And also, manga post!
Jun. 4th, 2006 05:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sub_dividedChrono Crusade (vol 6), Daisuke Moriyama
Very rushed. There are so many parts that could have greater emotional impact, if only they hadn't all been crowded together. Daisuke Moriyama doesn't work by surprise, he works by taking every available opportunity (+ creating opportunities) to unambiguously push across the same themes he's been going on about since the very beginning. Staying optimistic, not allowing your options to be limited, the transformative power of positive relationships: those are the themes, and they are always getting these two-page spreads with naked glowwy Rosette to highlight them. (There's a reason she's the main character, even though the manga is as much about Chrono.) Pacing and consistency are his strong points.
This volume ought to have been a killer, because it's the flashback volume. Unlike, say, Tengo Tenge, this flashback was clearly planned in advance. Events fit perfectly into what we already know about the characters involved (Chrono, Aion, Mary Magdalene). In a sense Moriyama is only reinforcing what readers familiar with this sort of plot know must have happened, so he can rush through it all he wants and we'll still be able to fill in the details.
But dammit, I wanted details! And more drawings of old!Chrono and shorthaired!Aion, okay I admit it. But mostly details. For example: when the Sinners first rebelled against Pandemonium, they were hundreds strong, but by the time we get to them there are only six left. Since the reason they're fighting is to be free, the fact that they are continuing to fight for a freedom that only six of them will be able to enjoy is significant. It says a lot about Aion that he'd continue and a lot about Chrono that he'd question whether it was worth it. The whole setup is poignant, there really ought to have been some naked glowwy Chrono spreads highlighting it (actually I'm kidding -- but then again, I'm really not).
And more cute domestic scenes like the clothes washing by the river. And more scenes with the six remaining Sinners who aren't Aion or Chrono! Especially that, those characters either reappear in the present or die horribly (sometimes both), I would have liked to have known more about them. Mary Magdale's death scene is really powerful, because it is three pages with no words at all and yet you can tell exactly what is going on from the storyboarding alone. But it should have been longer. This is the emotional center of the manga, for god's sake! It shouldn’t have been perfunctory.
The parts after the flashback scene are even more perfunctory. There's a lot of running, some minor character pep talk cameos, and then we are mysteriously all set for the final showdown. It's perfectly comprehensible, but it's like the author had hit fast forward through all the tricky parts and was hoping no one would notice. Normally I am all for that sort of thing -- why show more than you have to? -- but Chrono Crusade is really not that kind of manga.
I wonder if these pacing issues were less noticeable when the story was published as a monthly serialization. Probably. But I bet they were still there.
Earthian (vol 2, vol 3), Yun Kouga
I really liked volume two, but volume three didn't live up to the hype. (Wait, that's it?! Where is my stunning conclusion?!!)
VOLUME 2
+ Angel mating season FTW! This is perfect not only because it is a loveably cheesy plot device way to up the sexual tension (that too), but because it's a sudden reminder that the Angels aren't human. They're aliens. After the first volume, where you go in thinking they're biblical and thus better than humans and justified in passing judgment on them, only to very quickly realize that they aren't, it's natural to think of them as not much more than pretty Earthians with wings (especially since the two races are genetically compatible). But no, they're aliens.
+ Homosexual love (or more accurately, as Raphael points out, the physical expression of homosexual love) is punishable by death BECAUSE increasing rates of gayness among angels are decreasing the birth rate and the Black cancer is increasing the death rate, so that the entire race is in danger of dying out. There is an in-series explanation for both the rampant gay and the fact that it is forbidden. The sci fi dork inside me rejoices.
+ God I love the way this manga insists on making Kagetsuya the woman in the face of all conventional wisdom/irrefutable evidence. It's not even role reversal, it's actually an expansion of constitutes "feminine" ala the scene in volume one where Kagetsuya says he can't be the wife, he's always worrying over and protecting Chihaya! And Raphael tells him that's what makes him the wife. XD. In this volume, it's always Chihaya who leads and Kagetsuya who follows, and there is that adorable scene where Chihaya and Sayaka fight over who gets to be Kagetsuya's partner while he sort of stands there going guys, I am right here, shouldn't you be asking my opinion on this?
