Good Old-Fashioned Family Psychological Trauma!

 

Tsubasa Ichinose was once an ordinary boy on vacation with his family, up until the point where they all developed amnesia after a car accident.  They all know their names, where they live, and their relationships, but that’s it.  This is the core mystery at the heart of “The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins”.

 

Or so it seems.

 

As Tsubasa and his family assimilate back into their daily lives and dig deeper into the incident that erased their memories, the darker and more sinister things become.  Tsubasa himself was once bullied, but then got a swelled head from soccer and became a bully himself.  His little sister had a secret life of going out on “compensated dates”.  His father cheated on his mother, to the point where his other family even has a kid.  And his grandmother is hiding an Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

 

It’s a very cerebral brand of horror that you don’t often see gracing the pages of Jump.  And it just seems to keep going, to the point where, if you haven’t been paying serious attention, it might be hard to keep track of.

 

(I know it has been for me.  I think there was a mention of time-loops of some sort?  The memories do reset over and over again, a la Higurashi, I know that for a fact.)

 

But there are sinister forces afoot as well, forces that don’t want the Ichinose family to remember everything.

 

Original concept aside, the simplistic art style helps to make the darker aspects of the story stand out even more.  Tsubasa makes a perfect simple-minded, wide-eyed, idealistic protagonist, which, again, helps to make the darker aspects of his mysterious past stand out even more.

 

What also helps is that (at least at this point) everything seems to be grounded in reality.  The lack of supernatural elements really helps hammer home to the reader the very realistic fear that “hey, this could possibly happen to you!”  The series also plays on the old fear of “realizing that the people that you thought you knew are really not who you think you are”.  And “even you might not be who you think you are”.

 

Because, without our memories and our thoughts and our individual identities, who are we?  We all like to think that we know ourselves, and that our core personalities won’t change.  But what if they do?  What if everything we thought we knew about ourselves, or those we love, is wrong?

 

That is terrifying.  (And no-I will not say “mortifying” like so many other people nowadays do, because I am 100% sure that’s not how you use that word.)

 

The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins is still ongoing in the pages of Shonen Jump, and I read the translations every Sunday on their website.  No word, as far as I know, of any anime releases or English releases, but one can only hope.

 

I just know that I’ll keep following this series until it either ends or else becomes too intricate for me to understand.

 

Whichever comes first.

 

And, with that, we are all free to enjoy the rest of 2023!

 

Lights, Camera, Ghosts!

 

When he was a boy, Hajime Shinichi spent most of his time in the hospital.  Only the movies he got to see on the TV or on DVD could show him really anything about the world.  This led to his growing up to know everything there is to know about movies and cinema, and even to become head of his school’s Movie Research Club.  Yet he is still uninterested in actually making any movies of his own at this time.  Hajime is the perfect Japanese student, focusing on his exams so that he can get into a good college…and have plenty of time to watch movies.

 

But it is while watching one such movie at the local indie theater that he gains the attention of Takihiko Tenmaku, the ghost of a long-dead screenwriter and the titular “Tenmaku” of “Tenmaku Cinema”.  It turned out that he died before he could finish writing his movie script and get it off to his director.  His director who, unfortunately, has been dead for decades.  His spirit (no pun intended) broken, Takihiko resigns himself to haunting Hajime and remaining unfulfilled until he spots Hajime’s classmate Hinaki and, in a rush of inspiration, writes up an entirely new movie from scratch, just for her to star in.

 

(The footnotes claim that there is a process called ategaki, in which a screenwriter comes up with a script strictly as a vehicle for an actor they know.  But this is the first that I’ve heard of it.)

 

And so, in the manner of Hikaru no Go and, like, every other Yu-Gi-Oh protagonist, Hajime finds himself working hard to complete Takihiko’s life’s work, get his movie made, and help his erstwhile friend cross over to the other side.

 

Author Yuto Tsukuda and artist Shun Saeki, the duo behind Food Wars: Shokugeki No Souma (which I have also reviewed, if you would like to take a look at my archives), have brought us into another intricate brotherhood/occupation of the world that most of us would not know about in their latest manga.

 

There is humor here, but still the definite sense of professionalism, much like there was in their previous series.  The story itself is reminiscent of Ichigo 100% (and yes, I know I’m dating myself here), mixed with Hikaru no Go and Shokugeki No Souma.  And, even though we’re currently only in the early chapters, there’s even a whiff of a mystery thrown in for good measure.

 

Just who was Takihiko Tenmaku before he died?

 

Even though this series is even less within my wheelhouse than “Souma” was, I still intend to keep following it on the Shonen Jump website.  And I hope that you readers do, too.

