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.)

A Lighter, Japanese "It"

 

First of all, dear readers, allow me to apologize for the massive gap between my last review posting and this latest one.  I have gotten into the habit of finding the nine manga I year that I want to review, and then writing all of my reviews of them in one big folder before posting them.

So, naturally, I first had to wait until I could find nine new manga to talk about.

And Covid has taken away all the good chairs at my local Barnes and Noble, so I don't exactly get to go there all that much any more, even if I didn't have an entire life to already keep me busy.

 

But enough of that: Let's get to reviewing Yoko Komori's "Mermaid Scales and The Town Of Sand".

 

Again, as with Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible, this series was also recommended to me via banner ad on my phone’s Google Chrome home page.  But, for those who didn’t have that luxury, the series that I am reviewing today was blurbed as “a cute manga with a dark twist”.

 

And I don’t know about you, but those terms made me instantly think of horror manga.  So, supernatural mermaids and horror?  I was all over it.  Plus, it just so happened that I had the evening free on the release date last week, so I figured what the heck?

 

When twelve-year-old Tokiko’s parents divorce, she leaves with her father to the seaside town of Sunanomori, where she had briefly spent time as a toddler.  But, back during those days, a sudden instance of near-drowning had led to the young Tokiko being saved by what appeared to be a merman.

 

Grappling with her own hazy memories and her new living situation, Tokiko desires to find the merman once again and thank him for what he has done.  Along the way, she deals with conflicts from both inside and out (but nothing too apparently supernatural or dangerous).

 

The story felt very Stephen King to me, particularly his more child-based stories such as “It” and “The Institute”.  There is mystery, the threat of danger and a hint of the supernatural, but there is also the occasional (okay, more than occasional) snippet of just plain, ordinary, run-of-the-mill life.  There is even a conspiracy among the adults to keep the children from going into a certain sewer pipe and risk seeing what’s on the other side.

 

SPOILER ALERT: Sadly, all this secrecy comes close to a satisfying payoff, but it still falls short.  This did not turn out to be a horror manga, per se; more like a supernatural-tinged slice-of-life mystery.  (Which is still good.)

 

Art-wise, the artist pairs her simplistic character designs with almost watercolor backgrounds, leading to a nice artistic dissonance.  Like adding salt to one’s caramel.

 

But be forewarned: While there is no real blood, sex or violence in this manga, there are a few scenes of our underage protagonist appearing naked in her dream worlds/Imagine Spots.  No doubt this is merely meant to emphasize the scenes’ etherealness, but I figured a warning was better safe than sorry.

 

While this manga is only a single volume and not an ongoing series, I feel like I can still recommend it to you readers to pick up.  Maybe I’ll even pick it up once or twice in the future from my local library…as long as it remains on the shelves…

 

A Rare Bright Spot

 

On my second-to-last visit to my local library, I saw on the shelves Volume 2 of something called “Rainbow and Black”.

 

The blurb on the back made it sound mildly interesting, but I couldn’t very well start with Volume 2, now could I?  So I went into the library catalog online and reserved a copy of Volume 1 (which they thankfully had), and it came in yesterday.  Unfortunately, I had to work, and could not go and pick it up until this afternoon.

 

The basic synopsis of the series is that protagonist Kuroe Shirahoshi (beautiful Japanese wordplay on the words for black “kuro” and white “shiro/a” there, on par with My Hero Academia), a woman who “sees things in only black and white” one night finds a strange and adorable animal abandoned on the side of the road.  This feathered mouse creature is Niji, a “Rainbow-Colored Heavenly Parrot”, a rare animal that defies all description and classification.

 

Now, before you say anything-This is a slice-of-life manga more than anything.  Niji is not a magical talking animal from another world.  He did not name himself, and he only speaks in a disturbingly knowledgeable parroting of phrases that he hears.  Kuroe is not a sorcerer, nor does she fall into another world like every other manga protagonist seems to do these days.  She’s just a regular Japanese college student who still lives with her mother in (I think) Tokyo.  She even uses social media (to a degree).

 

While this is probably one of the funniest manga I’ve picked up in a while, with a ton of visual gags and gobbledygook nonsense, all stemming from the actions of Niji, the story blurbs themselves are a tad misleading.

 

There is all this implication that Niji’s presence will somehow help expand Kuroe’s world to help her accept that some things are not “all black and white”, but there is little of that actually happening in the first volume.  Kuroe remains steadfast in her life philosophy, and Niji doesn’t actually seem to be doing much in the way of changing that.

 

Truth be told, Volume 1 reads more like a calming slice-of-life exotic pet care informational manga than anything really thinky or life-altering.

 

And Kuroe’s whole problem seems very ill-defined to me.  Seeing things in all black and white, to me, means all-or-nothing, right or wrong, Up or Down and so forth.  Either something is or it isn’t.  Either something is wrong or it’s right.  But I see little of that in the personal problems that she shows us in Volume 1.  All that I see of her is that she’s a stickler for the rules and doing what’s right, and that she has some social problems that eerily mirror my own as an autistic man.

 

But, in Volume 1’s defense, Kuroe does wind up making friends with a fellow Rainbow-Colored Heavenly Parrot owner on social media, and winds up meeting up with her IRL and spending time with her as a friend…in the very last chapter [that it contained].

 

But I don’t regret having read this manga.  It was funny and heartfelt, tugging on the strings of one’s heart with its depictions of pet-and-owner love relationships.  Niji is cute and weird at the same time.  There is no mystery or violence or romance in this manga, and that is weirdly fine, given what it actually is.

 

It may not be much, but I think I will try to keep up with this series, whenever and wherever I find it on the shelves.