventional teen adventure anime rather than the hardboiled, dystopic Tekken fighting games.
The Tekken: Blood Vengeance movie will hit American Blu-ray in November billed as “Tekken Hybrid,” a Blu-ray disc that will include the CG film, playable on any BD player, and Tekken Tag HD, a Playstation 3 exclusive high definition re-release of the 1999 Tekken Tag Tournament fighting game.
