I Do Like Stuff

I get all the luck – Firefox on the Mac has moment of suck, and I completely lost the original post I had, so I’m trying to go by what I remember. Also, I’m never going to get my sleep right, and it’s going to kill me.

But hey! Stuff I enjoyed!

Disgaea 2 by Hekaton – I suck at strategy RPGs and don’t have the patience for the kind of stat crunching to really get through them quickly, so I never was able to get around to completing Disgaea or other Nippon Ichi games. But I still love the games – they all have a wry, quirky, offbeat charm to them with interesting worlds and cool characters (I still want to get Makai Kingdom based on how insanely cool Pram the Oracle’s design is) that’s hard not to like. So it’s great to have a manga tie-in to further explore Disgaea’s universe.

The first Disgaea book was a quick, brisk take on the first game, with young Larhal battling with his vassal Etna to win his deceased father’s title of Overlord of the netherworld, meanwhile getting caught in a larger plot with an angel, Flonne, involving Celestia (aka Heaven) and Earth. Disgaea 2 looks to be longer. Laharl has succeeded in becoming Overlord and regularly takes on heroes and challengers to his realm. However, Laharl ticks Etna and her army of Prinnys (demon penguins with the souls of sinners atoning) off, and she vows to become an even better Overlord. Laharl gets into a funk, leaving Flonne, now a fallen angel, to try to keep things together. Meanwhile, in another world where almost every human has been turned into a demon by the new, conquering Overlord, the lone human (the standard pure hero type) and his demon family try to summon and overthrow the Overlord. Instead, they get his spoiled daughter. Etna goes to overthrow this Overlord, while the human has the daughter lead him to the Overlord.

The art is wonderful and a joy to read. Hekaton has a lot of fun with reactions and expressions, and it really keeps in the offbeat, absurd spirit of the games. However, I was put off by the fanservice bits, given how young some of the characters are, and it might offend some readers. But on the whole, though, it’s really a fun, enjoyable read, especially if you’re a fan of the games. A reader going in cold won’t get everything, but I think it’s good enough to try it out.

Drifting Classroom 4 by Kazuo Umezu – I kinda get the feeling someone might call me out as a hypocrite for liking this series when I’ve been whining about violence and stuff in the funny books. But this is a hardboiled, pulp horror story, and what Umezu does works within the context of the horror genre. Horror is not the same as superheroes – the conventions are different, the structures are different, etc. It’s the same reasons why I’m not ever going to check out that Azumanga Daioh/Drifting Classroom mash-up parody.

Umezu continues to look at desperate people in horribly desperate situations, and how they try to survive. So the stark, harsh art and tones (people mention all the screaming and caps) go hand in hand with the punch-to-the-gut, pulp, Sam Fuller-style storytelling (the panel of the kid screaming that he wants food almost makes me think of some scenes from Shock Corridor). The mystery of the hellish scorched world gets deeper with a real interesting twist that ties it to one of the school children.

To Terra by Keiko Takemiya – This title got a good amount of hype before it came out and, even if the story is fairly by-the-numbers, it does live up to it. The story has been done plenty of times before – humans wrecked Earth and migrated out among the stars, there’s a nefarious totalitarian system that forces humanity to conform; there’s an outsider group discriminated by the normal humans, and will be lead by a messiah plucked from the normal people to change things. Here Takemiya tackles it from a youth vs. adult angle, with children born artificially and put through tests and training to become a fit little adult cog in the system. Part of the transition involves erasing pretty much all memories before the 14th birthday.

But it’s the artwork that pushes the book over the top. It’s decidedly old-school, with a Tezuka influence (the sobbing mouse is a big sign) and a lot of the style of characters (the doe-eyed pretty boys, and the sharp-chinned, sharp-eyed standoffish boys, the willowy girls). But Takemiya does some really amazing stuff with her artwork and the layouts. The science fiction imagery is gorgeous, but Takemiya really shines with the “psychedelic”/revelatory moments, breaking apart panels, having shards of panels, and a striking sense of composition and flow.

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My reading has been erratic, so things pile up or get read and not posted.

I’m still really enjoying Jae-Ho Youn’s Angel Cup, since he has a real great cast of characters I enjoy reading, and seems to be trying for a good variety of different types. And the girl’s soccer team is still as tough and determined as ever, and I really can’t wait to see their match with a really formidable girl’s team. I also have read Love Roma, which is a nice, sweet read, even if the guy gets on my nerves often. Pilgrim Jager is pretty interesting, combining a 1500s period piece with the supernatural hunter plotline. Welcome to NHK continues to be the darkest of dark comedy, the satire still razor sharp.

Between Angelic Days and Ikari Shinji Ikusei Keikaku, for some reason I have a real fondness for the alternate, happy-go-lucky Evangelion universes…