+ I thought Chihaya was indecisive because he couldn't figure out how he felt -- BUT NO, he knows exactly how he feels. He pretends not to know because he's afraid of the consequences. Kagetsuya is the one who acts instinctively. All my love for this brilliant piece of characterization.
+ There is like the best series of two page spreads EVER re: thinking or not thinking. Chihaya, Sayaka, and Kegetsuya (the "princess") have all been thrown in jail for dueling, and they each get a spread against the backdrop of the blackness of space broken only the stylized branches of flowering trees. I liked this scene so much that I am going to reproduce it for you:
Chihaya: What am I doing? I'm being so selfish. I just keep thinking about myself and never consider anyone else's feelings. I'm causing trouble for everyone. I just decided on my own that I didn't want to lose Kagetsuya, never even pausing to consider how anyone else felt. What should I do? What...
Chihaya: "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."
Sayaka: "What are you apologizing for! I threw down my glove! I challenged you!
Sayaka: This whole mess is your fault! Your fault! I hate you! But I know that I don't really belong with Kagetsuya. If you'd only been more direct from the start, I wouldn't have done something so shameful. Now I'm just being stubborn, but what else can I do? What...
Kagetsuya: ".........................................."
Kagetsuya: ............................................
Kagetsuya: ............................................
Kagetsuya: ............................................
Kagetsuya: ..............................................................................What should I do?
I fell out of my chair, I was laughing so hard.
+ Poor Kagetsuya and his symbolically erotic dreams about Chihaya ("Eden fell because Adam and Even didn't have children! Have an apple!") that he doesn't realize the significance of until it is too late. *creepy laugh*
+ Poor Raphael. Even if you're doing it in a deliberately provocative way, it's still disadvantageous to be the more demonstrative half of a relationship -- and Michael refuses to take responsibility.
+ Michael and Raphael, the power dynamics of love. Of course we're meant to compare them to Chihaya and Kagetsuya. Raphael seems like he's in control, because he's always the one doing dangerously flirty things that Michael pretends not to notice -- BUT NO, Michael knows exactly what's going on. He only acts clueless because he's afraid of the consequences, while deliberately fanning the flames. All my love to this brilliant piece of characterization.
+ *yawns through Taki and Miyuki's storyline* It still feels tacked on, I'm just not feeling it. It's not that I don't appreciate the themes (obsessed mad scientist + androids who are more human than humans + why doesn't professor love us? + I trust you because I have to), I just don't think they're integrated into the main story very well. Plus these scenes are confusingly drawn.
+ Oh yeah, and the art in this volume is so much better. And I'm not just saying that because I'm getting used to/Yun Kouga is moving away from that ultra-eighties angular faces and block hair look (the one Minekura is getting back to in Just!!). No, it's objectively better -- tighter lines, more dynamic shading. There still aren't many backgrounds, but there are more pretty shoujo flowers so I guess it evens out.
SPOILERS...the same spoilers that ruined the ending for me, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
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VOLUME 3
+ Talk about your nonlinear narratives. It's not that events are told out of order, but events you expect will have immediate follow-up (e.g. Chihaya-and-Kegetsuya-are-sharing-a-cabin-and-Kagetsuya-is-in-heat) are completely dropped in the next chapter, only to resurface without warning halfway through the volume. I don’t know whether I like this or hate it. The "timeline of emotional development" is steady, but if you try to think in terms of concrete events (places and times) it becomes really difficult. This situation is exacerbated by the lack of backgrounds and extremely shady dating system -- there's never any indication of how much time has passed between chapters, there are characters who age a decade in a single year and characters who are "born" already fully developed, plus there is the whole "we have been monitoring the Earthian for billions of years" thing which, um, is impossible (modern humans are only two million years old). I was wondering why this manga was so popular when it's so hard to make sense of it, until I realized that if you stop worrying about the dates and learn to embrace emotional development it is actually quite easy.
