Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

death note

Junji Ito is No Longer Human

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Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human is one of postwar Japan’s most enduring novels: its popularity inspired a live-action film and an animated series, as well as manga by Usamaru Furuya (Genkaku Picasso, Lychee Light Club) and Yasunori Ninose. Junji Ito is the latest artist to adapt No Longer Human, this time in the pages of Shogakukan’s Big Comic Original. Given Ito’s propensity for writing characters whose outward appearance belies their true natures, it’s not surprising that he was drawn to Dazai’s story about a young man who gradually descends into madness and despair. There’s no word on whether an American company will license this adaptation, but my money is on a VIZ edition in 2018 or 2019.

MANGA NEWS AND REVIEWS

Say what you will about the Netflix adaptation of Death Note, it sparked reader interest in Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s original story. The brick-sized All-in-One Edition ranked second on BookScan’s Top 20 Graphic Novels list for September 2017. Other strong performers included One-Punch Man, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, My Hero Academia, and The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up. [ICv2]

Seven Seas recently announced the creation of Ghost Ship, a new manga imprint for mature audiences. Look for debut titles To Love Ru and Yokai Girls in December and January, respectively. [Go Manga]

For your reading pleasure: the VIZ editorial staff composed haikus detailing every November release. [VIZ]

In response to North Korea’s most recent missile test, officials in Hokkaido commissioned a manga to teach residents what to do in the event that Kim Jung-Un does, in fact, launch a nuclear attack. [The Guardian]

The latest Kanta on Manga column focuses on Koi to Uso, a “mainstream romantic comedy” with an “Orwellian” premise. (Kodansha has released two volumes in English as Love & Lies.) [Yomiuri Shimbun] 

Now that Fairy Tail has ended, Hiro Mashima sat down with reporters to reflect on his experience writing this enormously popular series — one that spanned 63 volumes and topped best-seller lists on both sides of the Pacific. If the storyline seemed loose at times, it was; Mashima freely admits that “I honestly didn’t have any of the last scenes of the story in my mind when I started the series. The fact that I didn’t know where the story [was] going was actually the best part about working on this series.” [B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog]

Good news from Japan: Shogakukan announced that it will publish two unfinished works by the late Jiro Taniguchi. [The Japan Times]

Translator Jocelyn Allen reviews two BL titles with swoon-worthy art: Setona Mizushiro’s Kyuso wa cheese no yume o miru, and Sakae Kusama’s Wandervogel. [Brain vs. Book]

In September, I spoke with journalist Richard Smith for an article he was writing about the state of digital manga publishing in Japan. The article — with a few sound bites from me — looks at the current size of the digital manga market, and weighs the pros and cons of moving from print to digital consumption. [The National]

MOVIE NEWS AND REVIEWS

Serdar Yegulalp posts an in-depth essay on Shusaku Endo’s 1969 novel Silence, which inspired two very different films: one by Endo and Masahiro Shinoda, released in 1971, and one by Martin Scorsese, released in 2016. [Ganriki]

Fresh off the box office success of Thor: Ragnarok, director Taika Waititi told Screen Rant that he would welcome the opportunity to direct another comic book adaptation: Katsuhiro Otomo’s AKIRA. Waititi’s vision for the project included going back to the original source material, rather than the anime, and hiring Asian actors to play the principal characters. I don’t know about you, but I’d see it. [Screen Rant]

Seven Seas Licenses Go Nagai’s Honey Cutie

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Seven Seas is having a banner year: not only was its best-selling title orange nominated for an Eisner Award, it also nabbed the publishing rights to Captain Harlock and Devilman. September brought a fresh crop of licensing announcements, most of which sound like titles that Seven Seas is already publishing. There’s a yuri vampire comedy, Hungry For You: Endo Yasuko Stalks the Night; a light novel adaptation, If It’s for My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord; a superhero spoof, Precarious Woman Executive Miss Black General; and a monster manga, Little Devils. The most exciting announcement, however, was that Seven Seas picked up another classic Go Nagai title, Cutie Honey. Nagai’s series — one of the first shonen manga to feature a female protagonist — ran in the pages of Weekly Shonen Champion from 1973 to 1974, inspiring an animated television show, an OVA, a live-action series, and manga “reboots” in the 1990s and 2000s. Look for the English edition of Cutie Honey in July 2018, when Seven Seas will release a single, hardcover volume that collects all of Nagai’s original stories.

