Scanlation Get: Guerrilla High/Gakuen Taikutsu Otoko

At one point in time there was basically almost no Go Nagai manga in English.  Through the hard work of a lot of scanlators it seems like a mountain of his work is now available. Considering that the likelihood of his work actually getting published in U.S. is low, I really appreciate their efforts.  At first it was jut the big stuff but now we are seeing more and more of his lesser known works like today's title Guerrilla High.

In the late 1960s there was a rise of violent student movements in Universities.  This trickled down even to the lowest kindergarten class.  To a point where no teacher was safe. It was then decided teachers could carry weapons and even have a license to kill.  The students more oppressed then ever start guerrilla movements to bring down this tyranny. Only it seems the guerrilla's themselves are vicious maniacs.

Are heroes (anti-heroes?!) are Saotome Mondo and Midou Tatsuma.  At first it seems they really want to help the students but in truth Mondo just wants to incite violence and murder.  He ends up indirectly killing many of the students on his rampage through the school.  Midou seems like the reasonable one but when it comes down to it Midou can go off the edge just as bad.

The first volume ends with Midou just disappearing. The second volume introduces us to a new character Nishikiori Tsubasa.  The leader of an all female guerrilla group that goes around in bikinis and go go boots.  She is super strong and not afraid to fight sadly even though she seems like a pretty cool female character she ends up just being most a plot device (also she spends much of the second and third volumes with no pants or underwear on).  As she gets kidnapped and captured by our new villain Midoro Toranosuke, bandaged man, and Principal of an elite school.

At this point I guess his evil plan is to have Mondo rescue her?!  I'm not sure Mondo has no connection to her at this point and going goes to rescue her because she is hot and has nice boobs.  Truly, we stand at the peak of truly great motivation in stories.

After this point I don't want to say to much about the plot. The second half is full of strange twists and I wouldn't want to ruin them.  Though I will have to say this story just kind of ends on a "eh, what?" note.  A bunch of stuff happen and then then go for what seems to be the final fight. Only it's "The End" and not an actual final fight.

Other then the ending kind of leaving a bad taste in my mouth I enjoy this manga lot.  It runs at breakneck speed.  Something is always happening and there are tons of great fight scenes.  This is one of Go Nagai's hyper violent titles.  Whole mobs of people die in this.  While Nishikiori runs around with out much on there isn't nearly as much on the sex side.  It is certainly far more subdued then Cutey Honey in that aspect.

I want to say the plot is a mess (which it kind of it) but to me the big problem was Saotome Mondo's character.  Was he supposed to be a guerrilla for the people, a redemptionless murderer, someone who at least cares about his friends, or someone who cares about no one?  The character was kind of all over the place. Though, even with those problems it was still a really fun read.

The art in this is actually very nice.  I mean if you already don't like Go Nagai art, this isn't going to change your mind.  But this is some of the best I've seen from him.  Nothing to wacky or wonky looking.  Strong lines, some really great one page spreads, in that really scribblely style he does.  Also of note, huge chunks of this manga are in color.  Not just a page here or there but like 20 pages at a time or more.  For a color comic from the 1970s it is really nice color.  Much better then most American comics comparable in age.  It really makes me wish the whole manga was in color.

If you are looking for something over the top and don't want to think to hard, this is certainly a great red.  Guerrilla High even though it has problems was still a very fun read worth checking out.

Scanlation Get: Hotel & Present

This week I am going to do a little double-feature of one-shots by Boichi.

The first being a title called Hotel. This is a very interesting piece as it almost exclusively inner monologue. The inner monologue is something almost entirely absent from manga genre. Which is interesting as manga is modeled after cinema and while the inner monologue isn't as popular as it used to be, it's still around. Perhaps it was felt that the inner monologue took the reader out of the action to much, as spoken about in the title A Drifting Life?

In this case the inner monologue is an intergeneration part of this sci-fi story as we learn humanity has caused world ended global warming. While some struggle to build an ark to send human DNA out into space, others are working on building a tower to house the DNA of all the species of life on Earth. A hotel of sorts, where the manager is a computer AI. With it's inner monologue we learn what befalls humanity.