+ Some really outstanding scenes like:
Intercom: The escort must be military personnel.
Chihaya: *beat*
Chihaya: Oh. I'm military.
I love that it takes him a second to realize. Whether or not it really has been billions of years, the plus/minus system has been in place so long it's become institutionalized, no one really thinks about what it means to be a checker anymore. I mean you have people like Sayaka, who only becomes a plus checker so he can be paired with Kagetsuya, who (not having any evidence to the contrary, I am 90% certain) only became a minus checker so he could be paired with Chihaya.
+ Just like in the first volume, I'm mad that it takes Elvira telling Chihaya that there's something wrong before he realizes it. Well, that's not completely true, because he's already said -- out loud! which is a big thing for him -- that he doesn't think angels have the right to judge humans. If you think about it, this is a pretty big step. But he doesn't make the connection between angels destroying humanity and angels moving in to claim the newly depopulated earth until Elvira points it out. Though I guess the swiftness of his response shows that it's something he's been trying not to think about for a long time (now that the floodgates have been opened.... )
+ Oooh, another good scene:
Elvira: Where would you be born, if you had the choice?
Chihaya: Eden.
Elvira: *smiles*
Chihaya: I love the earth. But no matter how many times I was reborn, I would choose Eden. I would never want to lose my pride.
Somehow the idea of being torn between the culture you were born in and the culture you chose for yourself resonates with me, go figure. (By "go figure" I mean "look, Japanophile parallels!" ...although actually, if I was Chihaya, I NOT ONLY would have said the same thing, I wouldn't have switched sides at the end. Even if I didn't have any particular reason to like where I came from. Even if my own culture had rejected me and I was backed into a corner. Even if -- and this is the heartbreaking part -- even if it was a question of the destruction of another culture. Maybe. Or maybe not. I don't know. Chihaya is really brave.)
+ Kagetsuya, on the other hand. I don't understand why Kagetsuya is doing this. I mean, on one level I do: because he loves Chihaya. I guess what I don't get is that kind of absolute devotion. It's interesting that you get two counterexamples in the manga: Aya, who accepts Miyagi's proposal saying, "I love Kagetsuya, but you're the only man who could make me happy," and Raphael, who in all seriousness tells Kagetsuya that "love means sex." (Well, but this is only because he's been driven insane by UST.) Kagetsuya-type total love, which requires the throwing away of everything else of value, doesn't seem real to me. In a way he's braver than Chihaya, because he has more to lose, and in a way he isn't, because he's surrendered his will and is acting instinctively.
+ Another counterexample, beautifully illustrated by Miyuki and Taki, is "love is a kind of madness."
+ Why I didn't like the ending: mostly, it's because I knew it was coming. Way back when I couldn't find the manga online and hadn't yet resolved myself to buying the hard copy, I downloaded the anime -- actually, it's a set of four OAVs episodes -- as a stopgate measure. These episodes cover two original stories not in the manga (unless they are in the collected side stories volume, which I haven't read) and, really, they're sort of ridiculous. Fallen angel becomes a pop idol and drug addict, is killed by label hit squad. Bioroid angel nearly destroys the world, using his mystical connection to every computer on the planet (or was it every computer and all electronic devices, including toasters). The second OAV takes place after Eden has tried, and failed, to destroy the Earthian.
I remember it was a HUGE shock to hear that Eden actually had decided to annihilate the Earthian. The series itself discourages these kinds of thoughts, all the way up to just before the scenario actually pans out. But once you've gotten used to the idea, you've gotten used to it, and reading about it there's a lot less of an emotional impact.
Also, the climax was sort of silly. Telepathic baby angel-human hybrids running around blowing up spaceships, Earthian psychics holding back meteorite showers with the power of their minds. Although really this, uhhh, wasn't that much of a stretch, considering what's come before (angel mating season FTW!).
