Comments on: Book Review: Manga: The Complete Guide

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By: Ryan

Ryan — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:01:34 +0000

I got my copy from Del Rey in the mail this week, after traveling for about 8 days for work… it’s been such a great, relaxing piece of work to troll through and even though I had heard a lot about it from Jason along the way, I was still surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

I definitely found some quibbles looking back (even with my own reviews… I gave a 3 star to something that should have been 2.5, etc.)… also, octopus girl only gets 3? I guess that’s fair but I had fun scowling when I read the review, haha. etc.etc.

Oh and Erin— I still have the ebook PDF of bass-master that I reviewed… if you actually want to check it out :B

Again… congrats to Jason! This thing turned out so damn well :) I’m gonna recommend it to everyone!
Ryan!

By: tollie01

tollie01 — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:39:19 +0000

Well that is true, KDT. To be honest i prefer different opinions to mine. It gives other people reading the review a different view/opinion of the work.
I rather have one person commenting that s/he disagrees with me than 10 commenting their agreement.
I must add to this that they must say why they disagree. I hate when people say that my review sucks without saying what about it sucked.

By: Connie

Connie — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:04:17 +0000

Bride of Deimos is fantastic, and I think everyone should read it, but it was definitely not drawn by Kyoko Ariyoshi. The art is far worse than hers, unfortunately, but it doesn’t make the series any less amazing. I’m so sad it never finished up in English. Or in Japan, for that matter.

By: Katherine Dacey-Tsuei

Katherine Dacey-Tsuei — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:21:08 +0000

I don’t mind the ratings–if nothing else, they prompt a lot of water cooler conversation (or the electronic equivalent thereof) about the merits of various manga. (Three stars for Innocent W?! I’m still mystified by that one.)

That said, I’m with you, John, when it comes to Berserk. I’ve been trying to put my finger on why I disliked it so much, and I think Erin’s description of volume one as “reading like a heavy metal album cover” pretty much says it all.

By: tollie01

tollie01 — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:40:57 +0000

Perhaps he should have left the rating system out as it is such a personal thing. What you hate somebody else loves. and visa versa.
I never read Berserk but i have seen the anime and i have to agree with you there. i must add to that the series ending screams for a second season.
I love both Alita series but right now the Last Order series has got to be my favorite of the two. The rason for that is the quality of the art and more recently the story of Cearula. I was a bit annoyed when this story arc popped up but i’m very glad it got put in as it is a truly great story.

By: John Jakala

John Jakala — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 14:58:30 +0000

I may have been assuming something about the book’s rating methodology that isn’t there: In a book purporting to offer an overview of an entire class of comics, I would expected it to reserve perfect scores for those works that are cross-category classics, not just the best within their narrow sub-sub-sub-subgenre.

But my copy of the book just arrived today, so I’ll actually sit down and read it before I judge any further. And if I do have any further gripes, comments, challenges, embarrassing attempts at lolspeak — perhaps it’ll be good fodder for a blog entry.

By: Patrick Macias

Patrick Macias — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:20:11 +0000

I don’t think Wounded Man has any other ambitions but to entertain it’s intended audience…who aren’t necessarily the same people who would enjoy Sgt. Frog. They might be, but the critical standards for what makes a great hardboiled gekiga are not the same for a SF comedy about a frog from space who like pla-mo.

I gave Wounded Man four stars, because having read all the crazed manly gekiga I could get my hands on in English, I felt it truly deserved such a rating. I’m willing to bet that anyone else who enjoys the form would agree.

In the meantime, LOLZ I LIKED SOMETHIN YOU DIDNTS!

By: John Jakala

John Jakala — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:25:29 +0000

I haven't watched the Berserk anime and don't really have any interest in doing so. In fact, other than the Sgt. Frog anime, I'm not a big anime viewer, especially of storylines I've already read. I've been thinking of checking out later episodes of the Bleach anime, though. (I watched the first disc thanks to David Welsh.) I'm also wondering if the high scores for trashy pulp manga like Wounded Man are due in part to the "reverence for historical manga" factor that Thompson mentioned. It's just odd to me to see Wounded Man get a perfect score while a hilarious manga like Sgt. Frog only gets three stars. But, again, I don't have my copy of the book yet, so I'll wait until I read the review to see what their reasoning was. (I know many others who started out liking Sgt. Frog started to feel that the jokes were wearing thin as the series progressed, so perhaps that influenced the rating.) Also, if I protest too strongly, I'm going to start sounding like those rabid Berserk fans who drive me crazy. HOW DARE U ONLY GIVE BLEACH 3 STARS ICHIGO IS AWESOME U R STUPID U NOT FIT TO STITCH KONS STUFFING!!!1!

