Manga & Comics

The wizard is pleased.

And has much to contribute!

But for now I'll start with this:



Lately I've been powering through Akagami no Shirayukihime (Red-haired Snow White) and I've never really been so attached to a manga. The artwork is stunning, the story is simple and cute, but has depth and maturity and the characters are all so easy to get attached to. I've been reading the manga for several years now as it is slowly released and it has never lost my interest, likely due to the fact that there's a bit of everything in it. Romance, danger, swords, pirates, kidnappings, celebrations, knights, assassins, comedy, drama, intrigue...

I can't put it down.

Technically it's a webtoon but I've been reading Noblesse. I spent four days reading it nearly nonstop (save those pesky sleeping breaks). It has some decent humor and engaging story once the first few chapters set up the characters. It's still releasing every week and I can't wait to see what will happen.

I read through the available chapters of Akatsuki no Yona, a historical shoujo that has been adapted into an anime series airing this season. It is... well, it is probably everything that you'd expect from a shoujo historical romance. There is plenty of melodrama to go around and the series is absolutely littered with pretty young men willing to dedicate their service to our young, outcast princess. The severe tonal shifts are less expected and one can expect the story to take a serious turn, undercut it with some silly moment, and run headlong back into serious in the span of a few pages. The lack of romance is perhaps the biggest surprise considering this is labeled a romance manga. There is a strong vein of it in the beginning, but it runs dry quick and even surrounding the princess with dedicated, beautiful men in reverse-harem tradition can't bring it back. Oh, it is there, sure, but there's just fragments. I like Akatsuki no Yona. It ain't perfect and it ain't for everyone, but I hooked.

I also started Holyland because the above sparked a sudden interest in manga. Essentially, a severely bullied kid is pushed to the point of suicide, but is unable to go through with it and turns to self-taught boxing as a way to cope with the people around him and his own problems. By defending himself from the gang members on "the streets" he accidentally earns a reputation as "the gang/thug hunter" and is forced to fight vengeful gang members and avoid being lynched. In doing so he finds friendship and allies and is forced to take an active role as a street fighter to protect his right to remain on "the streets", which is the only place he doesn't feel pitied or looked down upon. Loving this one.

I finished Holyland. Here's the thing about this sort of story... it is difficult to create an ongoing narrative that doesn't become repetitive when establishing a story on a foundation of finding yourself or attempting to find a place for yourself in the world through violence. It is fine when things are kept short, because you can find a way to escape the dramatic cycle--and there are characters, supporting characters, who do break away from the streets in this manga--but Holyland is 181 chapters that stretch across multiple story arcs.

Yuu is very much a character that develops through violence. The majority of his friends are those who have lost to him in the past. Each new contender offers a challenge, an opportunity to learn and train, and allows Yuu to run away a little further away from the dark memories and weakness of his past. There is a cycle to it, of course there is... gain and loss and the spiral back to that dark place that so dominated Yuu's old life. It is repetitive and predictable, yes, but whereas most stories of this structure would become either stagnant or an endless parade of power-ups, we see actual character development and watch the world, these streets, change as Yuu's influence grows.

Don't be mistaken though, I can't and won't defend the repetitive nature of the story. The characters may grow and the world may change, but writing the same sort of story over and over while ignoring other means of development is just lazy. It seems odd to depend on one aspect of the story to develop the character given that Yuu is in school (and everyone knows that he is the thug hunter), has a romantic interest in Mai (which is developed, but not well enough that Mai becomes anything more than a girlfriend or target), and is offered the opportunity to visit and train at gyms throughout the city. Any one of these routes, even if they hadn't lasted long, could have offered a break from cycle and offered development. Instead we get fights, depression, and more fights.

Holyland is a very good story, but it could have been much better. I wish it had been, but you can't always get what you want. I still enjoyed it and I would recommend it. As for things like art or pacing... well, I'm not so great about talking about those sorts of things. The art on the color covers for each volume is ugly as sin and the sort of thing I expect to see on someone's Deviant Art account or a cheap self-published book, but I had no issue with the art inside. The pacing is... well, I have never read manga that didn't have quick pacing. This one in particular has a habit of ending each chapter in the middle of the action, which would have likely thrown me into a rage had I read it while it was being published. 

I've never read a single manga in my life. I don't have anything against them. It's just that it seems like every manga that I would be interested in is in black and white and growing up on comic books, I have an appreciation for color. Or maybe I just have the attention span of a goldfish and I need the "purrty colors" to keep me interested. Oh well. I'm still really into anime and that's (almost) just as good.


-begin rant- As for comics, well, I've been really let down by Marvel and DC. They've been pushing all of this alternate universe, timelines, and side dimension stuff a little too far for my taste. It's almost as if they've stopped caring about this little thing called plot and just started using their well-known characters (and making up a few others) as little more than gimmicks in some desperate attempt to pull in new readers.

Don't get me wrong. I love alternate tellings (DC's Elseworlds have some really cool stories) and I don't mind the occasional, brief foray into alternate timelines and other dimensions, but lately that seems to be the only pony in the Marvel/DC shows. And on top of the constant retconning, they are insistent on keeping their most popular stories from 10 to 20 years ago as canon. It's like they want to retcon their stories without going through all of the hard work of actually re-telling stories. It just strikes me as lazy writing is all.

So yeah, I'm not really into Marvel and DC at the moment. And I'm sure there are some really great stories out there right now that are being told, but I'm just not interested in wading through the convoluted chaos to find them. I'm starting to look at the 90's as Marvel's glory days and they had some reeeeeeally bad stories back then (I'm looking at you Spider-Man's Clone Saga). -end rant-

So now that I've got that out of the way, I'm still really into comic books. In fact, since I was never much of a DC fan growing up (outside of Batman, that is), I've been really getting into some of the older issues (older as in pre-N52). Ever since Smallville, I have been fascinated with Green Arrow. I know he started as a Batman rip-off, but he's grown into his own character. I'm about to start on Cross Roads, a ten issue series and I'm kind of excited for it. I just need to find a cheap way of getting my hands on the issues I don't have.

Marvel and DC aside, I have been looking into Dark Horse Comics. I just recently found out that back in 2011, they made a four or five issue prequel series based on one of my favorite vampire movies, Let Me In (the 2010 remake of the 2008 Swedish version Let the Right One In which is just as amazing). It's called Let Me In: Crossroads. I also found out that Dark Horse did a few limited series of The Mask (y'know, the Jim Carrey movie) and so I'm currently looking for a way to get my hands on those. It's a little-known secret that The Mask is one of my favorite "superhero" characters. Why? If I told you, the knowledge would probably drive you insane; if you're lucky, that is. 

P.S. As for my Marvel and DC rant, I know that they both have a long history of retconning and alternate realities and all of that jazz. In fact, someone has already spoiled for me that the Green Arrow issues I'm about to start on end pretty heavily with that kind of stuff. Maybe I'm just tired of it and I need a break. But it seems to me like that is all they're focusing on lately. Alright! That's it! I'm done. ...I promise.

Ahem. The Red-haired Snow White anime starts in July.

I haven't read any of the manga, but it has shoujo and romance tags so I'll be watching it.