I've been ploughing through some manga recently - mainly over the Easter weekend because I took several volumes with me to read.
I read the latest volume of Ichigo 100% (or Strawberry 100% if you prefer), number 8. Ichicgo 100% is a pretty generic manga. I've actually done a review of it at trismugistus.com . My summary of it there is pretty much how I still feel about it. The main protagonist's inability to decide which girl to pursue is very annoying, but then if it wasn't for that it wouldn't be jam-packed with fan-service either, I guess.
I read the first volume of Black God (or Kurokami). I have to say I'm distinctly un-impressed - it's so generic as to be boring. Girl with Super powers. Big fights. Really annoying, arrogant, un-likeable protagonist. He's fawned on by his childhood friend, who's totally hot. Super-powered girl is 'bound' to him.
Also, people talk a hell of lot for an action manga and while the artwork is nice enough, it's nothing special. Bizarrely, the bonus chapter is actually way better than the main story.
I'm considering just dropping it - I could sell the 1st volume on e-bay and be done with it. I mean it's still an ongoing series, so if I was to collect it it could last for years, which I really don't fancy.
I'll give it another read and decide from there, I think.
Another new manga that I did start and like a lot is Claymore. I can't honestly say I'm that familiar with Berserk, but I'm reliably informed they're similar. Certainly the roughly-medieval setting is very similar and it's all about swordplay and monsters.
Claymore is very brutal - people are chopped up without a second thought and the blood really flies. But the clever thing about it is that it's really an exploration of the character of the Claymore's themselves. They're women who have undergone a sort of surgery to become half-human half-monster and they then hunt the real monsters. What Claymore explores then is the humanity (or otherwise) of these girls and how they're treated by real humans and the monsters.
The artwork is a little odd - some strange proportions and strange figure deformations, but it does seem to improve in later volumes where I've flicked through. It's also very fast-paced and so easy to read - there are big chunks of pages with no dialogue at all. That's not a criticism, by the way. Blame is one of the best manga ever and features entire volumes with next-to no talking.
I'm definitely going to be keeping up with Claymore.
What else have I read?
There was the latest volume of Battle Angel Alita: Last Orders.
The artist, Yukito Kishiro, is one of the best manga artists ever. The action sequences in Alita (and it's an action manga) are so perfectly realised, every page is like a master-class. Sometimes the story goes a bit wonky - he has a tendency to dive off on a tangent that can last several volumes.
These are generally of good quality, but it makes things confusing when you come back to the main story. You have to refresh yourself with what's gone on. Also, because of the big gap between this and the original, it can be confusing remembering who they're referring to sometimes.
It's always an entertaining read though - especially given that Kishiro drops in a lot of very black humour.
I've also relatively recently read the latest volumes of Rosario+Vampire (they seem to be pumping the volumes out for this in very short order), Princess Resurrection, Ikkitousen and Black Lagoon. I've not much to really say about them that I haven't said before either here or in trismugistus.com reviews.
The last thing of note is therefore that I've started Full Metal Alchemist. I've got to say, so far it's not what I was expecting.
So that you're aware, I've never seen any of the anime. I know it's extremely popular, but I've just never really got around to it - I believe it's one of those shows with 50-odd episodes, and that never really helps for me.
However, what I have seen are a lot of scans and wallpapers for the series and they predominantly depict it as being quite serious. Now that could obviously be a false impression since I've never watched it, but the point is the manga isn't like that at all.
So far, the manga is more like a gag-manga than a serious action manga or thriller. It's odd - I mean it's not bad, just not what I was expecting.
Friday, 17 April 2009
Thursday, 16 April 2009
the bourne ultimatium
Owing to the hugely busy Easter weekend I didn't really get a chance to watch my next rental DVD over the weekend. So instead I've been watching it in the evenings this week.
The DVD itself was the Bourne Ultimatum, which is the third of the Bourne films. It also pretty much represents the end of the trilogy. They've managed to make the films into a proper trilogy - there's a good through-plot to them all.
Although that's also one of the problems of the third film. It's very reliant on you having seen the first two films. I mean, they've tried to make it generally accessible, but I really don't think you'd get this third film if you hadn't seen the others.
That's especially problematic here where they've set this film between the last two scenes of the second film. It's therefore very much a part of the second film.
It also has a bit of problem in that in each film they've tried to give them a proper end. This means that each time Bourne beats the bad guys, in the next film you get an odd moment of "well, no actually, there's these baddies who were, like, the bosses of the last film's baddies... or something... bear with us."
It gets a little old that this keeps happening. Also it comes across as a bit odd that these bad guys keeping trying to get Bourne, despite always failing. You'd think they'd try a different tack.
The third film also pretty much lacks any sort of love interest. This makes sense given the timing of the film and what happened in the last two, but it also means it looses that element. I mean, there is a girl in it and there's a suggestion Bourne has a past with her, but he doesn't remember and it's not rekindled.
There are also a few logical flaws. At one point Bourne is knocked unconscious, and rather than the baddy kill him, he heads off after someone else. There's also a section with a reporter and it seems bizarre that the CIA or anybody initially doesn't seem to know who he is and allows him to write the stuff he does, but then decides to kill him when Bourne tries to contact him.
