Shounen Action Surprise

O-Parts Hunter Vol. 1-3 (Seishi Kishimoto, Shonen Gangan/Shounen)

This thing is riding entirely on its premise for me. It would be too easy to fault it for looking like a Dragon Ball rip off because I think that’s part of the intention. Take a typical shounen set up and give the protagonist a split personality disorder. The main personality dreams of world domination, which is apparently possible due to magical o-parts, and the other is simply evil and sadistic. At this point in the story, the evil side is not well understood. Also, while the evil side is the cause of the protagonist’s suffering, hatred, and isolation, it is also helpful in wiping out his opponents when things start going badly. It’s almost like the author is admitting there’s an inherent evilness to the idealized shounen action hero without wanting to glorify it.

Outside of that, there’s nothing here I can get worked up about. Everything is completely sign posted, from the motivations, themes, character arcs, and whether a character is good or bad. This last point is particularly laughable considering the premise and really confirms for me that this series isn’t worth reading any more of.

Daigo of Fire Company M Vol. 1 (Masahito Soda, Shonen Sunday/Shounen)

Now here’s a typical shounen series that actually manages to be subversive, not to mention fun. And all that was really needed was to set the story in the real world. Daigo dreams of becoming a great firefighter some day. When we meet him, he’s just graduated from firefighter school and is about to join the team of Fire Company M. Unfortunately for him, the crushing reality of sitting around waiting for fires appears to be too much. To make matters worse, there’s little room for heroics in such a systemized, safety first profession. At one point Daigo is forced to embody an embarrassing stereotype when he’s asked to get a cat down from a high roof top.

I loved the way the author just randomly dropped a rival in to the storyline. The rival is as passionate about fighting fires as Daigo but is of course, a verbally abusive jerk. The rivalry sparks a rationalizing attitude in Daigo towards his team mates. For instance, he used to see them as lazy but now he views them as being efficient. Normally in such a series, the author would let Daigo and the reader revel in their dislike towards the rival character. However, here the rivalry is portrayed as being simply childish. This is especially true in the scene where Daigo witnesses his rival returning from a fire, and can’t help admiring him.

The realistic contrast between the scenes where Daigo is performing his job at a dangerous level and the scenes where he’s safe, previously discussed, are the highlight of the book. First of all, the two rescue scenes, where Daigo crawls through dark/burning corridors in search of trapped people, are wonderfully abstract. In these rescue scenes, he experiences feelings of regret, fear, and defeatism. He also tries to escape in to his past memories. While these memories do motivate him to continue, he also starts projecting them on to the present. Ultimately, what makes the risk all worth while is the display of genuine emotion of the saved victims.