 

Not Yer Mamma's Frankenstein!

 

In a world of vaguely medieval/Victorian atmosphere, a mad scientist has created 100 zombies, in an attempt to create human perfection.  But they soon escaped, and are now roaming the world in search of the parts they need in order to make themselves “whole”.  And, tragically, a good number of them found what they were looking for in the super-powered Yao family.

 

Now the sole survivor, young Ashibi, travels with the last of the “Fabricants”, Number 100, in order to hunt down their surviving members and make them all pay.

 

Now why, you may ask, is he working with one of the enemy?  Because he promised her that, once all the other Fabricants are dead, Number 100 can have what’s left of his body for herself.

 

This kind of relationship, albeit probably having been done before, is still rather unique, in my eyes.  Although I think we all know that, one day, Number 100 will grow to see Ashibi as more than just a useful sack of organs.  And we all know that Ashibi will one day stop being just a useless bystander and begin to find ways to fight against the Fabricants on his own.

 

Each Fabricant has gained certain special powers from the high-quality body parts that they have stolen.  One can see incredibly well with powerful eyes, while another can hide underwater, thanks to super-powerful lungs.

 

The story and the art are both fairly standard, but the starkness of the latter really helps to make the somewhat macabre subject matter stand out.  I mean, these are zombies that go around hunting for super-powered body parts and harvesting them…whether from other dead people or otherwise.  I am almost reminded of Seven Deadly Sins, going by the aesthetic of the world and by the art style.

 

As of this posting, Ashibi and Number 100 have linked up with an organization called Mortsafe that is also hunting down the Fabricants, so we will see where things go from there.

 

I am sorry that I don’t have more to say on the subject of Fabricant 100, but the series, as of this point, is still more-or-less in its infancy.  Only debuting in Japan last year, and with no news (as far as I know) as to if/when it will be getting an anime or releasing on Western shores any time soon, the only thing us manga fans can do is keep up with the new, translated chapters on the Shonen Jump web site.

 

And you know I will.

 

Strikes Just The Right Chords!

 

A while aback, there was a big hullaballoo about this new manga series Clock Striker.  It was because this series’ protagonist Cast is unambiguously a Black woman.  They even use the world “Black” to indirectly describe her, via someone talking to a similar person about [Cast].

 

While the story, art and characters are all great, I could have sworn that this was a Shonen Jump manga, as in actually from Shonen Jump in Japan.  However, a deeper dive revealed that Clock Striker came from a North American magazine called Saturday AM, and that the actual manga itself came from the UK.  So I am not sure whether to qualify it as a proper “manga”, in the traditional sense of the term.

 

And I will admit-it does kind of hurt to not see a racially-diverse manga come out of Japan, but their country does tend to be pretty racist in general, so I am not totally surprised.

 

Anyway, in a world of technology so advanced that it’s indistinguishable from magic, a group of combat techomancers called Smiths seek to clean up all that remains of an ancient technology that nearly destroyed the world in years past.  Many thing that these warriors were all men, but at least one woman (at this point has survived): Philomena Clock.

 

Meanwhile, young Cast seeks to become a Smith’s apprentice (a “Striker), and probably one day a Smith herself, but her schoolteacher constantly tells her that she can’t be, simply because she is both a disabled girl and, implicitly, because she is poor.

 

So, naturally, said teacher serves as the first antagonist that Cast and Miss Clock have to face, and he nails it.  He’s a total jerk to everyone and obsessed with money and power, he’s a sneaky liar and he’s been working a long con in Cast’s home city of Brick.  On top of that, he is openly sexist, classist and ableist.  So you know he goes down.

 

Perfect starter villain: deliciously hateable, but little real threat.

 

And, from then on, the adventures continue.

 

Now, may I say that Clock Striker may very well be one of the best new manga I’ve read in a while.

 

The series is still in its infancy, but there are already several mysteries in this world that leave us readers entrapped.  The wars in the past, what happened to the Smiths, Miss Clock’s mysterious past and Cast’s missing father (the last of which is bit of a cliché, but I can roll with it).

 

It’s like One Piece, in that way.  I can also see in it various things that remind of other alternate-world battle manga like Toto and Zombie Powder.  You can really feel the Japanese manga influence, but not in a merely vague way like we did with Avatar or Xiaolin Showdown.

 

And another cool thing about the series is that it’s just self-aware and meta enough to label each new chapter according to which story arc it’s in.