But where it does well is in the action scenes. The Bourne films excel at visceral, physical action. There's a reliance on practical effects, rather than digital effects and clearly a misty-eyed nostalgia for the action thrillers of the seventies. And it really works.
One thing I'm getting sick of though is the whole hand-held camera thing. It's really jerky in thsi film and it makes me a little nauseous. I mean, it's okay as a thing, but they seem to have gone a bit over-the-top here and it's very distracting.
There are loads of extras. They're of a varying quality and most revolve around staging the stunts and fights and stuff.
Overall it was enjoyable when it was going full-on action, but the story seemed a little like retreading old ground.
Also, he totally failed to give anyone an ultimatum :/.
The DVD itself was the Bourne Ultimatum, which is the third of the Bourne films. It also pretty much represents the end of the trilogy. They've managed to make the films into a proper trilogy - there's a good through-plot to them all.
Although that's also one of the problems of the third film. It's very reliant on you having seen the first two films. I mean, they've tried to make it generally accessible, but I really don't think you'd get this third film if you hadn't seen the others.
That's especially problematic here where they've set this film between the last two scenes of the second film. It's therefore very much a part of the second film.
It also has a bit of problem in that in each film they've tried to give them a proper end. This means that each time Bourne beats the bad guys, in the next film you get an odd moment of "well, no actually, there's these baddies who were, like, the bosses of the last film's baddies... or something... bear with us."
It gets a little old that this keeps happening. Also it comes across as a bit odd that these bad guys keeping trying to get Bourne, despite always failing. You'd think they'd try a different tack.
The third film also pretty much lacks any sort of love interest. This makes sense given the timing of the film and what happened in the last two, but it also means it looses that element. I mean, there is a girl in it and there's a suggestion Bourne has a past with her, but he doesn't remember and it's not rekindled.
There are also a few logical flaws. At one point Bourne is knocked unconscious, and rather than the baddy kill him, he heads off after someone else. There's also a section with a reporter and it seems bizarre that the CIA or anybody initially doesn't seem to know who he is and allows him to write the stuff he does, but then decides to kill him when Bourne tries to contact him.
But where it does well is in the action scenes. The Bourne films excel at visceral, physical action. There's a reliance on practical effects, rather than digital effects and clearly a misty-eyed nostalgia for the action thrillers of the seventies. And it really works.
One thing I'm getting sick of though is the whole hand-held camera thing. It's really jerky in thsi film and it makes me a little nauseous. I mean, it's okay as a thing, but they seem to have gone a bit over-the-top here and it's very distracting.
There are loads of extras. They're of a varying quality and most revolve around staging the stunts and fights and stuff.
Overall it was enjoyable when it was going full-on action, but the story seemed a little like retreading old ground.
Also, he totally failed to give anyone an ultimatum :/.
Wednesday, 15 April 2009
new mu 09
Well, it's properly April now, so that means a lot of new anime stuff has started in Japan.
April seems to represent the main big season, which I'd guess is tied into the new financial year and the refreshing of yearly budgets. The second season starts in six-months at around the beginning of October. There are also the half-season points in July and January, but those normally only see a handful of new shows come out.
I have to admit that, having perused some of the show descriptions there's not much that stands out as being my cup of tea so far. Of course, one of the reasons I watch fansubs is to sample all of the shows and find out for sure. There are often things that turn up that I'm pleasantly surprised by, and I've therefore learned not to make too many assumptions.
A big difference this year, though is that crunchyroll is picking up a good few shows.
I've mentioned crunchyroll before of course and my feelings are generally unchanged. I'm seriously unimpressed with the site itself. It's horribly laid out, horrible to navigate and pitifully slow to load most of the time.
It also relies predominantly on streaming, which I'm not the biggest fan of. Downloads are much better, I find, and that brings me to the main point - I think I'm going to have to become a member of crunchyroll in order to make the most out of it and download these new shows they've got.
It seems like relatively reasonable value from that point of view and I've said before I'm very much in favour of sites offering legal anime content, despite being a DVD man at heart.
The only thing I'm left worrying about is how practical it's goign to be. One of the biggest advantages to fansubs is the use of bittorrent, which I can just leave going while I'm at work and when I come home it's sorted its own life out. Direst downloads tend to need a bit more in the way of active management, especially on my connection, which can be a bit flaky.
Still, I'm going to take the plunge, I think. I can always cancel the subscription if it's not working out, after all.
New anime magazines turned up yesterday, which I wasn't expecting - I thought they'd not be here until next week, actually, so that was a nice surprise.
April seems to represent the main big season, which I'd guess is tied into the new financial year and the refreshing of yearly budgets. The second season starts in six-months at around the beginning of October. There are also the half-season points in July and January, but those normally only see a handful of new shows come out.
I have to admit that, having perused some of the show descriptions there's not much that stands out as being my cup of tea so far. Of course, one of the reasons I watch fansubs is to sample all of the shows and find out for sure. There are often things that turn up that I'm pleasantly surprised by, and I've therefore learned not to make too many assumptions.
