Not Shoujo Manga

The Laughing Vampire Vol. 1-2 (Suehiro Maruo, Young Champion)

I should really discuss these volumes separately because I have very distinct feelings towards each of them. The first is hard to describe in terms of genre. Sure, it’s most prominently a horror but it wouldn’t be out of line to deem it a member of the “bad youth” genre, where the story largely consists of various immoral activities undertaken by students. The second volume retains three principle characters from the first volume but otherwise follows a more traditional us vs. them story arc.

The first volume focuses on three students, Mori, Henmi, and Luna, from the same school, though for the majority of the volume they barely interact. The story begins with Mori conversing as just met a strange woman who tells him how she came to realize she was a vampire. She then proceeds to turn Mori into a vampire as well. During the day Mori covers his entire body to protect himself from the sunlight, at least until he drops out of school. During the night he seeks out victims and sexual pleasure.

Henmi is another teenager who causes trouble at night though his interest is in arson. Since he isn’t undead he has to deal with hiding his guilt and secret life from his parents. I didn’t him to be an interesting character but I liked how he was used by the author to explore the theme of physical confinement with two contrasting dream sequences. The first has Henmi trapped in a narrowing tunnel and the other consists of him having a sexual encounter with a woman under his blankets. I think it’s somewhat disappointing that the conclusion of his arc suggests that the two scenes were really equivalent. At some point he starts to think he may be a vampire himself (and I think the reader is supposed to suspect this as well) which may have indirectly inspired him to take his crime spree to the next level.

Luna is the story’s heroine. She spends the first part of the volume being repulsed by her surroundings and fearing for her life because she can’t stop envisioning unpleasant imagery. She seems to be aware that she’s going to be the victim in this story. The author does a great job of making her growing resistance to anything dark look bad in one scene where she refuses to assist a man who has been beaten to the point that he can only crawl because she assumes he’s another one of her visions. Though I can’t say I blame her for how she feels. It’s clear that when she fulfills her role as the victim she will be reduced a beautiful but brutalized fetish object.

What stands out most in the artwork is the hybrid between grotesque and nature imagery. Nearly every time a character tries to revel in some sexual fantasy/reality there are bugs crawling around, as if to comment on the raw naturalistic aspect behind the desire for such fantasies. The scene where Mori makes love to a corpse in the middle of a grass field is definitely the part where this visual hybrid is most clear. The bug imagery serves a second purpose, and that’s to contrast with the lovely raven silhouettes that are usually associated with Mori when he’s being a normal vampire. I suppose one of things that make this volume difficult to think about is that none of the characters represent one idea or one genre. They’re all conflicted but by the end they uncover an unexpected aspect to their lives. Mori becomes a more modernized romantic vampire, Henmi finds out he doesn’t care for the taste of blood, and Luna, well, becomes empowered.

Ichi the Killer Vol. 2 (Hideo Yamamoto, Young Sunday)

This volume continues looking at the growing conflict between Jijii’s group and the yakuza clan they robbed last volume, as well as at Ichi’s personal life. To make a long story short, Jijii convinces Kakihara that another yukaza clan was behind the heist. As a result, Kakihara and his men kidnap and torture a key man in that clan in hopes of making him confess to everything.

It’s somewhat annoying that Jijii’s plan falls in to place so easily, all because Kakihara is so easily manipulated and never considers that he could be wrong, like a typically boring gangster-type character. It’s the torture scene that makes this episode something different. I suggested in my write up of volume 1 that Kakihara inflicted pain on others to get a natural reaction from them but now the pain is being used to instigate a false reality that would result from a forced confession. From this point on, Jijii’s plan to get the two clans at one another’s throats hinges on the victim’s inability to let the incident be forgotten before he gets revenge.

Meanwhile Ichi continues training a child to help him get back at his bullies. It’s hard to not to feel that Ichi is being shoe-horned into a shounen hero role which I think is more comical than anything. What’s more interesting to me is the way his ability to fight isn’t just presented as a method to get back at bullies but also shown to lead to moments of unexpected beauty. Also the scene where Ichi has a fight in a martial arts dojo is very perspective. Ichi drops to the ground in fear of himself because he understands how dangerous he is.

The volume concludes with a short episode in which Ichi meets up with his favorite prostitute. He decides to follow her home and kill her abusive husband. I won’t spoil what happens but let’s just say any presumptions that were formed last volume that it was for the best that Ichi had a fetish for scarred and bruised skin, since that fetish helped him find happiness with this woman, get completely turned on… their head.

March Reading List Update

Reading List

-Removed Adolf (completed)
-Added Astral Project
-Added Banana Fish
-Added Ichi the Killer
-Removed The Key to the Kingdom (completed)
-Added Liar Game
-Removed Monster (completed)
-Removed One (completed)
-Added Sand Chronicles
-Removed Suppli (dropped by publisher)

Incomplete List

-Added Suppli

Crime Manga?