MANGA, ANIME AND JAPANESE POP CULTURE

Brigid Alverson interviews manga editor Yumi Sukimune, who is currently working with Akiko Higashimura on Princess Jellyfish and Tokyo Tarareba Girls. Though most of their conversation focuses on manga publishing, Sukimune also reflects on the important role of shojo manga in helping young women find their place in society. “Japanese women have recently begun to take action not only in ways that clearly lead to progress for women in society, like resisting sexual harassment or abuse of power, but also by declaring that we want to raise the profile of things we like rather than allow the world to be governed by men’s values, and I think Japan’s “kawaii” culture is connected to that,” Sukimune observes. “Japanese girls who have naturally enjoyed shojo manga from the time they were little have great inner strength. They are the real-life versions of the shojo heroines that have always been depicted as possessing the strength of positive self-affirmation, gained by transforming themselves into who they want to be.” [B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog]

Italian translator and manga scholar Paolo La Marca sings the praises of manga-ka Kamimura Kazuo (Lady Snowblood, Dosei jidei), calling him “the ukiyo-e master of Shōwa-era manga.” [Nippon]

What makes Dragon Ball so good? Brian Ashcraft offers a panel-by-panel breakdown of Akira Toriyama’s masterful layouts to make that case that Toriyama’s storyboarding game is among the best in business. [Kotaku]

ICYMI: Kelly Chiu lists seven great sports manga, from Ace of the Diamond to Yowamushi Pedal. [B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog]

Congratulations to Erica Friedman, who recently celebrated her fifteenth blogoversary! [Okazu]

Who knew anyone at The New Republic was watching Death Note? [The New Republic]

Zack Davisson just shared the cover art for his forthcoming book Kaibyo: The Supernatural Cats of Japan, “an in-depth exploration of the sometimes charming, sometimes gruesome feline creatures and ghosts of Japan.” Kaibyo will be released on a particularly fitting day: October 31st. [Twitter]

From Russia with love? East Press just released Understanding Through Manga: Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, a bio-manga about the most powerful Russian leader since Mikhail Gorbachev. Toe Shinme’s artwork is crude, to put it mildly; in Shinme’s hands, Putin looks more like a character on The Simpsons than the bare-chested, tiger-wrestling, election-tampering leader of the former USSR. No word on whether the content is better than the presentation. [Anime News Network]

Next Technology has invented an adorable robot puppy whose primary job is to detect pungent foot odor. No, really. [The Japan Times]

Here’s another product I didn’t know I needed: manga tape. [Stone Bridge Press]

Scholars Lucy Fraser and Masafumi Monden just published an important new article in the field of manga studies in which they observe that academics have privileged “subversive” shojo manga over the more mundane-seeming otomechikku (“maidenesque”) genres aimed at young female readers. Using the work of Takase Ryo as the focal point of their analysis, Fraser and Monden aim to address this deficit in the literature, arguing that “[r]ather than simply maintaining conservative norms of femininity and heterosexual romance, these works explore gender issues within the ‘safe’ trappings of girlishness.” [Asian Studies Review]

Everybody Hates Death Note

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That anguished sound you’re hearing? That’s the collective howl of a thousand Death Note readers reacting to Netflix’s brand-new film adaptation, which debuted last night. The project was controversial enough to attract interest from major media outlets like Variety, The Guardian, The Hollywood Reporter, and The New York Times. While many news organizations have been kinder to Adam Wingard’s movie than rank-and-file fans, critics more knowledgable about the source material have taken issue with Wingard’s efforts to transplant Tsugumi Ohba’s story from Japan to Seattle.