The second title is a story titled Present. What happens when a student who has fallen in love with her teacher a present for Christmas? What happens when she falls incredibly ill? What will the final gift to all involved be? This is pretty simple story with a sci-fi good twist that is just told very well. It also has a very small connection to Hotel.

Both of these titles have wonderful art. Lots of little details are really what make it great. The humans are drawn well, and have good line work but they don't come off anything astounding. It's the detail in the sci-fi elements that make the titles feel so rich. All the mechanical designs are very details and feel very realistic. The color pages in both are also great, with some very fluid feeling CG to them.

Both of the titles this week are only 40 pages each, making them quick fun reads. They make good toe wetting titles to some more serious sci-fi stories. If you are into the one-shot format, these are must reads. They are shinning examples of what can be done in this form to draw you in emotionally.

Scanlation Get: Animal X - Aragami no Ichizoku

This week is a title I just discovered not to long ago myself, a title from 1990, called Animal X by Ami Sugimoto.  This series has three parts, the first part subtitled 'Aragami no Ichizoku'.  This part is four volumes long and is what I will be covering today.

When we first meet our main character Yuuji is pretty effeminate and pretty much a living doormat.  He's engaged to get married to a his childhood friend.  She has always been the one to take care of him, since he was to wimpy to do anything himself.  Of course he couldn't even ask her to marry him, it's an arranged marriage that they are both fine with.  He works in a science lab where he has been pressured into some strange experiments.  On top of all this some strange teen shows up in his room and wants to mate with him!

This kid is Minato who is not only on the run, he isn't even human.  He is from some dying race of beings known as the Dinosauroid.  He thinks Yuuji is not only of them but a  female one to boot (he can smell it. WTF?).  Head strong and brash he is on the run because he killed some yakuza while visiting the city to see where humans live.  He is also a major dick to Yuuji in the early parts of the manga (luckily this doesn't last to long). 

From here Minato kidnaps Yuuji to take him back to his people to mate with him.  A fate Yuuji is not very happy about but being a doormat he can't seem to stop it.  This doesn't last for long though as the two of them end up on the run as a huge conspiracy of events unfolds around them.  Scientists are after Yuuji and both the yakuza and another clan of dinosauroids are after Minato.  Much of the four volumes are them on the run.  Which is pretty exciting as these types of stories manage to keep tension pretty high though out.

What is interesting is as the story progresses so do our characters.  Yuuji starts to be less of a doormat and much more of a fighting participant in his destiny. Minato matures a lot and starts to be much less of a dick.  They form a fairly believable relationship while on the run.

I was also shocked as this was one of the only manga I have ever read where someone was raped and they are really upset about it.  I'm not joking, this isn't that common.  Most of the time characters just brush it off or even fall in love with the rapist!  (Really, Japan WTF?!)  So, I have to give Animal X points for that, it also ends up being rather important for the plot later.

The best comparison I can come up for this title is Banana Fish.  It is far more sci-fi but they both are pretty hard-boiled shoujo tales.  Both have mostly male casts, and where the main characters are run for a good portion of the story.   Also, the uh... gayness.  (Apparently a really bad ass shoujo title can't be shoujo unless there is an inordinate amount of gayness.)  If you are a dude and read Banana Fish because it is awesome, (that makes you awesome also) then this title really is no worse.

The art in this is also very nice.  It's still a bit 90's but it still holds up very well do to the fact it is very detailed and well crafted.  The art doesn't really look like typical shoujo.   The panels are very solid and well formed.  The characters are detailed and don't fall into the typical bishonen style.  Also the screen tone use is very well done, something I find lacking in a lot of shoujo titles.  The art style really seems like something that would run in the seinen anthology magazine Ikki then in Asuka CL DX.

Hmm, I think that is one of my final thoughts on this title.  If you like the stuff running in Ikki, good chance you would like Animal X also.  It is a well written alternative style manga that is not pretentious.  As I also stated before it holds a lot of similarities to Banana Fish. It is well worth checking out if you liked Banana Fish.

*Note: Most likely I won't be posting anything next week, as I am moving to another state this weekend.  Weeee!