Pop Culture Gadabout | ||
Saturday, September 18, 2010 ( 9/18/2010 07:34:00 AM ) Bill S. ![]() Thus, we see sorceress Ebisu, after getting her shredded face rejuvenated in the beginning of the volume, zombified in the midst of the Hole’s annual Night of the Living Dead. (“Goddamn it!” one of the other cleaners grouses, “I just fixed her up!”) Caiman, in a street fight with the aforementioned crew, has his head lopped, causing a massive geyser of blood with a face hiding in it to spurt from his neck -- though this only proves a temporary inconvenience. Nikaido, desperate to remove her friend to safety, is forced to bite off a fingertip: no blood this time, just a whiff of sorcerous smoke. Lots of outlandish action, in short, held together by mangaka Hayashida’s visually detailed scene setting and engaging character interactions. In the volume’s final entry, both our gal and her reptile bud take on a seemingly invincible Russian fighter for a million yen purse. The former enters the uneven contest because her best customer Caiman can never pay his tab; the latter does to rescue the overmatched Nikaido. Looking over Hayashida’s punky art style in this sequence, I couldn’t help mentally replaying the Ramones’ “The Crusher” as I raced through the fight scenes. I have no idea if the artist ever heard this track or not, though I still like to visualize her blasting Adios Amigos in her studio as she scratches out pen-work on this entertainingly outlandish manga series. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: sixty-minute manga # | |
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