Writing for GQ, for example, Joshua Rivera praised Wingard for his diverse supporting cast — brilliant detective L is played by Lakeith Stanfield — while noting that the Americanized Light “is an angry, disillusioned young white guy who might as well be a faceless Redditor who gains the power to kill people via forum posts.” Other reviewers — such as Forbes critic Dani Di Placido — took issue with the way that Ryuk was reimagined as “a malevolent force, pressuring Light into murder and pursuing his own private, twisted agenda.” Di Placido noted the strong contrast between Wingard’s interpretation of Ryuk and Ohba’s original creation:

In the original, Ryuk is simply bored. That’s it. That’s his motivation. He hangs around in the world of death, bored out of his mind, until he decides to give his Death Note to a random human and just … see what happens. To his delight, the tense game of cat and mouse that ensues is the most entertaining thing he’s ever witnessed.

Ryuk is supposed to be a spectator, just like the audience, standing beside Light and giggling at the human’s plans. He doesn’t have a horse in the race – he just likes eating apples and watching the chaos unfold. I really loved that aspect of Ryuk, and again, it’s a shame that his character had to fit the Western perception of demonic entities.

Roger Ebert contributor Brian Tallerico was less charitable in his assessment than Di Placido, awarding Death Note a measly one star rating and arguing that “it doesn’t feel like any of these alterations to the source material, and there are many of them, had true artistic or thematic purpose.” His sentiment was echoed by BGN critic Jamie Broadnax in her aptly titled review “I Watched Death Note So You Won’t Have To,” in which she catalogued the film’s myriad problems, from frantic pacing to an ill-conceived love story. Broadnax’s most trenchant comments, however, addressed the race-bending of the story’s principal characters:

…the whitewashing of Death Note is problematic as hell and it was even more egregious to see Asian actors used more for set dressing than actual principal characters. And as much as I love LaKeith Stanfield and I stan for most of what he does, racebending L and listening to him speak very bad Japanese is not enough for me to forgive the whitewashing of Light Yagami.

Also addressing the whitewashing issue at length was Pajiba’s Kristy Puchko, who shared Broadnax’s frustration that the film’s Asian American actors functioned more as props than people:

Wingard transported the story from Japan to Seattle, then decided to cast white actors in the two lead roles of Light and Mia. (Because people of Japanese heritage don’t live in Seattle?) “Kira” is still used as a pseudonym as it means “killer” in Japanese, but it’s presented as a misdirect to keep the cops off Light’s trail. Yup, the white hero is hiding behind an assumed Japanese identity. Aside from supporting character Watari (Paul Nakauchi), the greatest representation for Japanese actors is the slew of dead yakuza members, and their molls, who are clad in skimpy lingerie, dead or alive.

I give the last word to Anime News Network’s Jacob Chapman, who joined his fellow cinephiles in panning Death Note while arguing that Wingard’s film has a unique integrity:

It’s hard to imagine Death Note aficionados being pleased with something so flagrantly disrespectful to its source material, but there’s still reason to rejoice in the specific flavor of badness we were gifted. Rather than being dull or disposable, Death Note 2017’s desire to be different no matter the cost gives the movie its own maverick charm, inimitable by the flood of safe remakes we forget one week after they hit theaters. (Lookin’ at you again, Ghost in the Shell.) There’s a trashy kind of triumph that rises from the uniquely poor decisions holding Death Note together, and every fan should watch it just once for a one-of-a-kind example of how adaptations can go wrong.

If you’re in need of a palette cleanser, VIZ has you covered: on September 5th, the publisher will release a 2,400-page Death Note omnibus for a wallet-friendly price of $39.99 — which, as the folks at Gizmodo helpfully observed, translates into a per-pound cost of $1.50. As an added incentive, VIZ will include a new epilogue chapter that hasn’t been published in English before. Pre-order it here.

