Things I've Been Reading Since Early 2009
Dec. 30th, 2012 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roadrunnertwiceSince it turned out I had a lot to say about this, I'm moving it ahead of the rest of the queue and putting it in its own entry.
Dec. 21
THE END! So okay, here's my verdict: Although it suffers from the wobbles and vicissitudes of serialization, and not all of the plot threads move at the right pace or reinforce each other as much as they should have (and many of them fizzled, with characters just drifting off into nowhere), and I suspect Tanabe had maybe a quarter to a third of the story (tops) in his head when he started, this is very much worth reading. It's a genuinely excellent specimen of the shōnen fight comic genre, but much more thoughtful and humane than its peers, and it strikes a very solid balance between explosive inventiveness and metaphysical consistency and moral heft.
Ending thoughts: I still think the entire shape of the Shadow Organization plot thread would have benefited immeasurably from some additional drafts, but the resolution of the Tsukihisa/Nichinaga feud DID actually, finally, clear some things up, paying the bill by showing just what crime was horrible enough to provoke Nichinaga’s scorched-earth campaign. It sure came way the fuck out of nowhere, though! Hence my call for moar drafts.
Yoshimori really grew up a lot. I think Tanabe did a good job at writing a brave-as-hell kid who’s shouldering an order of magnitude more adult bullshit than he should have to, and he managed to grow him in a way that was classically shōnen-genre hopeful without being pollyannaish or immune to sadness. Which is to say, I think he grew UP instead of just growing strong. That last chapter with Chushinmaru, inside the Shinkai — it was pretty wrenching, but wow, I was just so proud of the kid. You could tell from his expression that his heart was breaking, but he did such a good job of putting on a brave face for Chushinmaru and getting the boy excited, and he really outdid himself in creating the pocket world, even though he knew how insufficient it was compared to the real world he wanted for him. (The avalanche of cameos was a beautiful “look how far we’ve all come” device, but it also highlighted that all Yoshimori had to work with was a 14-year-old’s experiences, and Chushinmaru will be inhabiting that tiny experience for centuries. And it will never be enough, but Yoshimori was the only one who would have been able to do it, so he gets to bear the inevitable burden of insufficiency. Look at the cover of that last volume again, is what I’m getting at.)
I wish I could have had more Yoshimori/Tokine scenes in the late series, because I think the place they came to was worth more emphasis than it got. One of the things I really liked in the early series was that both leads had Manga Hero Protector Complex, and they'd each freak out in tandem whenever one went into danger without allowing the other to protect them. And then by the end, the acid proof of how they'd become more comfortable with each other was their willingness to let each other risk their lives, while understanding that the best thing they could each do for the other was to play their own role to the absolute best of their ability. I really wanted that hands-off-hold-tight camaraderie to spend more time in view.
But I was really pleased with the dynamic they’d settled into by the epilogue.
Oh, and man, Sumiko. I really really liked her arc; it’s one of the ones I think Tanabe really nailed all the way through. I'd thought of her as a riff on Ranma's mom, but as I mentioned on Twitter, the end of the series leaves me thinking of her more as an escapee from a Yoon Ha Lee story. She really really loves her family, but she just doesn’t understand them enough to do anything that would truly make them happy. I think she may be a sociopath, but an honestly loving and ethical one. And her sacrifice makes sense, if you look at it from the right angle, but damn, poor Shuji! Poor kids, too. (And on a meta level, I love that she’s a really unconventional powerful woman in a comic. She’s driven by care for her family, but doesn't fall into any of the predictable roles, and she’s easily in the top five or so characters in terms of power, raw OR refined. Hell, her throwaway paper copies are in the top ten.)
Okay, I think that’s most of what I’ve got. Who else has read this thing?
Yellow Tanabe - _Kekkaishi_ vol. 35-and-final
Dec. 21
THE END! So okay, here's my verdict: Although it suffers from the wobbles and vicissitudes of serialization, and not all of the plot threads move at the right pace or reinforce each other as much as they should have (and many of them fizzled, with characters just drifting off into nowhere), and I suspect Tanabe had maybe a quarter to a third of the story (tops) in his head when he started, this is very much worth reading. It's a genuinely excellent specimen of the shōnen fight comic genre, but much more thoughtful and humane than its peers, and it strikes a very solid balance between explosive inventiveness and metaphysical consistency and moral heft.
Ending thoughts: I still think the entire shape of the Shadow Organization plot thread would have benefited immeasurably from some additional drafts, but the resolution of the Tsukihisa/Nichinaga feud DID actually, finally, clear some things up, paying the bill by showing just what crime was horrible enough to provoke Nichinaga’s scorched-earth campaign. It sure came way the fuck out of nowhere, though! Hence my call for moar drafts.
Yoshimori really grew up a lot. I think Tanabe did a good job at writing a brave-as-hell kid who’s shouldering an order of magnitude more adult bullshit than he should have to, and he managed to grow him in a way that was classically shōnen-genre hopeful without being pollyannaish or immune to sadness. Which is to say, I think he grew UP instead of just growing strong. That last chapter with Chushinmaru, inside the Shinkai — it was pretty wrenching, but wow, I was just so proud of the kid. You could tell from his expression that his heart was breaking, but he did such a good job of putting on a brave face for Chushinmaru and getting the boy excited, and he really outdid himself in creating the pocket world, even though he knew how insufficient it was compared to the real world he wanted for him. (The avalanche of cameos was a beautiful “look how far we’ve all come” device, but it also highlighted that all Yoshimori had to work with was a 14-year-old’s experiences, and Chushinmaru will be inhabiting that tiny experience for centuries. And it will never be enough, but Yoshimori was the only one who would have been able to do it, so he gets to bear the inevitable burden of insufficiency. Look at the cover of that last volume again, is what I’m getting at.)
I wish I could have had more Yoshimori/Tokine scenes in the late series, because I think the place they came to was worth more emphasis than it got. One of the things I really liked in the early series was that both leads had Manga Hero Protector Complex, and they'd each freak out in tandem whenever one went into danger without allowing the other to protect them. And then by the end, the acid proof of how they'd become more comfortable with each other was their willingness to let each other risk their lives, while understanding that the best thing they could each do for the other was to play their own role to the absolute best of their ability. I really wanted that hands-off-hold-tight camaraderie to spend more time in view.
But I was really pleased with the dynamic they’d settled into by the epilogue.
Oh, and man, Sumiko. I really really liked her arc; it’s one of the ones I think Tanabe really nailed all the way through. I'd thought of her as a riff on Ranma's mom, but as I mentioned on Twitter, the end of the series leaves me thinking of her more as an escapee from a Yoon Ha Lee story. She really really loves her family, but she just doesn’t understand them enough to do anything that would truly make them happy. I think she may be a sociopath, but an honestly loving and ethical one. And her sacrifice makes sense, if you look at it from the right angle, but damn, poor Shuji! Poor kids, too. (And on a meta level, I love that she’s a really unconventional powerful woman in a comic. She’s driven by care for her family, but doesn't fall into any of the predictable roles, and she’s easily in the top five or so characters in terms of power, raw OR refined. Hell, her throwaway paper copies are in the top ten.)
Okay, I think that’s most of what I’ve got. Who else has read this thing?