Maybe I'm just upset to have reached the end. Fifteen years of work, four hours of reading! I am counting on the side stories to explain Raphael's motives.
Very rushed. There are so many parts that could have greater emotional impact, if only they hadn't all been crowded together. Daisuke Moriyama doesn't work by surprise, he works by taking every available opportunity (+ creating opportunities) to unambiguously push across the same themes he's been going on about since the very beginning. Staying optimistic, not allowing your options to be limited, the transformative power of positive relationships: those are the themes, and they are always getting these two-page spreads with naked glowwy Rosette to highlight them. (There's a reason she's the main character, even though the manga is as much about Chrono.) Pacing and consistency are his strong points.
This volume ought to have been a killer, because it's the flashback volume. Unlike, say, Tengo Tenge, this flashback was clearly planned in advance. Events fit perfectly into what we already know about the characters involved (Chrono, Aion, Mary Magdalene). In a sense Moriyama is only reinforcing what readers familiar with this sort of plot know must have happened, so he can rush through it all he wants and we'll still be able to fill in the details.
But dammit, I wanted details! And more drawings of old!Chrono and shorthaired!Aion, okay I admit it. But mostly details. For example: when the Sinners first rebelled against Pandemonium, they were hundreds strong, but by the time we get to them there are only six left. Since the reason they're fighting is to be free, the fact that they are continuing to fight for a freedom that only six of them will be able to enjoy is significant. It says a lot about Aion that he'd continue and a lot about Chrono that he'd question whether it was worth it. The whole setup is poignant, there really ought to have been some naked glowwy Chrono spreads highlighting it (actually I'm kidding -- but then again, I'm really not).
And more cute domestic scenes like the clothes washing by the river. And more scenes with the six remaining Sinners who aren't Aion or Chrono! Especially that, those characters either reappear in the present or die horribly (sometimes both), I would have liked to have known more about them. Mary Magdale's death scene is really powerful, because it is three pages with no words at all and yet you can tell exactly what is going on from the storyboarding alone. But it should have been longer. This is the emotional center of the manga, for god's sake! It shouldn’t have been perfunctory.
The parts after the flashback scene are even more perfunctory. There's a lot of running, some minor character pep talk cameos, and then we are mysteriously all set for the final showdown. It's perfectly comprehensible, but it's like the author had hit fast forward through all the tricky parts and was hoping no one would notice. Normally I am all for that sort of thing -- why show more than you have to? -- but Chrono Crusade is really not that kind of manga.
I wonder if these pacing issues were less noticeable when the story was published as a monthly serialization. Probably. But I bet they were still there.
Earthian (vol 2, vol 3), Yun Kouga
I really liked volume two, but volume three didn't live up to the hype. (Wait, that's it?! Where is my stunning conclusion?!!)
VOLUME 2
+ Angel mating season FTW! This is perfect not only because it is a loveably cheesy plot device way to up the sexual tension (that too), but because it's a sudden reminder that the Angels aren't human. They're aliens. After the first volume, where you go in thinking they're biblical and thus better than humans and justified in passing judgment on them, only to very quickly realize that they aren't, it's natural to think of them as not much more than pretty Earthians with wings (especially since the two races are genetically compatible). But no, they're aliens.
+ Homosexual love (or more accurately, as Raphael points out, the physical expression of homosexual love) is punishable by death BECAUSE increasing rates of gayness among angels are decreasing the birth rate and the Black cancer is increasing the death rate, so that the entire race is in danger of dying out. There is an in-series explanation for both the rampant gay and the fact that it is forbidden. The sci fi dork inside me rejoices.
+ God I love the way this manga insists on making Kagetsuya the woman in the face of all conventional wisdom/irrefutable evidence. It's not even role reversal, it's actually an expansion of constitutes "feminine" ala the scene in volume one where Kagetsuya says he can't be the wife, he's always worrying over and protecting Chihaya! And Raphael tells him that's what makes him the wife. XD. In this volume, it's always Chihaya who leads and Kagetsuya who follows, and there is that adorable scene where Chihaya and Sayaka fight over who gets to be Kagetsuya's partner while he sort of stands there going guys, I am right here, shouldn't you be asking my opinion on this?