VIZ Licensing News; Ghost in the Shell Reviews

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During its Friday afternoon panel at Anime Boston, VIZ media announced a new slate of titles for fall 2017, from Astra: Lost in Space, a sci-fi adventure written by Kenta Shinohara (Sket Dance), to SP x Baby, a josei title penned by Maki Enjoji (Happy Marriage?!). And while both are buzzworthy, I’m even more excited by two other manga joining the VIZ line-up: Shiver: Junji Ito Selected Stories, a selection of shorts hand-picked by Ito himself, and Children of the Whales, a shojo fantasy created by Abi Umeda. VIZ also unveiled a handful of digital-first and digital-only offerings that includes The Emperor and I, eIDLIVE, The Promised Neverland, and Tokyo Ghoul [Jack], a full-color prequel to Sui Ishida’s best-selling series.

Of course, Anime Boston wasn’t the only big event this weekend; the live-action Ghost in the Shell movie opened to mediocre reviews, with some critics praising its visuals and action sequences, and others panning the performances and script. The Atlantic‘s David Sims pronounced the movie a “copy of a copy,” arguing that it never captures what was memorable about Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 version. Sims also took issue with the casting:

As a remake of a Japanese film that retains its futuristic setting and most of its characters’ names (but features white actors in the four leading roles), Ghost in the Shell ostensibly had the chance to delve into the tricky politics of identity and how it might evolve in the future. But a third-act twist attempts to confront Johansson’s casting in a way that ends up feeling awkward, misguided, and vaguely insulting to Oshii’s film, summoning the specter of its original protagonist in an effort to explain why the Major’s “shell” might look like the American actress.

In her review for New York Magazine, Emily Yoshida argued that the film’s biggest flaw is that it retains the surface trappings of the original but not its soul. The filmmakers, she observes, are “obsessed with idea that Major ‘Mira’ (Scarlett Johansson) must unlock her true individuality to defeat the system, an extraordinarily American narrative shoddily grafted onto the original story.” She continues:

If Paramount just wanted to do a female-led cyberpunk Bourne Identity, probably nobody would have minded. But to associate a straightforward “Who am I?” action film with a franchise as philosophically noodly as Ghost in the Shell is disingenuous and pointless — you deny existing fans the actual post-self substance of the thing they like, and you alienate newcomers with a weird title and the obligatory skeleton of an existing franchise, which, when it’s not being explored, comes off as needlessly complicated.

One of the most incisive reviews came from Valery Complex at Nerds of Color. As she explains, the film actually whitewashes its heroine in a particularly egregious origin story:

So, not only has the role been whitewashed but they start with a Japanese woman and put her brain in a white body. So what does this say? It says that an Asian actress was an afterthought and that Asian visibility wasn’t valuable enough to carry this through to the end. This is made worse by Daisuke Aramaki (Takeshi Kitano) continuing to speak Japanese to her character at the beginning. Wait, what? I understand many non-Japanese folks can speak Japanese, but since her brain is that of a Japanese woman, she still retains her mother tongue. It’s just on the outside she looks white and is named Mira.

Not everyone panned the film; writing for the Los Angeles Times, for example, Justin Chang acknowledged the “irksome” racial politics while praising the film’s “ravishing” visuals, sentiments echoed by Michael Phillips at the Chicago Tribune. The most glowing appraisal came from Variety‘s Guy Lodge, who bucked the tide of critical approbation to praise Johansson’s performance and argue that the live-action film surpassed the previous anime adaptations. I give the last word to anime scholar Brian Ruh, who states that “the film handles its source material relatively competently, but it really is a victory of visuals over vision,” marred by “monotone” and “wooden” performances.

