REVIEW: One Piece

One Piece (manga)

By Eiichiro Oda

One Piece

Began monthly publications in Shonen Jump starting 1997 to today

·         As per Shonen manga series premiers for contemporary manga, One Piece opens up with a two page spread of all the important characters initially since the beginning of the series (Luffy, Nami, Zorro, Shanks and Shanks’ pirate crew). It is to note that Shanks’ cast does not show up as much since the pilot first volume. (Page 5)

·         The story in fact starts with a prologue of sorts where Luffy gains his powers though this makes the manga go REALLY slow in terms of pacing. As a One Piece fan, I admit that the pacing of One Piece since the beginning first arcs is extremely slow and hard to take in.

·         Zorro as a character and first mate doesn’t show up until Page 91. Nami doesn’t show up until the end of Volume 1 too.

·         It is to note that the first volume’s villains are defeated relatively easily and quickly, taking no more than a few chapters at most. This is a common trend in Shonen manga first volumes so as to establish protagonists being relatively strong in their introductions and to introduce character motivations and possible recurring characters.

·         Luffy is like a baby faced Western character (ie Tintin) where he looks like a young adult (eighteen years old when the series started) and yet he manages to do things that even trained adults cannot do.  Unlike tintin however, Luffy is noted to actually be aged by the author as with Tintin it is ambiguous to how old Tintin actually is.

·         One Piece is a noted example of a “three group friend” Shonen manga where there is a happy-go-lucky protagonist, a more practical male friend and a headstrong female friend. This is noted in series like Naruto (Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura), Rave Master (Haru, Hamiro, and Elie), Magi (Aladdin, Alibaba, and Morgiana) Yu Yu Hakusho (Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Boton), and other Shonen manga.

·         It is to note that besides the barkeep in the beginning and Shanks, Luffy’s parents are never addressed and neither his relationship with the others that live in his island town. While this is addressed MUCH, MUCH later in the series, it could be seen that Luffy was like Doctor Who in that he did amazing things and yet we knew nothing about him, allowing us to mask ourselves into his situations and the like.

·         As this is a manga, the pages are printed black and white save for Page 5 where a bit more detail towards grey scales are given to the print. This may be as the original serializing of One Piece in the Shonen Jump monthly publication was originally in color and yet the reprint into a serial for One Piece by itself had it so the inking was noted instead of coloring.

·         One Piece admittedly is not a great series when it first came out; as it carried many of the troupes that contemporary manga has today. However, unlike its contemporary Shonen Jump titles like Bleach and Naruto, it seems to me that One Piece keeps getting better and better with each new arc. Naruto and Bleach are notable as series that started off really strong yet eventually reached a tournament story arc that drew readers away or lasted much longer than need be due to the goading of editors. One Piece is noted to be only half way done since 1997 so if the series was to continue on in the vision that Oda planned it we would not see the end of One Piece until 2028.

Bibliography:

Oda, Eiichiro, and Lance Caselman. One Piece. Romance Dawn. San Francisco, CA: Viz, LLC, 1997. Print.

REVIEW: Ghost in the Shell (film)

Ghost in the Shell (film)

By Masamune Shirow,

Ghost in the Shell (film)

Originally aired in 1995

·         The film deviated from the manga mostly towards the end where Makoto in the manga was part of a manhunt and pretended to be killed by the police due to the accidental killing of a surrendered criminal. In the film, Makoto merged with the Puppet Master before her old body is destroyed and her death had no bearing on her being on trial.

·         They included a completely non-cyborg companion to Makoto who unfortunately played no major role in the film other than to note that not everyone in their universe are enhanced. However, this officer is noted for pointing out things the more by-the-program cyborg police fail to note.

·         Makoto in this film is noted to be much more philosophical and mature than her manga counterpart who is more bubbly and silly towards her colleagues until her merging with the Puppet Master.

·         The film focused on the first and last chapters of the manga and skipped out the parts with child trafficking and the narcotics trade that Makoto tackled in the manga.

·         The film notes the details of Makoto's body being made in the beginning of the film and the details of the environment that the characters live in. It is to note that like the manga it appears that they are in a world where though there are cyborgs about the rest of the world's architecture and social structure did not change in the slightest since the introduction of such technology.

·         The film ends with Makoto's head/ a likeness of Makoto's head being in a body that resembles a younger version of her, which contrasts with her obtaining a male body by the end of the manga. This younger version resembles the original's personality more than the male body of the manga.

·         The talk of identity through augmentation and the talk of genes and memory happen in narrative in the film alongside the relevant portions of the plot whereas in the manga most of it is exposition dump towards the end when Makoto merged with the Puppet Master.

