07.25.07
Black Cats, Bleached Souls
How about we talk a bit about teh magna books? I know I promised bits on Jump Ultimate Stars and Daigasso Band Bros.; those will just have to wait. Last night I went through some of my less interactive acquisitions from the con, prime among them volumes one each of Black Cat and Bleach. (Also picked up on Sunday, though in this case, on the way home after parting with Rick. Sue me, there was a sale when I went to pick up Harry Potter 7… which I have also finished but need a LOT more time to talk about).
Let’s start with Black Cat. It presents itself as “Noir as played by Trigun’s cast”, with Train Hartnet standing in nicely for the Vash role of capricious, chivalrous mercenary and Sven mirroring Wolfwood’s turn as the bitter, moneygrubbing worldly-wise partner. Stock characters in anime and manga by now, but as of Volume 1 the series differentiates itself by making sure nobody is inviolate. Sven’s been beaten up a couple of times, and (taking into account the required “first volume must be awesome, we need readers” factor) Train isn’t a complete and total Mary Sue (yet). Rinslet Walker is an interesting case, as I’ve no idea what to make of her; Eve (who, it should be noted, is a complete and total badass in Jump Ultimate Stars) is currently the Rei-alike mysterious naive waif, so right now any interest I have in her is based solely on JUS. I’m likely to keep going with this.
Bleach is itself a decent title, too. I went into it all bitter and cynical and look at me now, I’m convinced that there’s something interesting there. The hype factor is part of it– I had no interest in bankai, Soul Society, or shinigami in general prior to the reading– but more than that, the situation just didn’t seem to grab me. After having leekspin shoved down my throat for a year and a half now, though, and having seen the relative lack of Bleach cosplayers this year, I figured I’d give it a look. (All right, so yeah, it was mostly the sale.) I’m not disappointed; the title’s well-written and so far hasn’t introduced anything overtly ridiculous. I’m no big fan of the art style– seems a little too rough for my tastes– but the writing is there. Part of me, incidentally, is curious as to how much of the English in the linework was there in the original and how much was added in localization. Regardless, this one is on my list to continue as well.
Tomorrow, I’ll either keep going with notes on Bottle Fairy and/or the Ichigo Mashimaro manga, or the two DS titles in question: Jump Ultimate Stars and Daigasso Band Brothers.
EDIT: I added a little tip about wi-fi access codes after this post, but time-shifted it so that this would remain the top post. I did this because I have a reputation to maintain as writing a completely and totally pointless and useless blog, and having that stay on the top of the page would be damning to my slacker cred.
32_footsteps said,
07.25.07 at 10:32 am
I’ve actually been reading Black Cat for a bit (I got started just before volume 4 came out).
I like it alot, even though it often reads like a collection of other Shonen Jump characters over the past dozen years (Sven is so much like Naruto’s Kakashi it’s frightening - and if you think Train is a carbon copy of Vash, then you obviously haven’t read enough Rurouni Kenshin to know where train’s character actually comes from). I like it because the artist is doing different things with the character archetypes he’s obviously culling from - things get particularly interesting with Creed and the Apostles of the Stars later on.
John said,
07.25.07 at 6:51 pm
Yeah, Kenshin has been one of those series that I know of but don’t know. And Naruto… well, maybe if I ever take several blows to the head I might pick up Naruto (though it should be said that I think I made the same claim about Bleach).
Anyway, settling down for teh ub3r cut3.
32_footsteps said,
07.26.07 at 9:17 am
Naruto isn’t that bad. Its fans are, but the manga/anime itself isn’t.