In other news…

An all-star team of writers and actors tackle the thorny issue of whitewashing Asian characters in Doctor Strange, Ghost in the Shell, and Iron Fist, offering a thoughtful — and powerful — rebuke to Hollywood’s most common justifications for the practice. [Nerds of Color]

The folks at io9 also discuss how Ghost in the Shell fumbles race and identity. [io9]

Brace yourself: the next five years brings a tsunami of big-budget, big-screen adaptations of popular manga, from Alita: Battle Angel to Naruto, AKIRA, and (potentially) Attack on Titan. [Los Angeles Times]

Brace yourself again: Netflix just unveiled the first Death Note trailer and it looks… bad. [Variety]

Manga editor Urian Brown takes an in-depth look at Tegami Bachi. [VIZ]

Tokyopop and Disney are producing a manga adaptation of Beauty and the Beast with a novel twist: volume one tells the story from Belle’s perspective, while volume two offers us the Beast’s POV. [Entertainment Weekly]

If you’ve never read From Eroica With Love, Vrai Kaiser’s enthusiastic appreciation of this queer, globe-trotting adventure may inspire you to search eBay for copies. [Anime Feminist]

In her latest doujinshi roundup, Jocelyne Allen sings the praises of est em’s Love That Does Not Begin, a love story about a merman and a centaur. [Brain vs. Book]

Isabella Stanger profiles Naohiro Kimura, editor-in-chief of the recently launched Hikokimori News, a publication aimed at a generation of young, isolated Japanese adults. [Quartz]

The latest Chatty AF podcast focuses on Japanese adaptations of Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell manga. [Anime Feminist]

As part of its “Pioneers of Moving Comics” exhibition, the Kyoto Manga Museum will screen Japan’s first surviving animated film, Hanawa Hekonai Meitō no Maki (“Story of the Famous Sword of Hekonai Hanawa”). The short, which clocks in at four minutes, debuted in 1917. [Anime News Network]

Subtitles & Sensibility: Sequel time with Death Note & Gantz

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Back in February I shared my thoughts on the first live action Death Note & Gantz films, and honestly, not a lot has changed since I watched the sequels. (If you haven’t seen either, that post should be sufficient. This post assumes franchise knowledge for both.)

I did find the overall experience surprising. My snap judgment was that I would really enjoy Death Note, but I would find Gantz a little too dry & sci -fi for my taste. Instead, I frequently disliked Death Note, but I thoroughly enjoyed Gantz. There were two key differences for me between the two.

First, in Death Note, we are watching the manipulators from their areas of power, whereas in Gantz we are with the manipulated, watching these ordinary people trying to do their best in an extraordinary world. Second, the respective morality of the films was very different. In Death Note, even though Light is being pursued by authorities, the film accepts his decisions to kill in a way that I was uncomfortable with. Plus, an element of the Death Note is that the holder can kill from afar, so he doesn’t have to get his hands dirty. In Gantz, however, the characters brought back from death to fight are conflicted about killing, and when they choose to follow the instructions of Gantz it is for a clear goal: to earn enough points to either bring back someone else who has died, or so they might free themselves from the program. And even with this, in the second Gantz film, they are questioned outright about why they’re fighting, and it is clear that they question this themselves.

As for particulars of the films themselves….

In Death Note: The Last Name, the production value runs the gamut from soap opera to video game. Story-wise a few new complications are added to the rules of the Death Note (and a second Death Note is introduced), though none of this really challenges L, who works intuitively. The story tension is meant to come not from whether or not L will know that Light is Kira, but whether or not he will be able to prove it. However, Light and his various associates, be they gods of death or devoted fans, continue to remain one contrived step ahead of L’s ability to discover hard evidence.

As for Gantz: The Perfect Answer, it was a satisfying conclusion to the story. New elements were brought in, like people who are investigating the rumors of Gantz and the possibility that these dead people are still alive, and as aforementioned, the fighters deal with some heavy questions about who they are fighting and why.

There are a number of excellent action sequences involving a subway car, though there were definitely some moments where I wished I was watching it in the theater. Action on DVD frequently goes on too long to hold my interest, but that’s a personal thing. Overall, I enjoyed both Gantz films, and they’ve got me interested in the anime and manga, which is a huge success.