+ I thought Chihaya was indecisive because he couldn't figure out how he felt -- BUT NO, he knows exactly how he feels. He pretends not to know because he's afraid of the consequences. Kagetsuya is the one who acts instinctively. All my love for this brilliant piece of characterization.
+ There is like the best series of two page spreads EVER re: thinking or not thinking. Chihaya, Sayaka, and Kegetsuya (the "princess") have all been thrown in jail for dueling, and they each get a spread against the backdrop of the blackness of space broken only the stylized branches of flowering trees. I liked this scene so much that I am going to reproduce it for you:
Chihaya: What am I doing? I'm being so selfish. I just keep thinking about myself and never consider anyone else's feelings. I'm causing trouble for everyone. I just decided on my own that I didn't want to lose Kagetsuya, never even pausing to consider how anyone else felt. What should I do? What...
Chihaya: "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."
Sayaka: "What are you apologizing for! I threw down my glove! I challenged you!
Sayaka: This whole mess is your fault! Your fault! I hate you! But I know that I don't really belong with Kagetsuya. If you'd only been more direct from the start, I wouldn't have done something so shameful. Now I'm just being stubborn, but what else can I do? What...
Kagetsuya: ".........................................."
Kagetsuya: ............................................
Kagetsuya: ............................................
Kagetsuya: ............................................
Kagetsuya: ..............................................................................What should I do?
I fell out of my chair, I was laughing so hard.
+ Poor Kagetsuya and his symbolically erotic dreams about Chihaya ("Eden fell because Adam and Even didn't have children! Have an apple!") that he doesn't realize the significance of until it is too late. *creepy laugh*
+ Poor Raphael. Even if you're doing it in a deliberately provocative way, it's still disadvantageous to be the more demonstrative half of a relationship -- and Michael refuses to take responsibility.
+ Michael and Raphael, the power dynamics of love. Of course we're meant to compare them to Chihaya and Kagetsuya. Raphael seems like he's in control, because he's always the one doing dangerously flirty things that Michael pretends not to notice -- BUT NO, Michael knows exactly what's going on. He only acts clueless because he's afraid of the consequences, while deliberately fanning the flames. All my love to this brilliant piece of characterization.
+ *yawns through Taki and Miyuki's storyline* It still feels tacked on, I'm just not feeling it. It's not that I don't appreciate the themes (obsessed mad scientist + androids who are more human than humans + why doesn't professor love us? + I trust you because I have to), I just don't think they're integrated into the main story very well. Plus these scenes are confusingly drawn.
+ Oh yeah, and the art in this volume is so much better. And I'm not just saying that because I'm getting used to/Yun Kouga is moving away from that ultra-eighties angular faces and block hair look (the one Minekura is getting back to in Just!!). No, it's objectively better -- tighter lines, more dynamic shading. There still aren't many backgrounds, but there are more pretty shoujo flowers so I guess it evens out.
SPOILERS...the same spoilers that ruined the ending for me, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
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VOLUME 3
+ Talk about your nonlinear narratives. It's not that events are told out of order, but events you expect will have immediate follow-up (e.g. Chihaya-and-Kegetsuya-are-sharing-a-cabin-and-Kagetsuya-is-in-heat) are completely dropped in the next chapter, only to resurface without warning halfway through the volume. I don’t know whether I like this or hate it. The "timeline of emotional development" is steady, but if you try to think in terms of concrete events (places and times) it becomes really difficult. This situation is exacerbated by the lack of backgrounds and extremely shady dating system -- there's never any indication of how much time has passed between chapters, there are characters who age a decade in a single year and characters who are "born" already fully developed, plus there is the whole "we have been monitoring the Earthian for billions of years" thing which, um, is impossible (modern humans are only two million years old). I was wondering why this manga was so popular when it's so hard to make sense of it, until I realized that if you stop worrying about the dates and learn to embrace emotional development it is actually quite easy.