A big difference this year, though is that crunchyroll is picking up a good few shows.
I've mentioned crunchyroll before of course and my feelings are generally unchanged. I'm seriously unimpressed with the site itself. It's horribly laid out, horrible to navigate and pitifully slow to load most of the time.
It also relies predominantly on streaming, which I'm not the biggest fan of. Downloads are much better, I find, and that brings me to the main point - I think I'm going to have to become a member of crunchyroll in order to make the most out of it and download these new shows they've got.
It seems like relatively reasonable value from that point of view and I've said before I'm very much in favour of sites offering legal anime content, despite being a DVD man at heart.
The only thing I'm left worrying about is how practical it's goign to be. One of the biggest advantages to fansubs is the use of bittorrent, which I can just leave going while I'm at work and when I come home it's sorted its own life out. Direst downloads tend to need a bit more in the way of active management, especially on my connection, which can be a bit flaky.
Still, I'm going to take the plunge, I think. I can always cancel the subscription if it's not working out, after all.
New anime magazines turned up yesterday, which I wasn't expecting - I thought they'd not be here until next week, actually, so that was a nice surprise.
Tuesday, 14 April 2009
*yawn*
Pretty good weekend, but I'm really quite knackered.
I went down to Devon to visit my Dad and we gave him his birthday present. It was a digital camera. It was only a compact model, but we also got him lots of gubbins to go with it - a stand-alone printer, and inks and paper for it.
He's a bit of a photography fan and he's mentioned digital cameras to me several times before. I'd therefore initially wanted to get him a full-on digital SLR camera, but my sister convinced me that it would be better to get a compact.
She was quite right - this gives him a 'taste' of the digital world and a chance to play and investigate. Plus SLR's are not cheap. Well, good digital compacts aren't really 'cheap' either, but you know what I mean.
His actual birthday isn't until October, but we wanted to get it him now because of the whole trip to Monaco. It'll give him a chance to play with it before-hand and then he can use it there too.
I'm knackered because it was quite an intense weekend. It was actually one of my scheduled cleaning weekends and while I could have left it, with the ant problems I've been having I really wanted to at least have a wipe around.
I therefore had to cram all that into Friday morning and then drive down in the afternoon. Unfortunately, the trip down was horrible - I got stuck around Stonehenge and it meant the whole journey took five-and-a-half hours. I normally reckon on it being up to about 4 hours (which is what it took me on Monday). So that was tiring.
Then, on Saturday there was all the present stuff, which was fairly tiring as I had to explain everything to Dad. In the afternoon we then went for this huge long walk at Braunton Burrows, which is this area of sand-dunes.
I really need to get used to walking distances again for the Monaco trip, so it was good from that point of view, but it was still pretty tiring. On top of that on Sunday we went for another walk and that pretty much finished me off - Sunday afternoon I almost couldn't walk and had to take painkillers on Monday. I'm still aching in my calves now.
Monday was the drive back - I had to head off really early as I need to get back so that I could do all the other stuff I needed to, like ironing, etc.
So as you can see, it was a really rather busy and active weekend. I could almost do with a holiday to recover from my holiday!
I went down to Devon to visit my Dad and we gave him his birthday present. It was a digital camera. It was only a compact model, but we also got him lots of gubbins to go with it - a stand-alone printer, and inks and paper for it.
He's a bit of a photography fan and he's mentioned digital cameras to me several times before. I'd therefore initially wanted to get him a full-on digital SLR camera, but my sister convinced me that it would be better to get a compact.
She was quite right - this gives him a 'taste' of the digital world and a chance to play and investigate. Plus SLR's are not cheap. Well, good digital compacts aren't really 'cheap' either, but you know what I mean.
His actual birthday isn't until October, but we wanted to get it him now because of the whole trip to Monaco. It'll give him a chance to play with it before-hand and then he can use it there too.
I'm knackered because it was quite an intense weekend. It was actually one of my scheduled cleaning weekends and while I could have left it, with the ant problems I've been having I really wanted to at least have a wipe around.
I therefore had to cram all that into Friday morning and then drive down in the afternoon. Unfortunately, the trip down was horrible - I got stuck around Stonehenge and it meant the whole journey took five-and-a-half hours. I normally reckon on it being up to about 4 hours (which is what it took me on Monday). So that was tiring.
Then, on Saturday there was all the present stuff, which was fairly tiring as I had to explain everything to Dad. In the afternoon we then went for this huge long walk at Braunton Burrows, which is this area of sand-dunes.
I really need to get used to walking distances again for the Monaco trip, so it was good from that point of view, but it was still pretty tiring. On top of that on Sunday we went for another walk and that pretty much finished me off - Sunday afternoon I almost couldn't walk and had to take painkillers on Monday. I'm still aching in my calves now.
Monday was the drive back - I had to head off really early as I need to get back so that I could do all the other stuff I needed to, like ironing, etc.
So as you can see, it was a really rather busy and active weekend. I could almost do with a holiday to recover from my holiday!
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