bookblogging
May. 22nd, 2008 12:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceruseeManga:
Watase Yuu: Ceres: Celestial Maiden vol. 3
(this is the only major Yuu Watase work I never made any progress on, and I'd really like to finish it, even though![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
m00nface says it broke her heart and ripped it into shreds and then taped the shreds back together and ripped them up again and stomped all over them for good measure, or words to that effect. I just can't help it; I'm a Yuu Watase fangirl, and I will be until I die.
This manga is more frighteningly violent than I remember it being. I think when I read the first two volumes, several years ago, I took this level of violence in comics a little bit more for granted. There's a deep sense of menace in the regular, eerie, spontaneous combustions, helicopter attacks, mind-controlled assaults, and telekinetic attacks. Aya's naive in trying to live a normal life despite everything that's been revealed to her, but it's the disruption of normality that makes this violence so scary, the way trustworthy elements of her daily life are gradually revealed to be corrupted. Coupled with that is the way her family has been destroyed--all Aya has left of that is her brother, who is in the hands of her enemy--this is not something she can really run away from.
Even though Watase's famous, or so I have been told, for reviving epic fantasy shoujo, this is a recurring motif in her works--no matter how far you go, or where you travel, there's no running away from danger. It always, always comes home to you in the end, and that's where you have to fight it. Watase's battles are always domestic, and that makes them rather horrible.
Speaking of Aya's brother, I really like the kid, and that fills me with forboding, because another recurring motif in Watase's manga is the loved, trusted, dear friend who is loyal and well-meaning, but becomes corrupted and turns into a deadly enemy. I can feel my heart getting ready to break already.
The art, as always, is spectacular. Watase excels at creating the impact page, visually interesting and emotionally evocative, although I tend to need to take a break after an action sequence, or I stop being able to absorb what I'm reading.
Side note: I love Suzumi, who is a neat-o character all around, but I am constantly distracted by the fact that she looks exactly like Count D from Matsuri Akino's Petshop of Horrors in a kimono).
Kanari Yozaburo, author, Sato Fumiya, artist: Kindaichi Case Files: House of Wax
(this was no less ridiculous than the other volumes of Kindaichi Case Files I've read, but I enjoyed it more, I think because Akechi figures prominently in this one.
One of the downsides of having a recurring detective character in mystery novels is that they are generally static figures. Detective characters usually don't exist to undergo character development; they are there to provide a sense of familiarity to the audience (and when recurring detective characters do get real sub-plots and character development, it's often gone by the next book). Recurring secondary characters are a method of dealing with this, as they can grow and change and die without disrupting the function of the static detective. They are more real as characters, and can make the static detective more interesting by proxy. (I think this is what Miyuki is supposed to be doing, but unfortunately, she's blander than Kindaichi.) I enjoy Akechi because he needles Kindaichi, and it's fun to watch them compete, but it was the details of his backstory that gave this volume a little more punch for me, and the sneaky way he manipulates Kindaichi into becoming involved with this murder mystery. It's so rare that an amateur detective character actually has a plausible reason for becoming involved with a dramatic murder case!
The murder methods were also engagingly gruesome, which of course never fails to entertain).
Ohba Tsugami, author, Obata Takeshi, artist: Death Note vol. 1
(reread. I just wanted to refresh myself with the manga so I could compare it better with the godawful movie, and as I replied to a comment in a different entry, it's a much better execution of the concept (and not just because it originated the story).
Death Note is what I would call a problematic work, and what I mean by that is, there is so, so much wrong with it, but I love it too much to be able to hate it or dismiss it. It has never remotely surprised me that it became so popular; it has always unsettled me that people can embrace it without any qualifiers. I think it belongs in any good manga collection--by which I mean bookstores and libraries, not necessarily personal libraries--but it skeeves me to see twelve-year-olds buying it while their parents beam cluelessly behind them, because it is going to be a sophisticated twelve-year-old who can parse what's wrong with the way this story is told. It's not the violence and murder of Death Note that worries me; it's the slick, stylish amorality of it, the gaping void where a sense of right and wrong should be. I think there may be actual harm in selling beautiful sociopathy to someone who doesn't have any context for it.
Edit: expanding on that.
The movie felt less ruthlessly amoral to me; Light was softened somewhat by a incredibly cheesy sequence illustrating his sense of despair over the failure of his chosen career, law, to adequately deal with crime and evil. It was too over the top to take seriously--have you ever seen such a cartoon of a psychopath?--but I will give props to the movie for trying to address some of what the manga lacks.