·         The film makes clear that Makoto is NOT seen as a criminal by the end of the film and that she is choosing to work in the shadows as Section 9 has too many restrictions on her being free to do what she wants. It appears that she still has good relations to everyone that isn't Kusanagi. With the manga, on the other hand, Makoto is branded as a criminal and even her likeness is not allowed to be seen by those who she previously cared for save for Kusanagi. She also wasn't disgraced publicly in the film as her killing a surrendered criminal was excluded.

·         The VHS forced us to sit through by the end an exposition dump on how the film was made, which would have been extra content if this was done on VHS.

·         Although the manga and the anime ended on similar endings with Makoto going into hiding and operating from the shadows to fight cybercrime, the film's ending felt like the story could continue on while the manga's ending made the original Ghost in the Shell story feel self-contained. It could be that Makoto is in a drastically different body by the end in the manga which would give this feeling.

·         Makoto is noted to be extremely flat chested when in clothing in the film and have more female traits when nude in the film. This contrasts to the manga where her body maintained a base female form.

·         Makoto's dive into the Puppet Master's body does not result in her exploring the meta feel of sensory where she sees an "angel" before the Puppet Master's demise. Rather, in the film they simply switched bodies and the merging of their forms makes the angel appear.

·         Overall, this is an excellent film. There are many iterations of the Ghost in the Shell series, each with its own interpretation of Makoto. With this, however, Makoto is not seen as a childish figure like in the manga and serves as a good basis for the other Ghost in the Shell stories in other adaptations, as this film is literally the first anime done on the series.

Bibliography

Ghost in the Shell. Dir. Mamoru Oshii, Perf. Atsuko Tanaka, Akio Ōtsuka,Iemasa Kayumi. 1995. Manga Entertainment (international release). VHS.

REVIEW: Tekkon Kinkreet film

Tekkon Kinkreet: Black and White (film)

By Taiyo Matsumoto,

Tekkon Kinkreet: Black and White (film)

Originally opened in 2006

·         Unlike the manga, White is noted to have an orange shirt in the film as opposed to white clothing. Black, while keeping to his black attire, does not have the kanji for black on his back.

·         The film opens up with the brothers fighting another set of brothers as opposed to random gangsters.

·         It could be the American-style print of the manga, but Black’s scar is on the other eye in the film.

·         The atmospheric scenes of the film expand upon the more compact aspects of Treasure Town that the manga was limited to due to the medium of manga.

·         The reactions of the crowds are in the film towards the Cats and Chocolate’s gang and the other yakuza in Treasure Town, which is notably limited or excluded in the manga.

·         White’s innocence and slight mental challenges are more noted in the film than in the manga, which seems to center more on Black and his troubles with the city.

·         The hint of Black being one with the Minotaur is hinted at earlier in the film than in the manga.

·         Kimura’s relationship with his wife is also touched more in the film than in the manga, where she only serves to be there for him in the end and does not play too much into his development.

·         The nonsense language of the aliens sounds more Japanese than the implied Chinese-style of the assassins in the manga.

·         The Japanese theme of the town is made lesser with the graffiti being in English and the town signs also being in English. This could be due to the director of this film being not-Japanese and this film being geared towards an international release.

·         They include a Japanese shadow puppet thing in the film that wasn’t in the manga.

·         Suzuki dies earlier in the film than in the manga, where all the adult yakuza die about the same time.

·         The Snake character is notably blonde and looks foreign compared to the manga where he looks still Japanese though with bleached hair.

·         It is the death of Suzuki and not the killing of the two alien assassins that spurs the humanity in Black again in the film.

·         The foreign amusement part of Treasure Town is made more prevalent with Part 3 of the film than with the manga where it felt like there was little change in Treasure Town saves for which gangs were in power.

·         They include a hugely surreal scene where Black sees where the darkness of hate leads mankind by the semi-supernatural powers of White.

·         Suzuki survives by the end of the film, where he died by the end of the manga after killing Snake.

·         Overall, the film I felt was just as good as the manga if not slightly superior as the pacing of the manga seemed erratic at times yet the film fitted them more fluidly. Also, the mundane dialogue of the beginning of the manga was left out for more development of side characters though this story is still about the two boys.

Bibliography:

Tekkon Kinkreet. Dir. Michael Arias. Perf. Kazunari Ninomiya, Yû Aoi, Yûsuke Iseya, Kankurô Kudô, Min Tanaka. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2007. DVD.

REVIEW: Tekkon Kinkreet

Tekkon Kinkreet: Black and White

By Taiyo Matsumoto

Tekkon Kinkreet: Black and White

Originally published in 1994

·         The first few pages of the manga is printed in color while the rest of the manga is printed in black and white, no pun intended

·         The main characters have been literally translated as Black and White for the manga

·         The dialogue of the manga is mostly nonsense save for the last parts as the actual substance of the conversation is too slice of life to explain the nature of the city Black and White live in and the background of the two characters. Examples of this would be like in Page 35 where they talk about putting “shiny money” in a piggy bank.

