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February 11, 2005
Tanaka Suzuki: As a dog, like a dog
My copy of this volume is less than mint. It's not torn or bruised, but if I had seen its physical condition at a bookstore, I would have hesitated in buying it. It's not Amazon Japan's fault (as such) that the one they had in stock was sorta battered and had a dirty back-cover, but ... meh, it bothers me. Especially because the design of this book is really rather pretty, with the dark pink and green. Sigh. Oh well.
The content of this book, however, is good. I daresay the best Tanaka work I've read, which says something since I was fascinated by Memai, adored Jinno Murasaki, and even liked the pointless Menkui. So I guess the bottom line is just that I like Tanaka Suzuki a lot. I mean ... think of her name, people. Tanaka. Suzuki. What Togashi Yoshihiro connoisseur wouldn't love her, I ask you. And yes, I am calling myself a connoisseur. Shut up.
Like a dog, as a dog collects five short manga about animals that become humans to speak to people that have effected them in one way or another. If the person believes that they are an animal, they can change back -- else, they must spend the rest of their lives as humans. This catch is sometimes a blessing and sometimes a curse. The resolutions are all different and not always purely happy, but the characters all manage to change and move on in the few pages they are allotted, and the book as a whole leaves a bittersweet but hopeful lasting impression.
It's difficult to talk about manga that are just ... regularly good. Um. I'm placing this under "BL", but only two of the pieces are mildly BL and all it amounts to are a couple of kisses. I suppose you could consider it beastiality if you were anal about that sort of thing, but that'd be taking something beautiful and twisting it into something it's not. I especially liked the last 20-page story, which I thought was worth all 590 yen even if the rest of the stories had been shit.
Category: BL manga | Comments (0)
February 10, 2005
CLAMP: Sôryûden gengashû
Remember what I wrote in my entry about Tokyo Babylon Photographs? I wrote that the Soryuden artbook was the last thing CLAMP I'd pay to get -- and here it is! Neatly in my hands! All two-hundred-and-odd pages! Wheeeeeeee!!
Soryuden is an as-of-yet unfinished series of fantary/action novels penned by Tanaka Yoshiki, which paperback edition CLAMP illustrates (the original versions are illustrated by Amano Yoshitaka of Final Fantasy fame). This collection includes about 40 pages of color illustrations, about 70 pages of black and white illustrations, one short comedy comic, and a 110-page unfinished manga series that ran in a now-defunct magazine something like ten years ago and which had never been published in a collected format before.
CLAMP has been drawing for this series since 1993, so it's, um, interesting? to see their style go from Rayearth to Tsubasa within the colored 40 pages. I was surprised to see I actually rather liked their recent takes on the Ryudo brothers. The most recent color pic, the pin-up of volume 12 from 2003 featuring Hajime and Tsuzuku, is so devastatingly cute. (Nokoru from the cover of the same volume looks like no one but Xiao Lang, though.) I still really really like that madly elaborate Nokoru pic from the pin-up to volume one, too ... the moon, the cherry blossoms, the facial expression ... man, good stuff. So nice to see it in a larger size than a postcard. I had never seen the Nokoru/Tsuzuku and Owaru/Hajime two-shot pics from the CD dramas, but they're so very cute; especially the latter one.
There are hits and misses in the black and white illustrations, but I remember that from the actual books as well, so it's okay. Mokona manages in most cuts to convey situations and scenes well and interestingly, and I fear I actually think she's a better illustrator than a manga writer. Volume one, especially, was a hit. Owaru looking back into the side-mirror of a car while a car explodes behind it? Exploding tanks and a subtle outline of one dragon in stormy clouds? Yeeeeeeah, that's where it's at. This reminds me volume one didn't have the obligatory gratuitous dragon(s) illustration, which always annoyed me in the later volumes because there are only so many ways you can draw a dragon interestingly. Okay, the shot of the dragon curling itself around the Tokyo City Hall building while it went up in flames from volume two was good, too. But then it went downhill. Aside volumes one and two, seven was best: that Nokoru/Hajime pic where Hajime grabs a hand holding a knife? Neat. There really aren't enough explosions after that volume. I admit I haven't read past volume nine, but knowing Tanaka Yoshiki, the text can't have been lacking in explosions Mokona could have drawn. Pity.
The comic is Owaru-centric and pretty run-of-the-mill. The comedy and the interaction between Hajime, Tsuzuku, and Owaru is funny, but it ends just as the story gets rolling. Don't buy this for the comic.
I'm at a point where I don't care about the contents of this collection as long as I just own it, so I'm probably not the best one to judge, but ... don't buy this if you just like CLAMP. Especially if you're a recent fan. This is a Soryuden book first and foremost, here to be enjoyed by fans of the four dragon brothers. So if, on the other hand, you're a Soryuden fan ... man, what are you waiting for?!
Category: Artbooks | Comments (0)