Spoilers ahead.

Monster Vol. 18 (Naoki Urasawa, Big Comic Original)

Before getting to the plot I want to say that this volume is my favorite of the series purely in terms of artwork. I loved the nearly abstract images of the small mountain town’s streets during a rainy night. Also I admit I was somewhat disappointed that it was revealed what Johan represented, ideologically. Though that may be because I had my own suspicions that I still think better align with the rest of the series.

Any ways, last volume I commented on the blandness of the how the town descended into chaos. Oddly enough the only character who legitimately goes berserk here is Mr. Grimmer. Of course, his attack takes place off-panel but it’s clear that it still really happened this time. Interestingly, Mr. Grimmer is able to recover his lost emotions and realizes what must have happened to The Magnificent Steiner but he never finds out what happened to his friend from the Kinderheim 511. However I’d say we’re supposed to be relieved by that. This seems to be apart of the larger theme of knowledge or rather the inherent limits of personal knowledge. Because this is a mystery thriller, we should feel assured that all the loose ends will be tied together by the end of this volume but what actually happens is that as more is revealed to us, less is understood. Poppe’s back story in particular is a non-event.

Any ways, everything from Tenma and Johan meeting for their final showdown onward is quite good and worth a close look. Throughout the series Tenma has tried to track down and kill Johan even though that obviously goes against his doctor principles. Hence when Tenma does kill Johan, it will really be Johan who has the last laugh. What happens is that Johan is shot by the town drunk that sees Johan holding his son hostage. Johan doesn’t get his last laugh because his attacker was merely adhering to his own moral code. While Tenma seems to have escaped Johan’s trap, as a result of keeping his doctor status he has to save Johan from a near-fatal head wound yet again.

Everything that takes place after this decision is made is typical of what you’d find in a concluding chapter. All of the major characters reappear and the reader is assured they get a happy ending. At least until Johan is shown and we’re given at least one new mystery to ponder over. While I’m sure most will find this stifling and maybe even unnecessarily cruel towards Johan, I don’t think the author is against the idea of mystery. Consider how on the final page Johan gets his own mystery that is endlessly alluring.

Ichi the Killer Vol. 1 (Hideo Yamamoto, Young Sunday)

This series begins by introducing us to a cop who has recently begun working in his new area, Kabukichou, the biggest red light district in Asia. Apparently this cop won’t be a major part of this series. A fellow officer tells him that the commonly used procedure is to show up at a crime scene several minutes after the fact to avoid getting into any real danger themselves. After the officers work by a fancy condo that seems out of place, we’re introduced to a group of men hiding out in the back of a van planning to steal the contents of a single safe within the building. Their trump card is a young man named Ichi, a violent killer who cries as he kills the safe’s owner and his girl. While his crying admits an unwanted emotional intensity to the violent act, the process is quickly undermined when a tearful Ichi is questioned by a child who doesn’t understand why an adult would cry. To comfort the child, Ichi “smiles” but that only scares him off though you have to give Ichi credit for trying. It’s not like the local police would serve as more inspiration role models.

It’s hard to say for sure after only one volume but I’m getting the impression that this series is about expression or more precisely the pure and honest expression that results from extreme pain. There are other reasons that emotion flows outward from the faces of the characters but pain is the main one so far. I think it’s important to consider the hit-man character who works for the Yakuza gang that the story centers around. He’s a typically cold/intense character that you’d expect to see fill the pages of a crime series but here his stiffness makes him more of an exception to the norm.

The heist scene itself comes across as being surprisingly perceptive, for lack of a better word. The crew comments on how the killing clean up accessory business is booming. There’s also the way the safe cracker is able to surpass the image of stereotypical safe cracker by opening the safe without any tools. But the most challenging moment is when one of the crew members openly lusts for the corpse of the dead woman. It’s one thing to show the corpse but normally there wouldn’t be an open admittance that some people are going to derive sexual pleasure from it. It shouldn’t be surprising that the crew is viewed as thugs without honour and ethics (relatively speaking) by the yakuza clans that these beliefs aren’t exactly unfounded. The last we see of them they talk about exploiting the gaps that exist in the crime world, as opposed to you know, the yakuza clans that merely exploit the gaps found in the legal world.

On the other hand there’s Ichi, who lives in his own world with minimal interest in his surroudings. He lives on his own in a lake side home. He prefers to use his cut of the heist money to insolate his kick-bag instead of something more practical. Though things aren’t all well for him. He has reoccuring nightmares of his school days where he was maliciously bullied. Unsurprisingly this is his motivation behind his violent streak. It’s revealed that he saw one of his tormentors in the safe owner and used that to motivate and maybe even justify attacking him. As for Ichi’s source of emotional support, there’s a prostitute he frequents. We’re initially introduced to her through her attractive photo but in actuality she’s covered with bruises and scars. In all likelihood, this relationship is the only hope either of them have.