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Reviews by chibiyusa
Macabre Humor?
Posted : 3 years, 2 months ago on 23 September 2006 09:05
(A review of Octopus Girl: v. 1)It's really fun if you can ignore all the blood, guts, and senseless violence. My relatively small experience with horror manga began with Junji Ito's Uzumaki which left me giggling. I could sorta feel the serious and dark atmosphere oozing from the pages but my gosh was it ever so funny looking. That later evolved into reading Kazuo Umezu's work (he's supposed to be the godfather of this stuff) where the level of ridiculous way out there but the horror element is much more there. Not as many giggles as confused laughter. Haha? And then I come across Toru Yamazaki's Octopus Girl. And this captures all the ridiculousness of the horror manga I knew and love but this time it was actually meant to be funny. Takako, whose name sounds like octopus in Japanese is constantly bullied for this and then one day she turns into an octopus. Hijinks ensue. Except most of the hijinks involve death and violence. And she has a friend named Eel Girl with a creepy ack mole. Apparently friendship in their case is backstabbing of the worse kind followed by a tearful reunion. It's great fun of a darker kind. And the one thing about horror manga that really struck me as odd is the shoujo-esque elements involved. Which is poked fun at in the end of the volume where everything is drawn shoujo like. Except when every dies at the end. Horror manga is essentially shoujo-manga with lots and lots and lots of shading and in lieu of flowers you get blood!  0 comments, Reply to this entry
This from Weekly Jump?
Posted : 3 years, 5 months ago on 23 June 2006 02:04
(A review of Death Note, Volume 1)The amount of seemingly upright adults reading this series is absolutely shocking seeing as it originally ran in Shonen Jump. You know, that magazine that runs Naruto. But I think it's because it ran in such a magazine that it was able to excel so well. I believe Ohba mentioned somewhere in the 13th volume on how because it was run in Shonen Jump they were able to focus more on the entertaining aspects as opposed to the heavy dialouge which the older crowd seems to enjoy. Now while Death Note is heavily laden with dialougue one can only imagine how much more impossible it would have been to read had it been aimed at older audiences. And I gotta say, it's been a heck of a ride. If you haven't already been informed Death Note chronicles the story of Light Yagami, who out of boredom finds a notebook a Shinigami (Death God) dropped out of boredom. If you haven't guessed already "the human whose name is written in those note shall die" Light at first repulsed by such a device eventually warms up to the idea when he realizes that he can make a PERFECT world by killing all the "bad people." That alone wouldn't be much fun of a series so an antagonist is introduced as this super smart detective who proves more than a match for Light. It's not entirely such a serious manga with bits of humor inserted here and there (a recurring gag including Ryuk, the Shinigami, and his insatiable desire for apples), but for the most part it's serious. And in such a serious work Obata's art really shines. I couldn't imagine Death Note without Obata's art. What is right and what is wrong isn't completely explored by the series and in the end it's up for the reader to decide. All in all a very enjoyable read from start to finish (though I admit after volume 7 it never really quite got to the same level of excitement in the earlier volumes). Highly recommend for those looking for something different in their graphic novel reads. Though just don't go being a creepy mofo and start writing in your own Death Note. 0 comments, Reply to this entry
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