Year: 2009

Ongoing Investigations: Case #043

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I finished the Contraband arc of Liar Game. It ended pretty strongly with a equal mixture of  success and failure for our main characters. I really liked that it was neither a total victory nor a total loss. Nao and Shinichi are definitely in a tight spot going into the next round but they did much of what they needed to do. Liar Game stays a smart series that challengers the reader but does not pull its plot twists out of thin air. How the game works and how the characters pull off their schemes are set up before the reveals are given. A clever person could probably figure out the answers in advance. Norihiko Yokoya has obviously been set up as a reoccurring villain which is the first in the series. Nao is still oscillating between being girl-who-needs-to-be-saved and Shinichi’s partner but at least her character is growing. I am hoping by the end she will have her own unique perception and tactics. I am a little surprised that Fukunaga is staying on as an important side character.

Picked up Key to the Kingdom a while back but just started reading it. So far books one and two have impressed me, it is a wonderfully put together shojo fantasy. We start with Asta, the youngest prince, who has no desire to rule nor to hold a sword. So when the country’s rule lies in the hands of whoever can find the “key to the kingdom” it seems he will be free of such troubles. However, fate has other things in store as Badd, a retainer, drags him into looking for clues to its whereabouts. When a Dragon Man appears on their path it becomes clear that everything is not as it seems. A diverse cast emerges along the road as Asta resists but gets caught up in the complexity of the country’s history. There are many things going in this story including action, politics, mystery, and love. I was surprised that the series is only six years old because the art certainly has a late-80’s or mid-90’s feel to it. A great start to the series, highly recommended!

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Special Screening: L Change the WorLd, A 12-year-old’s bad fan-fiction?

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SPOILERS, SPOILERS. TRUST ME YOU DON’T CARE.

Since it went over so well last time, we saw the film at the same place we watched the second Death Note movie. Once again not too crowded, though more so than when we went the other time. I didn’t go into this movie with many expectations, I had heard and read a bit about it before hand. Though frankly it would be hard for me NOT to go see a movie all about L. So with only mild hopes I braced myself for this film. Somehow the reviews didn’t do the movie justice. It was much worse than I could have imagined, it may have physically injured me at points. The only thing that prevented me from plain giving up on it was that I committed myself to writing this review! How dare you film, how dare you make me write a word against L!

W.C. Fields said, “Never work with animals or children.” L, or should I say Kenichi Matsuyama, should have listened to him. The fact an L movie was being made was hardly a surprise to anyone. He was clearly the most popular character hands down. They had the prefect place to add in one last hurrah before his ultimate end. When I first heard about the movie I was cautiously optimistic. L has to solve his last case against terrorists with a super plague having only a few days left to live. Sounds fine. Then I heard it was a stupid action movie. I was fine with that. Although L was almost always playing mental games in the manga, they also made a big deal that he was amazingly physically fit and even a martial arts master. I thought that people went into the movie expecting another mind game but got a cheesy action movie and were overly harsh. No they were overly generous. Everything that could make a movie bad was bad in this lemon of a movie. When my favorite original character was a vehicle you know you are in trouble. And before you ask it was not a cool talking car.

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Guin Saga #1: The Leopard Mask, And he’s watchin’ us all in the eye of the leopard!

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The classic pulp fantasy adventures involve manly men with rippling muscles fighting their way through hordes of monsters to survive and carve out a place of power in a chaotic and brutal world. The first name you usually think of in the west in this genre is Conan the Barbarian. The first Conan movie is what helped Arnold Schwarzenegger become a movie star. In Japan when people think of sword and sorcery the first name that jumps to mind is Guin. There are currently over 120 books in the series with no sign of stopping. In fact Guin Saga is the longest continuing single-writer’s work in the world. There is also a manga series of side stories and an anime based on the novels. Kaoru Kurimoto is also a well respected mystery novelist in addition to writing about Guin. Even Issac Asimov would be impressed. The Guin series is clearly influenced by writers like Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock and Fritz Leiber but she makes a fantasy world and characters that are her own.

I am always curious about works that have influenced creative minds across the board. This is especially true when I have only recently heard of a work that has been decades in the making and continues on (the 126th book was published just last month!). Though it seems quite suddenly Guin Saga has stepped into my line of vision not only thanks to Vertical’s publication of the first few novels (and some subsequent manga) in the series but as it has just begun an anime TV series run in Japan. Also a great love for both fantasy and adventure runs in my veins. Beyond so many other genres, these types of stories begin in an unfamiliar, mysterious world where the reader must not only discover the secrets of each character on the journey but also explore an unknown setting. So it was with barely restrained curiosity and excitement that I took up the first Guin novel.

After the Mongaul army has taken the capital of the Kingdom of Parros, the remaining twin heirs to the throne, Rinda and Remus, flee for their lives. During their attempt to escape they are accidentally teleported into enemy territory. When they are captured by enemy soldiers a man in a leopard mask named Guin single-handedly saves them. It turns out that Guin has amnesia and cannot remove the leopard mask. The three of them must band together not only to escape the deadly Marches they found themselves in but to escape the grasp of the tainted Black Count Vanon and Stafolos Keep.

Adventures can start many ways. Some may begin in a sleepy village or with an ordinary boy. Guin Saga laughs at that and fast-forwards you to where the action truly beings. This is easily one of the best hooks of the book: our narrator dumps us into the middle of the Marches only moments before Guin takes down an entire band of trained soldiers and then collapses. And this is Guin on an off day as he has only just awoken to his clouded memory and a leopard head quite unwilling to come off of his own head. These moments of intensity and calm come in quick succession like an enjoyable rollercoaster ride. Kurimoto also knows when and where to sprinkle the details of the world giving the viewer just enough to be able to fill in the surroundings with their imaginations. There are many scrapes in the next 200 pages and the body/ghoul/monster/thing count is high and bloody. However, the book is hardly a string of violent incidents. As we get more and more pieces to the puzzle, it becomes increasingly clear that this world is a complicated place.

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