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dancing_moonWhohoo! Today three good manga had arrived, just in time as the train broke down (again) and I thus had to spend a cold half hour at Södra station. But reading makes time fly - sometimes a bit too much, as I almost missed my stop. Lucky for me, alitna said hi and alerted me to the fact that it was time to go out in the cold again.
It's The Legend of Saiunkoku #2, Petshop of Horrors Tokyo #8 and Eyeshield 21 #34 that I bought today. My ranking turned out to be quite the opposite of what I expected, with the last chapter of the Christmas Bowl match clocking in as the undisputed best of the bunch.
I've actually not bought volumes 32-33 of Eyeshield because they contain the rather dull game against the Teikoku Alexanders and I couldn't quite justify the cost. This match finished in volume 34 and finally, in the last chapters, we get some really nice Hiruma moments as well as Sena shining again. Nothing unexpected, but well done.
Now comes the clunky finishing game: The international world cup. I will probably buy some of those volumes too, because I need to talk between Agon and Hiruma, as well as some other good moments (+ I'm curious about how they'll translate the sticky wording regarding Panther's "natural athleticism") but most of the game chapters really start to drag once the Dinosaurs were defeated. Oh well, it was good while it lasted!
Petshop of Horrors, the original series, is one of my favorite manga. I regularly re-read it, I think it's drawn in a beautiful and detailed style even if the perspective sometimes fail, and the creepy supernatural atmosphere is masterful.
Petshop of Horrors Tokyo never even gets half as interesting :( I'm seriously thinking of dropping this title, but I dunno, I'm a collector...
It's not that the stories are bad, but they're just too bland for what I came to expect after the first series. Count D has blunted his fangs, but he hasn't replaced it with anything else that interests me (some kind of redemption/forgiveness arc could be super interesting, but instead he just sends out slightly less dangerous pets to the customers)
And Taishuu is too amoral to make a good foil for him; his worry about earning a profit from D's drug deals and the prostitutes he thinks are there are much less captivating than Leon's honest (if sometimes misguided) desire to arrest the mass-murderer D. It all feels very meh - and I also agree with another review I saw, that the drawings are getting lazier.
The Story of Saiunkoku was much better, at least, although it confused me. Who was the old guy who turned young? Who's talking in this page-? Oh, it's him!
I think I need to re-read volume one and then come back here, because there's too many people that I didn't recognize here for me to appreciate the intrigue.
What also confused me was that it feels almost as if the story ended. I assume it didn't, but one could really just quit there and be pretty satisfied... Does this mean that two manga volumes cover a novel, perhaps?
Oh, and I've begun to read Mark Watches Doctor Who, very entertaining!
It's The Legend of Saiunkoku #2, Petshop of Horrors Tokyo #8 and Eyeshield 21 #34 that I bought today. My ranking turned out to be quite the opposite of what I expected, with the last chapter of the Christmas Bowl match clocking in as the undisputed best of the bunch.
I've actually not bought volumes 32-33 of Eyeshield because they contain the rather dull game against the Teikoku Alexanders and I couldn't quite justify the cost. This match finished in volume 34 and finally, in the last chapters, we get some really nice Hiruma moments as well as Sena shining again. Nothing unexpected, but well done.
Now comes the clunky finishing game: The international world cup. I will probably buy some of those volumes too, because I need to talk between Agon and Hiruma, as well as some other good moments (+ I'm curious about how they'll translate the sticky wording regarding Panther's "natural athleticism") but most of the game chapters really start to drag once the Dinosaurs were defeated. Oh well, it was good while it lasted!
Petshop of Horrors, the original series, is one of my favorite manga. I regularly re-read it, I think it's drawn in a beautiful and detailed style even if the perspective sometimes fail, and the creepy supernatural atmosphere is masterful.
Petshop of Horrors Tokyo never even gets half as interesting :( I'm seriously thinking of dropping this title, but I dunno, I'm a collector...
It's not that the stories are bad, but they're just too bland for what I came to expect after the first series. Count D has blunted his fangs, but he hasn't replaced it with anything else that interests me (some kind of redemption/forgiveness arc could be super interesting, but instead he just sends out slightly less dangerous pets to the customers)
And Taishuu is too amoral to make a good foil for him; his worry about earning a profit from D's drug deals and the prostitutes he thinks are there are much less captivating than Leon's honest (if sometimes misguided) desire to arrest the mass-murderer D. It all feels very meh - and I also agree with another review I saw, that the drawings are getting lazier.
The Story of Saiunkoku was much better, at least, although it confused me. Who was the old guy who turned young? Who's talking in this page-? Oh, it's him!
I think I need to re-read volume one and then come back here, because there's too many people that I didn't recognize here for me to appreciate the intrigue.
What also confused me was that it feels almost as if the story ended. I assume it didn't, but one could really just quit there and be pretty satisfied... Does this mean that two manga volumes cover a novel, perhaps?
Oh, and I've begun to read Mark Watches Doctor Who, very entertaining!