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On a whim I picked up L: Change the World at the library, and to my surprise, very much enjoyed it. It’s an L-specific spin-off of the Death Note live action films, and opens just before the Kira story begins. It starts with L working with Naomi on a case, and I actually really wished we could have had more of that. Naomi is a fun, capable character, and I enjoyed the taste we got of their relationship. If anyone could tell me if that is expanded on in the anime or manga I would really appreciate it.

The film quickly leaps through the timeline of the first two films, and the bulk of it takes place after. L takes some time finishing off odds and ends of cases, and this is his last big case before his chosen death comes. Essentially it’s a completely unoriginal bioterrorism-type outbreak story, but I enjoyed getting to know more about L outside of his entanglement with Light, especially insofar as it gave us a better look at the system L works within. The villains have a pretty traditional plan to destroy the world so they can remake it, but at least in the process they have to engage with the world, which makes them much more interesting than Light, hiding behind his notebook.

It’s a testament to the work Matsuyama had done with the character of L over the prior two films that when he engages in simple human behaviors it’s incredibly strange to watch. When he’s simply being outside in the world, it made me nervous. I wanted to encase him in bubble wrap & return him to his hermetically sealed chamber, full of sweets & computer monitors. In the course of fighting the virus, he has to interact with children, and it’s a great twist to watch this child-like character struggle to connect. As a bonus, children are the perfect people to ask L all the questions we’ve had through the prior two films. Why does he eat so much sugar? Is he even capable of standing up straight?

In the end, L: Change the World was a treat for me for making it through the other two Death Note films. It wasn’t great, and it certainly wouldn’t stand on its own, but if you really wanted more L, it’s a fun little diversion.

Review copies of Death Note: The Last Name and Gantz: The Perfect Answer provided by New People Entertainment.

Subtitles & Sensibility: Three with Ken’ichi Matsuyama

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Last spring at the Seattle International Film Festival, I discovered Ken’ichi Matsuyama through a sold-out screening of Norwegian Wood. The film came back to Seattle this winter, so I took the opportunity to see it again and then decided to check out a few other Matsuyama films.

An adaptation of the popular Haruki Murakami novel, Norwegian Wood is an overwhelmingly sad picture which played better the second time through.

The film centers on Toru (Matsuyama), a university student who is torn between the tragedy of his past and the possibilities for his future. The past is represented by Naoko, the longtime girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. After his inexplicable suicide, Naoko and Toru try to process the devastation together. For Naoko, it is impossible to deal with, and as she sinks into depression she threatens to pull Toru down with her.

However, at university Toru meets Midori (the utterly charming Kiko Mizuhara), who gives him the opportunity to choose life.

The first time around I found the film very heavy, unsurprisingly! It is more emotionally intense than the novel, partially because the film is more present, whereas the novel was reflective. The novel left space for humor, like expanding the character of Toru’s roommate Storm Trooper, and it took us out of the potentially-claustrophobic triangle of Toru, Naoko, and Midori by allowing more space for characters like Naoko’s eventual roommate Reiko to develop.

However, I am nothing if not understanding of the limits of adaptation. Tonal departures or character embellishments which work in a novel can easily feel out of place in a film.

More importantly, Norwegian Wood is a gorgeous piece of cinema. I was better able appreciate the unique textures, both visual and aural, when I saw it the second time. Overall the film is very lush, and it was easy for me to get lost in the visuals of everything from the gorgeous landscapes of the countryside to the patterning of fabric, and the excellent sound design between the university and the woods. Toru is swept through the film on waves—waves of sorrow, waves of protesters, and waves of wind through the long grasses on his long walks with Naoko—and I was willing to be swept along with him.

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I followed it up with another, rather different adaptation. Death Note, based on the manga of the same name, is the story of Light, a college student with dubious ethics who discovers a notebook. It’s the death note of the title, and it is quite a find. If you write someone’s name in it, they die.

Of course, it isn’t quite that simple. We quickly learn the many rules of the death note, and to the credit of the plot, the rules appear perfectly timed to answer audience questions.