·         Fittingly Black has the kanji or Chinese word for Black on his shirt while White mostly has white clothes on

·         Despite the protagonists being children it is clear that they run the underground of the city like in Pages 168-169 where they beat up a professional yakuza to prove a point that they run the down in a most violent manner.

·         There are notably few women in the manga, noting the coming of age boyhood nature of Black and White’s journey in life and the masculine nature of the manga. This is unusual for any manga as it is uncommon for manga to depict anything center completely around hetero normalcy with a cast mostly dominated by men.

·         Despite the assassins being “alien” in nature as introduced in Pages 295, the assassins are noted to speak in a dialogue that is similar in grammatical syntax to Chinese and wear notably Chinese clothing. It could be that the author intended the assassins to be caricatures of “evil” Chinese men.

·         Cats are usually used to symbolize Black and White and their relationship to the environment. An example would be like Page 189 where stray cats, appropriately being black and white cats, interact with the environment that clearly is out to get them.

·         Unlike most manga, there is rarely a single page in Black and White that does not have a form of background to it. While it is common manga conventions to establish backgrounds and continue the narrative without them as so to have the image of the background be in the subconscious of the reader’s mind, in this manga there is always a background of one form or the other to the characters. This could be seen to remind us of how each portion and individual in the setting of the city is so distinct and unique onto itself.

·         As previously stated before, the substance of the characters dialogue does not seem to carry much weight as much as the actions, which could signify the unconscious development male children, develop in doing rather than in saying.

·         Overall, I liked this manga a lot though I cannot consciously pinpoint what it is about it that appeals to me.

Bibliography:

Matsumoto, Taiyō. Tekkon Kinkreet = Black & White. San Francisco, CA: Viz Media, 2007. Print.

REVIEW: Ghost in the Shell

Ghost in the Shell (manga)

By Masamune Shirow

Ghost in the Shell (manga)

Originally published in 1989

·         The print that came for America is notably mirrored so that it is read from left to right rather than right to left for the sake of Western readers.

·         The first chapter is done completely in color with some of chapter two done in color, which contrasts heavily with the cheap black and white print manga is used to.

·         The comic is mostly centered around a female cyborg agent named Major Motoko Kusanagi though very lightly as usually the comic goes onto be social commentary on the status of the future Japan and how robotics have changed the outlook of humanity.

·         The comic can be extremely pornographic along with violent at the time, as with the example of several ladies playing with each other’s private parts below the waist (Chapter 3, Page 5 or Page 56).

·         As a futuristic manga, the setting is surprisingly contemporary save for the fact that people have implants to become cyborgs. This is prevalent with the cityscape as seen on Page 4 at the beginning narration. This is a huge contrast with a series like Astro Boy or Battle Angel Alita where human geography changed in order to accommodate the future look like adding a flying city or making entire steam-punk slums where the destitute of humanity live.

·         Major Motoko is notably lighthearted in the manga series (like on Chapter 3, Page 38 or 89) where she almost gets herself killed yet exchanges witty banter with her battalion. This is a huge contrast to how she is depicted in the anime.

·         They go onto define future terms in articles in the manga, like robots as with Chapter 4, Page 1 or Page 98)

·         Turning women into attractive robots seem to be a more common theme than turning men into more anatomically appealing men, as with the case of Chapter 6, Page 32 or Page 141)

·         Makoto does not get her iconic costume in the anime until Chapter 7, as up to this point she had less revealing battle armor for most of her depictions.

·         Normal women are rarely seen in the manga and in their place men commonly have love doll cyborgs and clones of women they killed.

·         Makoto is in a relationship and is a strong independent woman as established in Chapter 8.

·         They don’t take the name of the series into account until Chapter 9 where a scientist places his dying mind into a robot girl’s body to live indefinitely

·         The manga is more self-contained in its original setting where Makoto is seemingly killed off yet cheats death by putting her brain into another robot body.

·         Overall, the manga is okay but the “death” of Makoto makes the entirety of the series a very self-contained story: where Makoto cannot return to her old body after the events of accidently shooting one guy, leaving her previous life behind as she merges with a Zen AI thing. It was an okay read but the variations of the anime series makes the series a lot different with each incarnation.

Bibliography:

Shirow, Masamune, Frederik L. Schodt, and Toren Smith. The Ghost in the Shell. New York: Kodansha Comics, 2009. Print.

REVIEW: Battle Angel OVA

Battle Angel (OVA)

Original manga by Yukito Kishiro

Battle Angel (OVA)

Originally aired in 1993

·         Due to the translational difference, “Alita” is “Gally” in the anime and the manga.

·         They add a romantic interest in an assistant to Doctor Ido in the OVA and downplayed the romantic tension between Alita and Ido.

