Author: Katsuhiro Otomo
Publisher: Kodansha Ltd. Tokyo
First published in Japan in the 80’s, the 6 volumes of Akira are a masterpiece of the manga culture and have influence many popular manga authors. The animated film version encountered a huge worldwide success. Akira is often compared to the Blade Runner of Ridley Scott, notably because of his futuristic vision of the city.
The story takes place in 2030, 30 years after the complete destruction of Tokyo by an unidentified explosion and after the World War III. In this future, the situation is far to be under control and we wonder if things can get any better.
With Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo built an original cyber-punk post apocalypse world, made by an oppressive military government managing a very futuristic Neo Tokyo and conducting strange experiments, violent teenage gangs driving high-speed new generation motorbikes, new drugs, anarchist terrorist groups, warlords that reign of ruined sections of Tokyo and kids with strange powers.
November 3rd, 2006
Author: Masashi Kishmoto
Publisher: Shueisha
Uzumaki Naruto is with One piece, one of the two more popular manga and even graphic stories in the world.
Since its first publication in 1999, there are approximately 6 new volumes of Naruto each year. So even if I am great fan and I read the whole adventures so far, I will not review every single volume, but do a more general critic.
According to me, Naruto took the succession of the extremely successful in 90’s, Dragon Ball of Akira Toriyama and it became even more popular. Naruto is initially a manga published in the Weekly Shonen Jump, the first Japanese manga magazine, with a circulation of 3 million copies a week. Now, with the anime version and video game adaptations, it is a global cultural phenomenon in Japan and also in the World.
Naruto is quiet conventional in many ways with the manga culture. The main character is a quiet complex innocent troublesome kid that has the ability to build strong relations with his friends but also his enemies. He has the quiet traditional qualities of a manga hero, an unusual intelligence that allows him to find surprising solutions to problems, extraordinary abilities that he keeps developing, an unbreakable determination to fulfill a destiny, a capacity to mobilize every single piece of his energy to achieve a goal, a sensibility, a strong desire for a real justice and a will to always do what is best.
However in my opinion what contributes to Naruto huge success is his deep connections with some traditional Japanese religions and myths. The manga is revising the Shinobi / Ninja culture and the martial arts by building something that is closed to a mythology. In the Masashi Kishmoto work, there is also a strong influence of the two main Japanese religions, Shinto and Buddhism. These influences are illustrated notably through the place of five elements (Fire, Wind, Earth, Sky and Water), the presence of demons, the Chakra energies and a kind of Awakening.
Naruto contains also key elements of the Japanese society and popular culture, the well-known Ramen soup, the Onsen (traditional hot spring public bath), a kind of erotic touch and also a slight horror dimension.
All these elements contribute to do a very accessible, but quiet rich manga that is definitely worth reading!
November 6th, 2006
Author: Nabiel Kanan
Publisher: NBM Publishing Company
Lost Girl is a slow pace graphic novel, slow as summer vacation in camping near by the sea with your parents and little sister. There are no super-heroes in this novel, just a 15 years old teenage girl, shared between an attraction for the world of adults and her comfortable dream world of childhood. It is difficult to know what is dream and what is reality, but Beth met a mysterious girl who is all she is not. This unusual girl is very independent and seems do to what she wants and to follow her instinct without thinking of tomorrow. Beth, a probably too well behaved girl, is really attracted to her, looking for some kind of freedom.
This strange atmosphere is very well translated by the artwork, quiet original, without any unnecessary elements, a strong but minimal illustration.
November 7th, 2006