| | Little Jumper and Zero.
Little Jumper is about a teenager and his time-traveling daughter from the future, and the utter weirdness of trying to stick to your destiny given a very murky glimpse of it. Also, it has creepy, disturbing incest jokes (the guy is 17; his daughter is 15), but honestly it seems that's more and more the norm in manga. I do think that the characterization of the supporting characters falls a little flat by Chapters 5-6; early on the girls are fiercely assertive of their own wishes, but later on this is overridden in favor of the convenient "harem" setup where they just all go along with the plot and scheme to "get" the man without remembering why they wanted him in the first place.
Zero is a Korean manhwa about a kid with real ultimate power. Okay, that's not exactly how they dress it up, but basically that's how it is: an essentially good kid with limited understanding of the world and vast amounts of power is necessarily thrown into a web of intrigue, lies, corporate espionage, international politics, and high school romance. Will he live? Will he die? Will he become a soulless puppet on strings? Will he make out with the hot exhibitionist chick?
There was this one part in Zero that bothered me when I read it: the main character is out shopping and runs into his girlfriend's brother and kid sister, and the brother introduces him by saying, "You might be our in-law someday." Astute and regular readers will know why this bothers me. The strangest and most interesting part of the series, though, is the rehabilitation of that same girlfriend's brother: in the opening chapters he's introduced as a bully and a bloodthirsty sadist who takes delight in tying up and tormenting girls (and taking pics to prove it happened. You can almost hear the 4channers whining, "PICS or it didn't happen!") Later chapters reveal that he has crippling insecurity issues, he can't really cope with his own power, and that he is fiercely loyal to his family and allies, a devoted brother, and a man who tries to stick to an honor code and repay debts. None of this makes him not a despicable human being overall, but it makes him more than the one-dimensional (and forgettable) "future rapist" that he is in his first appearance. Second place goes to the author's decision to run "Ayaka is a violent, murderous psychopath" and "Ayaka has a magnificently girly crush on our main character and struggles with her confession" back-to-back. The tsun needs a little more distance from the dere for this to be anything other than a cliched stereotype.
I'm watching Futakoi Alternative on and off. It's . . . how can I explain this? The original Futakoi is a slow, plodding slice-of-life anime with obnoxious yet subtle hints of twincest and harem overtones. (Oh those wacky Japanese, always hinting at their sexual issues!) It's Disneylike: there are suggestions of things that are improper, but if I were to choose two terms to describe Futakoi Original they would be "inane" and "soporific." Futakoi Alternative is secret agents, guns, explosions, and fanservice galore. It's entirely like the volume was stuck at "2" for Futakoi Original and someone jammed it up at "11" for Futakoi Alternative. Improbability drive, activate! It doesn't go quite as far as Excel Saga, but then, what does? Given how staid Futakoi Original was, Futakoi Alternative could not be more different.
I just answered this Featured Question; you can answer it too! |
| | Posted 12/11/2008 6:14 AM - 162 Views - 20 eProps - 12 comments
Give eProps or Post a Comment |
