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Kay, my friends. For the first journal post, I'm going to complain and rant a little bit. If we're (un)lucky, I may obsess over anime and books, too. Also, beware of puns and insane-asylum type metaphors and similes.
Well, I caught a nasty bug over the weekend, which meant that my esophagus got set on fire every time I talked today.
One thing I've always found funny: when you have a fever, You are uncomfortably hot, and yet feel the need to warm up a good deal.
Also, touching ANYTHING hurts. It frankly feels like you've been sunburned on the inside of your body. The aches and pains are rather akin to spending the night with one of those anaconda anthros. Pain. Enough sickness for now.
I got several new volumes of one of my favorite manga series "Battle Angel Alita" by Yukito Kishiro.The plot revolves around the semi-scientifically accurate adventures of the cyborg warrior Alita in the post apocalyptic future. Armed with her Damascus blade and Panzer Kunst "Armored Arts" fighting style, none can oppose her!
Specifically, I've been reading the spin off series created by Kishiro: "Last Order." He was forced to finish the original manga in something of a rush. The final volume crams a good deal of information into a tome only a little thicker than the usual 200 pages per manga installment. Kishiro felt that he had ended Alita too quickly, and, changing the continuity of the ninth volume slightly, and after adding a massive helping of awesome created the twelve book Last Order series.
I have to say, my favorite thing about Alita is the art style. Every panel is lovingly embellished with the most realistic detail I've ever seen. Each fight scene is beautifully choreographed, and the level of gore (Be advised, Alita COMPLETELY merits the older teen (16+) rating. Organs, blood, and a general disregard for human life permeate the story.) can only be described as a masterwork. I haven't seen blood spatter that impressive since Hellsing Volume Nine!
This, sadly, leads me to my one critique of the series. Kishiro has enough ideas to populate over a dozen different manga. I was a little incredulous when the title character stumbled across a data cache that lead to a volume-long flash back about a new character: a "Type-V" mutant named Cerulea. Kishiro has a valid point. Seeing as vampires live forever, technically, it would make sense to have a few in the world of Alita, which is only five hundred years or so past our own. It just struck me as a little cheesy.
In addition, due to the cutthroat nature of the Alita universe, important characters have an iffy life expectancy, and maybe two in three of our favorite secondary characters die, especially in the original series. Plus. Alita is a wanderer and most of her friends are stationary, which means that if she goes somewhere else in another volume, we're unlikely to run into old friends again if they aren't actively searching for her. This, however, is a minor critique, and frankly means that we get to see a huge amount of cyberpunk amazing enough to give you a nosebleed every time you turn a page.
Go check it out!
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 greenoracle · Tue Mar 10, 2009 @ 05:15am · 1 Comments |
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