·         The language used in the anime is Korean despite the fact that the Battle Angel Alita series is implied to either take place either in Japan or America in the future.

·         Unlike the manga, Ido is much more reserved in the anime and comes off more altruistically, not depicted as a sadistic hunter of rogue cyborgs but rather a proper father figure for Gally. He is also implied to be a great surgeon who helps cyborgs in the slums which is seen as beneath him despite the depiction of him in the manga.

·         The love interest for Gally and the lady doctor turn out to be shady characters in the anime and that Gally and Ido are the most balanced of the bunch.

·         The back story for the spine/brain stealing giant cyborg was changed to be less sympathetic in the anime as he is seen as but a tool for the lady doctor to get back into a floating city.

·         The back story for Gally’s Berserker armor is never explained and Ido placed the destructive machine body onto Gally despite the dilemma as a father figure he had in the original manga.

·         Violence has been toned down in the anime save for the dismemberment of a dog, where cyborgs and people are only implied to be killed with blood splats but nothing more violent than that.

·         The one black character looks complex compared to the simplistic and relatable designs of Ido and Gally in the anime, who is in turn beaten up by Ido for tricking the boy Yugo into stealing spines and getting himself turned into a cyborg.

·         Cyborgs are touched more upon in the anime than that of the manga, where cyborgs are seen as either forced implants to keep one alive or something you do in order to become more like a warrior. This was not touched upon in the manga as cyborgs are still considered “people” as with Alita’s case in the manga.

·         The fates of side characters are notably more brutal in the anime though not depicted, like how Yugo was killed from trying to get into the flying city and the lady doctor being killed and harvested for her organs by the shady black man.

·         The anime itself was called “Battle Angel” as opposed to “Battle Angel Alita” or “Gunnm” as with the original Japanese title. There were only two episodes “Rusty Angel” which was a retelling of Gally’s origins and “Tears Sign” which was original for the anime (at least not being in the first volume).

·         Overall, it was a great watch but the politics of organ donations played more into the anime compared to the definition of being human as with the original manga.

Bibliography:

Battle Angel. Dir. Hiroshi Fukutomi. Perf. Miki Itô, Amanda Winn Lee, Shunsuke Kariya, Kappei Yamaguchi,  Mami Koyama. Prod. ADV Films, 1993. DVD.

REVIEW: Battle Angel ALita

Battle Angel Alita

By Yukito Kishiro

Battle Angel Alita

Originally published in 1991

·         The cover depicts Alita with angel wings despite the fact she does not get any wings in the series. In fact, her name is that of Ido’s dead cat as established early on.

·         A lot of terminology in the series requires use of sci-fi captions as characters rarely dive into the nature of the world that they live in. An example would be when Alita is appraised by Ido to have the legendary fighting style Panzer Kunst (Page 28), which is never explained in story yet there are captions forced into the gutters explaining to the readers that it is a form of martial arts.

·         Alita is appraised as being a human being by Ido in the beginning despite the fact that she is clearly cybernetic and that there are no indicators that she is a cyborg or even organic early on in the story (Page 8-9). This could mean that humanity has moved past the vanilla idea of what constitutes a human by this futuristic story.

·         Alita’s dream sequence has it so she sees herself as a child (Pages 86-88, 98) when Ido first found her which contrasts with how we see her as the reader as a broken robot (Pages 1-11).

·         This whole segment of Alita being a discarded robot with amazing fighting powers contrasts drastically with how Tezuka portrayed Astro in Astro Boy, another robot child with super powers and a heart of gold. In fact, the brutality of Alita’s world takes a greater toll on the cruelty mankind can have on “lesser humans” than that even portrayed in the Astro Boy series as (Pages 79-83) Alita and Ido are clearly on the verge of death and yet the common citizens of the world care not for a bleeding man and his almost completely destroyed robot child in a society where robots and humans apparently become one in the same.

·         The brutality of the strong is made apparent in Alita’s world with how people have their brains eaten easily by monstrous cyborgs (Page 42) to how people pour acid into sewers where homeless children live(Pages 236-238).

·         Ido is himself a shady father character who grew up with handling the brutality of the world around him, as with the case of him being a hunter of rouge cyborgs (Page 46-49). It should be noted that he does not want Alita to delve into the world of violence she has been reborn into (Pages 44-45).

·         The exact nature of the story’s history is never made clear past that this takes place in the far future where people normally are cyborgs. There was apparently a super war in space that happened as with how Alita gets her Berserker body (Pages 92-97) which was a war machine that was used by soldiers and found by Ido.

·         Overall, this series is a great read especially when contrasted to the more kid-friendly Astro Boy. Battle Angel Alita was clearly tailored towards an adult audience and touched themes not normally presented in Western kids comics.

Bibliography:

Kishiro, Yukito. Battle Angel Alita. San Francisco: Viz Comics, 1994. Print.