 

But, while I do appreciate that the series does show any racial diversity at all (even coming from one of the most diverse “manga” magazines out there), it does ladle the plights faced by non-White disabled women on a little bit thick.  Our protag Cast is simultaneously looked-down upon for being all three (she is missing a hand).  Her being all at once Black and female and disabled almost feels like a bit too much, like the author is trying too hard to gain sympathy and push the envelope, to the point where it almost feels overdone.

 

But at least her issues (at least so far) are treated with respect by both the author and the “good” characters in the story.  Cast and her family do not speak in “yo yo yo” ebonics, nor do they have afros or dress like hoods (although they are poor).  And, when Spanish-speakers do appear, the only really racialist things they do are speak Spanish, have Spanish names, and serve the characters elote corn.  It’s not like they’re all wearing sombreros and speaking in broken English.

 

It doesn’t feel great that I even had to write that, but that’s the level of racism I wouldn’t put past this world to give me.

 

Cast is a shining example of a protagonist.  She is confident, smart and righteous without being stupid, gullible or overly-dark.  And Miss Clock plays the Crabby Mentor with a Heart of Gold to a tee.  Our heroes use math and science to fight battles, but there’s not too much going on and on about the relationships between X and Y and equations and all that guff.  Just a lot of “mix this with that” and boom-boom-boom.  Clock freaking uses hard light weaponry and can hack enemies’ eyes to make them see illusions!

‘

A second read-through even revealed to me that there was a stinger added in after the end of the last chapter!

 

Now, I’m not sure if I’d actually spend money to own this manga series, but you can be sure that I will definitely be following its progress in any way that I can.

 

And you should, too!

Sit This Game Out

 

I am not a soccer fan.  I am not a sports fan.  The only thing that’s even remotely like a sport that I follow is Battlebots, and even then, there aren’t a lot of opportunities to go and watch it here in the Midwest aside from the Discovery Channel.

 

But apparently everybody’s loving this new soccer manga called Blue Lock.  And, since I found a copy of Volume One at my local library, I figured why not?

 

High school soccer forward Yoichi Isagi is second-guessing himself and lamenting the “loss of his dream” after a single action leads to his team’s loss in his final high school soccer game.  But then a letter is sent out to not only him, but also 299 other high school forwards, all inviting them into a secret project.

 

Yep: In this world, apparently the game of soccer is treated with all the importance of global warfare.

 

Heading up this operation (at least on the day-to-day teaching side) is eccentric coach Junpei Ego.  And, let me tell you: this guy is weird.  His limbs and neck seem to be drawn much longer than those of the properly-proportioned other characters, and his eyes have deep circles underneath them.  It all comes off as very creepy and alien, reminding me heavily of L from Death Note.  When he opens his mouth, I think we can see individual teeth like in a Slasher Smile.

 

To say nothing of his personality.

 

In a harsh inversion of the stock sports story tropes about teamwork being the key to winning it all, Ego legitimately believes that there is a correlation between egotism and soccer skills.  So his master plan is to weed out the 300 students until only one remains: the one with the sheer self-important egotism and drive to single-handedly be the best that will produce Japan’s ultimate striker.

 

You can tell that the author Mineyuki Kuneshiro has written for psychological horror strategy death game manga before, because that’s right where the story winds up going.

 

Which is cool and all, but there are a lot of reasons why I did not particularly enjoy Blue Lock.

 

As I said, I am not a soccer fan, so I got none of the references and have no idea what all the different soccer terms and positions mean.  Even the few famous soccer players I recognize are from their having been mentioned in other media like The Simpsons.  I have no idea what a striker or a forward is, or why they are so damn important that they apparently have their own national governing body.

 

But I can respect the author’s wishes in his desire to write about something he cares about.  If I knew how to, I would be writing about nudism and card games and combat robotics by now.

 

The story is unbelievable (in that it is hard to believe it could happen and/or take seriously), the character names are weird, and the female characters are practically nonexistent.  The only real major one is the national soccer chairwoman, and even she is not immune to some frankly offensive sexualization and micro-aggressions from her peers.

 

As you can probably guess by the fact that I have barely mentioned any of the characters here, there isn’t much to write home about there.  Most of the characters are obviously focused on improving Japanese soccer to a maniacal degree, but the odd person here or there does have an interesting story.

 

Like the guy who wants to play soccer and excel so that he doesn’t have to take over his family’s shrine, and…that’s it.

 

So pick up Blue Lock today if you are a fan of soccer, or of death game manga, or you wouldn’t mind seeing them both squished together.

 

But, as for me, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to sit this one out on the sidelines.

 

(Does soccer have sidelines?  Otherwise, that joke makes no sense.)