Light (Tatsuya Fujiwara, devilishly creepy) uses the notebook to become a sort of Dexter Morgan from afar, causing the deaths of people who he thinks truly deserve it. However, he quickly begins using it in his own self-interest, killing the innocent, and manipulating the rules to manipulate people. Having not read the manga yet, I don’t know if Light is so unapologetically unpleasant in that as well. I hope so! I like the idea of a main character that the audience is so quickly turns against.

Light is accompanied in his adventures by a Shinigami named Ryuk, a sort of death god who owned the notebook before, dropped it in hopes someone interesting would pick it up, and now is just curious what shenanigans Light might get up to. Ryuk is essentially the world’s worst imaginary friend. The character, delivered via cartoonish CGI, resembles nothing so much a death metal version of the Joker, if the Joker was addicted to apples.

Ken’ichi Matsuyama, offscreen for over half of the film, plays the mysterious L, a reclusive genius detective. He’s an almost-otherworldly character, pale and compact, locked away in a hotel room and outsmarting criminals from afar. He steals the movie with his physicality alone, nearly unrecognizable between this and his role as Toru. Shoulders hunched, he hides behind eye makeup & shaggy hair, living off of sweets.

Both L and Light are childlike, existing very little in the real world and instead hiding away in their respective rooms, playing out a high-stakes game of strategy virtually. With all of the screens (television news, security footage, and the like) it’s almost a video game with real-world consequences.

Speaking of consequences, ladies do not fare well in Death Note despite my early hopes, particularly for Naomi Misora, a stellar FBI agent. One is introduced solely as a set-up for the second film, and others exist to be manipulated by Light via the notebook.

The whole structure of Death Note is frustrating because Light has absolute power with the book. He kills from afar, and after the deaths have been played out we take no pleasure in learning how the manipulations work. We’re seeing the strings of a show we didn’t enjoy the first time around, and as the film progresses and the deaths become more elaborate, I started to despair that anything will stop Light.

Thanks to the cliffhanger ending, I’m going to have to check out the second film to see if it ever happens. I’ll be sure to report back.

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In contrast, Gantz was also a film based on a manga series and split into two parts, but the first film worked as a complete story on its own. Though clearly there are many unanswered questions regarding the mechanics of the plot and the fate of secondary characters, Kurono undergoes a satisfying character arc. There’s an emotional conclusion if not a technical one.

Gantz is strange, the sort of picture that would play really well with a midnight, cult-film crowd. It opens with the accidental death of two high school students, Kurono (Kazunari Ninomiya) and Kato (Matsuyama). Rather than moving on to any traditional afterlife, they find themselves in an unfurnished apartment along with a few other people and a large black sphere.

The sphere has brought them here to participate in a life-or-death game, fighting against aliens who have been living on Earth. There are some rules to the game, though it seems fewer rules than were involved in Death Note.

Gantz features nice effects, great character design on the aliens, and very stylish cinematography by Taro Kawazu.

The film definitely raised a lot of questions. Are they really dead? Are they in limbo? How are they able to return to their old lives after missions? I have a lot of questions, so I’ll definitely be checking out the second film here as well!

Review copies of Death Note and Gantz provided by New People Entertainment.

Ichigo’s Melinda’s Resolve

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Wow, it’s been a while, I realize. The holidays took over my life for a bit, but now I’m back into the daily grind. I worked a lot on the graphic novel over the past week, and things are really starting to take shape. I won’t have as much time, now that I’m back to work, but I’m trying to set some realistic goals over the next few months to keep myself motivated. I truly have never had an original project of my own that excited me as much as this one does, which helps too. I’m hoping to have a final script for the entire series completed by the end of the year, and possibly even well before then, depending on how demanding the rest of my life is. I’ve never been big on New Year’s resolutions, because I think they tend to set a person up to fail, so I’m not going to make one. But my desire to complete this project is strong, as is my resolve to do so.

I also did some reading over the holidays! …

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