+ Some really outstanding scenes like:
Intercom: The escort must be military personnel.
Chihaya: *beat*
Chihaya: Oh. I'm military.
I love that it takes him a second to realize. Whether or not it really has been billions of years, the plus/minus system has been in place so long it's become institutionalized, no one really thinks about what it means to be a checker anymore. I mean you have people like Sayaka, who only becomes a plus checker so he can be paired with Kagetsuya, who (not having any evidence to the contrary, I am 90% certain) only became a minus checker so he could be paired with Chihaya.
+ Just like in the first volume, I'm mad that it takes Elvira telling Chihaya that there's something wrong before he realizes it. Well, that's not completely true, because he's already said -- out loud! which is a big thing for him -- that he doesn't think angels have the right to judge humans. If you think about it, this is a pretty big step. But he doesn't make the connection between angels destroying humanity and angels moving in to claim the newly depopulated earth until Elvira points it out. Though I guess the swiftness of his response shows that it's something he's been trying not to think about for a long time (now that the floodgates have been opened.... )
+ Oooh, another good scene:
Elvira: Where would you be born, if you had the choice?
Chihaya: Eden.
Elvira: *smiles*
Chihaya: I love the earth. But no matter how many times I was reborn, I would choose Eden. I would never want to lose my pride.
Somehow the idea of being torn between the culture you were born in and the culture you chose for yourself resonates with me, go figure. (By "go figure" I mean "look, Japanophile parallels!" ...although actually, if I was Chihaya, I NOT ONLY would have said the same thing, I wouldn't have switched sides at the end. Even if I didn't have any particular reason to like where I came from. Even if my own culture had rejected me and I was backed into a corner. Even if -- and this is the heartbreaking part -- even if it was a question of the destruction of another culture. Maybe. Or maybe not. I don't know. Chihaya is really brave.)
+ Kagetsuya, on the other hand. I don't understand why Kagetsuya is doing this. I mean, on one level I do: because he loves Chihaya. I guess what I don't get is that kind of absolute devotion. It's interesting that you get two counterexamples in the manga: Aya, who accepts Miyagi's proposal saying, "I love Kagetsuya, but you're the only man who could make me happy," and Raphael, who in all seriousness tells Kagetsuya that "love means sex." (Well, but this is only because he's been driven insane by UST.) Kagetsuya-type total love, which requires the throwing away of everything else of value, doesn't seem real to me. In a way he's braver than Chihaya, because he has more to lose, and in a way he isn't, because he's surrendered his will and is acting instinctively.
+ Another counterexample, beautifully illustrated by Miyuki and Taki, is "love is a kind of madness."
+ Why I didn't like the ending: mostly, it's because I knew it was coming. Way back when I couldn't find the manga online and hadn't yet resolved myself to buying the hard copy, I downloaded the anime -- actually, it's a set of four OAVs episodes -- as a stopgate measure. These episodes cover two original stories not in the manga (unless they are in the collected side stories volume, which I haven't read) and, really, they're sort of ridiculous. Fallen angel becomes a pop idol and drug addict, is killed by label hit squad. Bioroid angel nearly destroys the world, using his mystical connection to every computer on the planet (or was it every computer and all electronic devices, including toasters). The second OAV takes place after Eden has tried, and failed, to destroy the Earthian.
I remember it was a HUGE shock to hear that Eden actually had decided to annihilate the Earthian. The series itself discourages these kinds of thoughts, all the way up to just before the scenario actually pans out. But once you've gotten used to the idea, you've gotten used to it, and reading about it there's a lot less of an emotional impact.
Also, the climax was sort of silly. Telepathic baby angel-human hybrids running around blowing up spaceships, Earthian psychics holding back meteorite showers with the power of their minds. Although really this, uhhh, wasn't that much of a stretch, considering what's come before (angel mating season FTW!).
Maybe I'm just upset to have reached the end. Fifteen years of work, four hours of reading! I am counting on the side stories to explain Raphael's motives.