The first volume of the manga makes it clear that Light does not use the Death Note out of a sense of despair, but out of boredom and because he's tempted by power, and once he's used it, he has to justify to himself having used it. Thus he is corrupted. I'm okay with that, although I was ultimately disappointed by the author's choice to not expand that characterization at all, even in story twists that seemed custom-designed to do so. But the manga never even comes close to addressing morality again after that, and it is not okay to dodge any real discussion of ethics or moral systems when you're writing a story about a vigilante murderer who's enforcing a personal interpretation of the death penalty!
I would object to the changes in characterization if I believed that the manga was intentionally ruthlessly amoral, amoral as a statement, but it's not. It's ruthlessly amoral for the purpose of entertainment. It lacks a soul because the author was too busy plotting cat-and-mouse logic to give it one).
Watase Yuu: Ceres: Celestial Maiden vol. 3
(this is the only major Yuu Watase work I never made any progress on, and I'd really like to finish it, even though
m00nface says it broke her heart and ripped it into shreds and then taped the shreds back together and ripped them up again and stomped all over them for good measure, or words to that effect. I just can't help it; I'm a Yuu Watase fangirl, and I will be until I die.This manga is more frighteningly violent than I remember it being. I think when I read the first two volumes, several years ago, I took this level of violence in comics a little bit more for granted. There's a deep sense of menace in the regular, eerie, spontaneous combustions, helicopter attacks, mind-controlled assaults, and telekinetic attacks. Aya's naive in trying to live a normal life despite everything that's been revealed to her, but it's the disruption of normality that makes this violence so scary, the way trustworthy elements of her daily life are gradually revealed to be corrupted. Coupled with that is the way her family has been destroyed--all Aya has left of that is her brother, who is in the hands of her enemy--this is not something she can really run away from.
Even though Watase's famous, or so I have been told, for reviving epic fantasy shoujo, this is a recurring motif in her works--no matter how far you go, or where you travel, there's no running away from danger. It always, always comes home to you in the end, and that's where you have to fight it. Watase's battles are always domestic, and that makes them rather horrible.
Speaking of Aya's brother, I really like the kid, and that fills me with forboding, because another recurring motif in Watase's manga is the loved, trusted, dear friend who is loyal and well-meaning, but becomes corrupted and turns into a deadly enemy. I can feel my heart getting ready to break already.
The art, as always, is spectacular. Watase excels at creating the impact page, visually interesting and emotionally evocative, although I tend to need to take a break after an action sequence, or I stop being able to absorb what I'm reading.
Side note: I love Suzumi, who is a neat-o character all around, but I am constantly distracted by the fact that she looks exactly like Count D from Matsuri Akino's Petshop of Horrors in a kimono).
Kanari Yozaburo, author, Sato Fumiya, artist: Kindaichi Case Files: House of Wax
(this was no less ridiculous than the other volumes of Kindaichi Case Files I've read, but I enjoyed it more, I think because Akechi figures prominently in this one.
One of the downsides of having a recurring detective character in mystery novels is that they are generally static figures. Detective characters usually don't exist to undergo character development; they are there to provide a sense of familiarity to the audience (and when recurring detective characters do get real sub-plots and character development, it's often gone by the next book). Recurring secondary characters are a method of dealing with this, as they can grow and change and die without disrupting the function of the static detective. They are more real as characters, and can make the static detective more interesting by proxy. (I think this is what Miyuki is supposed to be doing, but unfortunately, she's blander than Kindaichi.) I enjoy Akechi because he needles Kindaichi, and it's fun to watch them compete, but it was the details of his backstory that gave this volume a little more punch for me, and the sneaky way he manipulates Kindaichi into becoming involved with this murder mystery. It's so rare that an amateur detective character actually has a plausible reason for becoming involved with a dramatic murder case!
The murder methods were also engagingly gruesome, which of course never fails to entertain).
Ohba Tsugami, author, Obata Takeshi, artist: Death Note vol. 1
(reread. I just wanted to refresh myself with the manga so I could compare it better with the godawful movie, and as I replied to a comment in a different entry, it's a much better execution of the concept (and not just because it originated the story).
Death Note is what I would call a problematic work, and what I mean by that is, there is so, so much wrong with it, but I love it too much to be able to hate it or dismiss it. It has never remotely surprised me that it became so popular; it has always unsettled me that people can embrace it without any qualifiers. I think it belongs in any good manga collection--by which I mean bookstores and libraries, not necessarily personal libraries--but it skeeves me to see twelve-year-olds buying it while their parents beam cluelessly behind them, because it is going to be a sophisticated twelve-year-old who can parse what's wrong with the way this story is told. It's not the violence and murder of Death Note that worries me; it's the slick, stylish amorality of it, the gaping void where a sense of right and wrong should be. I think there may be actual harm in selling beautiful sociopathy to someone who doesn't have any context for it.
Edit: expanding on that.
