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Saturday, October 23, 2010 ( 10/23/2010 10:10:00 PM ) Bill S. WEEKEND PET PIC: Here's an upside down shot of Kyan Pup for your edification.  THE USUAL NOTE: For more cool pics of companion animals, please check out Modulator's "Friday Ark." # | Wednesday, October 20, 2010 ( 10/20/2010 06:49:00 AM ) Bill S.  “ALL I’VE GOT IS A MOUNTAIN OF DEBT AND THIS CRUMMY HOME!” If ever there was a manga written for the new recession, it’s Maru Kaneda’s Saving Live (Tokyopop), The comic manga concerns Haruhiko Ayarokouji, a poor little rich boy who has left his tyrannical father to strike out on his own. This anti-Richie Rich gets a job at Danny’s and a dumpy bungalow that “looks like it was built before WW2,” all the while juggling high school classes and agonizing over his ever-dwindling budget. First thing we see him do in the mornings, for instance, is check all the electrical outlets in his home to make sure nothing is plugged in and wasting electricity. When he finds a plug he’s left overnight, the boy freaks: “That’s negative 0.8 yen!” he chastises himself.All these economic woes would be grim if Kaneda didn’t add loads of comic fanservice to his “mature readers” manga, surrounding our hero with a trio of busty young girls who we all get to see in their underwear at one time or another (our hero has a knack for barging in on them as they’re changing). The shapely threesome is comprised of brunette Yuriko, our hero’s classmate; blond Junko, a Danny’s waitress who at first thinks Haruhiko is a corporate spy; and red-headed Nanako, a family maid who improbably shows up on hero’s doorstep to help him out. Yup, another manga series with a sexy servant as a primary character. As Pseudolus sang in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: “Everybody’s got to have a maid.” Our hero’s attempts penny-pinching frequently prove to be costlier than they might otherwise be -- one of the jokes in Saving Life is that Haruhiko’s inexperience counting expenses has him laying out more than he needs to -- and to add to the complications, the “crummy house” he is renting turns out to be owned by two malicious girl cousins who want revenge against his father. They work to sabotage our hero’s attempts to bring in extra money, so he won’t be able to keep up with the rent. Despite this opposition our hero still manages to regularly buck up his spirits -- and why now when he’s surrounded by girls who manage to get their clothes drenched, not once but twice, when they’re helping to clean out a pool? Kaneda, who previously oversaw a hot girls in outer space series entitled Girls Bravo, is a master of the tease-y panel and of physical comedy, and in the first volume we get healthy doses of both. In its way, Saving Life winds up comparable to some of the Depression Era movie comedies that attempted to spice up dire times with chorus lines full of Hollywood beauties. There are worse ways to go tumbling into bankruptcy. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: sixty-minute manga # |Sunday, October 17, 2010 ( 10/17/2010 09:59:00 PM ) Bill S.  “PRUSSIA HAS INVADED AND SEIZED MY VITAL REGION!” Got to admit it took me quite few pages to get into the first volume of Hidekaz Himaruya’s Hetalia (Tokyopop). Its central concept -- a series of comic strips starring pretty boy personifications of the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) as they interact on the improbable historical world stage -- was initially a bit daunting to me. I’m a dolt when it comes to world history, and Himaruya runs so roughshod with his timeline that I had to rely on the notes on the bottom of the panels to get my bearings. It wasn’t until I was deep into the first volume that I realized the variably accurate footnotes were a part of the punchline. I think it was the haunted house parody where Himaruya pontificated on the differences between Japanese, English and American horror movies. Now that was something I could critically parse.Though the series (subtitled “Axis Powers”) starts by focusing on comic interactions between the WWII triumvirate, it quickly expands to include other nations. The centerpiece remains our initial threesome, though, with Italy the comic fall guy. As depicted in Hetalia, the Mediterranean country is more a nuisance than a worthy ally: cowardly and gluttonous, he’s pale shadow of the glorious Roman legions that once ruled the world. When militaristic Germany first meets up with him during the Great War, the self-described “pasta-loving scamp” is found hiding under an empty tomato crate. He’s ever ready to give up (“I bet he’s mass-producing surrender flags,” the personification of America sneers at one point), which regularly triggers his allies’ contempt. The third member of the alliance, Japan, is depicted as deferential and overly interested in Western Culture (it’s “complicated and mystifying,” he states). In the anachronistic world of Hetalia, the countries’ attitudes are decidedly post-WWII, which adds to the joke. In “German Simulation,” for instance, the comic presents a game program where the player get to pretend to be Germany shopping for groceries, running into his fellow nations, all of whom act like ethnic caricatures. The Spanish cashier is overly relaxed and slow; the Italian customer cuts in line (“cutting in line is common in Italy,” we’re told); the bullying American yells at the cashier to do his “damn job,” and so forth. While Hetalia’s “older teen”-rated humor is steeped in broad stereotypes, the exaggeration is muted by the artist’s visual decision to make each country handsome young men. (If the personification for Italy had been a rotund caricature of Benito Mussolini, for instance, the jokes would have a whole different feel.) Himaruya’s art, originally done for web comic publication, occasionally appears a bit washed out on the page, which works against some of the characters’ expressions at times. Much like Neko Ramen, the first volume shifts between four-panel vertical gag strips and short stories that are laid out in full-page comics format. In general, the latter strips prove more engaging since the artist provides them with a stronger sense of time and space. In “America Cleans Out His Storage Room,” for example, we’re shown the Yankee personification as he gets rid of the gifts that England gave him as a child: there’s an evocative flashback to the War of Independence that goes beyond simple gag work. But make no mistake, silly simple jokes are Hetalia’s primary reason for being. Nothing wrong with that. Just don’t plan on using this book if you’re writing a paper for history class, kids. . . (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: sixty-minute manga # | |
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