By: Erin F.

Erin F. — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 04:50:41 +0000

Have you tried watching the Berserk anime? After the first two or three episodes it really picks up, and is gripping until the last DVD, which is horrifying. The first volume of the manga does read like a heavy metal album cover.

There is something about manga, and comics on the whole- the medium tends towards the outrageous. Insane tales that wouldn’t come off in prose or be believable on film come off the comic page as viable. Wounded Man succeeds on the level that all comics are outrageous, but still, 3.5 stars, tops.
Meanwhile:
Sgt. Frog 3
Bleach 3
Emma 3.5
Yotsuba 3

And yes, let’s play an RPG! We had Ed Chavez play an NPC in our D&D game when he was in town last. He’d never played before!

By: John Jakala

John Jakala — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 04:18:08 +0000

I've heard that before about Berserk (in fact, I still get fans showing up in the comments of my almost four-year-old review to tell me how wrong I am for giving the first book a negative review), but I just don't have any interest in going back to it based on how hackneyed the first few volumes were. With Wounded Man, it probably depends in part on one's philosophy of reviewing. Yeah, a work should be judged according to what it set out to attain; but if it set its sights super-low, does it deserve to be rewarded for its low ambition? It now looks like my copy of Manga: The Complete Guide won't arrive til next week, so in the meantime I'm bracing myself for low scores for my favorite manga (Sgt. Frog, Bleach, Emma, Yotsuba). I mean, if Love Roma, with its perfect charm and clever tweaks on the romantic comedy genre, only got three stars, what hope do any other series have?

By: Jason Thompson

Jason Thompson — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 00:39:26 +0000

Thanks for the writeup, you guys! Next time we meet up let’s play a RPG!

BERSERK takes a few volumes to really stand out from the pack of oldschool Fist of the North Star, Riki-Oh style manly manga. The opening chapter, indeed the opening volume, might seem like just another blood-and-breasts story. But once the flashback sequence starts, it is INCREDIBLE. Beautifully detailed yet individualistic art, awesome fight scenes, and a very epic, unforced plot. It works as either fantasy or horror. I have gotten a few volumes behind so I can’t guarantee that it doesn’t start to go astray in volumes 20+ or something, but the more of it I read, the more I like it.

As for the four-star rating for WOUNDED MAN, you will have to take that up with Patrick Macias. But I do think it is a jaw-droppingly insane manga. “Insane” may not sound like the highest tribute, but perhaps words fail me on this one. There’s admittedly a fine line on “is this genius, or is this total garbage?” for works like EIKEN and WOUNDED MAN. I did love Dean Blackburn’s “Wounded Man Interview” in the last issue of PULP, though.

By: John Jakala

John Jakala — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 21:24:06 +0000

I'm baffled by the four-star rating for Berserk. I know it has its rabid fans, but I never understood the appeal of the series. (Granted, I only read a couple of the early volumes, but it all seemed like generic battles-with-big-swords stuff.) And, yeah, anything by Kazuo Koike and Ryoichi Ikegami can be good, pulpy fun, but four stars??? Really???? (I thought it was amusing that Wounded Man, with its mondo-trashy plot (meet GPX, the All-Powerful Porn Company that secretly controls the world!), currently has a one-star rating on Amazon.) Bow Wow Wata was serialized in Gutsoon's Raijin Comics anthology. It was cute, but hardly something I'd track down. If you must have it, you'd better hurry! Amazon only has one copy left in stock!

By: Erin F.

Erin F. — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:55:24 +0000

Woops! I misunderstood your request! Sorry about that.

By: Katherine Dacey-Tsuei

Katherine Dacey-Tsuei — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:08:48 +0000

Ack! I didn't wonder why Innocent W "only" earned three stars; I wanted to know why it earned that many! Panty shots, dismemberments, paint-by-numbers plotting... it was a catalog of things I dislike. I thought it was a shoo-in for the half-star hall of fame. On a more positive note, you should definitely check out A, A' and The Four Immigrants Manga. Both are worth owning and re-reading many times.