The movie felt less ruthlessly amoral to me; Light was softened somewhat by a incredibly cheesy sequence illustrating his sense of despair over the failure of his chosen career, law, to adequately deal with crime and evil. It was too over the top to take seriously--have you ever seen such a cartoon of a psychopath?--but I will give props to the movie for trying to address some of what the manga lacks.
The first volume of the manga makes it clear that Light does not use the Death Note out of a sense of despair, but out of boredom and because he's tempted by power, and once he's used it, he has to justify to himself having used it. Thus he is corrupted. I'm okay with that, although I was ultimately disappointed by the author's choice to not expand that characterization at all, even in story twists that seemed custom-designed to do so. But the manga never even comes close to addressing morality again after that, and it is not okay to dodge any real discussion of ethics or moral systems when you're writing a story about a vigilante murderer who's enforcing a personal interpretation of the death penalty!
I would object to the changes in characterization if I believed that the manga was intentionally ruthlessly amoral, amoral as a statement, but it's not. It's ruthlessly amoral for the purpose of entertainment. It lacks a soul because the author was too busy plotting cat-and-mouse logic to give it one).
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no subject
on 2008-05-22 04:58 pm (UTC)Ceres is probably my favorite Watase work, primarily for the mythology involved.
no subject
on 2008-05-22 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-05-22 05:21 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-05-22 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-05-22 05:55 pm (UTC)I would love to read that volume of Kindaichi... there's never enough character work in those, as you say. I'm already imagining the gruesome murders of which you speak. (Have you read the one with the seven mummies in the crazy rural village? Man, that was needlessly complicated!)
I wonder if people enjoy DN for the same reason they enjoy zombie movies: what would I do in this situation? It's also not the cut-and-dry "moral" story that so many younger readers despise--it really lets the readers make up their minds about whether Light was doing the right thing or not. Personally, when I read it, the whole thing was an exercise in waiting for the other shoe to drop. I knew Light could never get away with what he was doing (L and Near notwithstanding) and waited with baited breath for the moment he made a mistake.
(Side note: I was frankly appalled at some of the plot twists, like setting up Light and Misa for a "death" at the hands of Light's father. Yikes, that was awful.)
no subject
on 2008-05-22 06:04 pm (UTC)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgf2gmVoqTo
Let's just say that the Backstreet Boys and DN are forever connected in my mind now. (Spoilers for the end of the anime.) And apologies if you've already seen it. :)
no subject
on 2008-05-23 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-05-23 12:42 am (UTC)I remember a lot of "Would you do what Light does?" type discussions occurring when Death Note was young and I was still paying attention in the right places, so you may be on to something. It's a little counter-intuitive to me, because it's not at all what I enjoy about the story.
I'm sure the not being a morality play, as I have put it before, is a great part of its appeal to people, but that still upsets me, because it's not a work of depth, either. Instead of being a shallow, didactic morality play, it's a shallow, amoral work of pure entertainment, which is regularly enough accepted as "a great manga about the death penalty!" and "very deep"--I have seen many people describe it so, and in similar ways--to actually upset me.
It was awful, but I have to admit, it was good drama.
I think...what Death Note does not do, and you do have to be paying attention to see it, is properly balance the drama of the mind games with the drama of the lives and deaths of the victims. Ohba's good, but not great, and so is the resulting manga. For a concept as ambitious as this, good isn't enough.
no subject
on 2008-05-23 01:06 am (UTC)Re: DN, I see what you're saying: it's too cartoony to properly handle its actual subject matter. Is that what you meant? And, yeah, when I think about it, I do agree with you. Other than the chosen characters, the criminals who are executed are nothing more than cyphers, though they surely must have had friends and families who mourned their loss. Light never truly feels remorse for his crimes, only remorse for being caught. It's ironic that the most moral statements come from Matsuda, he of comic relief status during the main story. Maybe the pacing of the catharsis is all wrong at the end...
no subject
on 2008-05-23 05:15 pm (UTC)The criminals are cyphers, yeah, they don't even get to die onscreen, and they're never invoked as anything other than summaries of their crimes. They're not characters or even victims, just the poorly articulated idea of the stakes in a game between L and Light.
The real-life complications of mysterious, mass vigilante killings are vaguely gestured at (the use of fear as control, the Kira supporters), but not explored in depth, and the death penalty is never debated. And it should be, because the premise Light is working from is deeply flawed and the reasons for (at least initially, back when Kira had only ever killed criminals and not expanded to FBI agents) trying to stop Kira are inadequately explored without some serious on-screen attention to the death penalty--the justifications for and also the failings of the death penalty and for the modern criminal justice system. It's arguably a flaw that the style of Death Note is actually very dry and emotionless, energized mostly by the way it's depicted, and not by any real feeling in the writing, but what I think is more important than that it has no emotional depth is that it has no intellectual depth.