Review: JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE: Part 4 - Diamond is Unbreakable Volume 1

JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE: PART 4 – DIAMOND IS UNBREAKABLE, VOL. 1
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

MANGAKA: Hirohiko Araki
TRANSLATION: Nathan A. Collins
LETTERS: Mark McMurray
EDITOR: David Brothers
ISBN: 978-1-9747-0652-5; hardcover (May 2019); Rated “T+” for “Older Teen”
378pp, B&W with some color, $19.99 U.S., $26.99 CAN, £12.99 U.K.

VIZ Media has been publishing the legendary Shonen Jump manga, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, in English since 2015.  VIZ's edition, the first in English, is comprised of deluxe edition, hardcover, graphic novels with color pages and new cover art and is released under the “Shonen Jump” imprint.  Created by Hirohiko Araki, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a multi-generational tale that centers on the heroic Joestar family and their never-ending battle against evil.

Thus far, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has been published in four arcs/series:  “Phantom Blood” (Part 1), “Battle Tendency” (Part 2), and “Stardust Crusaders” (Part 3).  The new arc, “Diamond is Unbreakable” (Part 4) is set in 1999.  It continues the focus on members and descendants of the Joestar family and their battle against the “Stand users,” and the power known as “Stand,” which is an entity that is psychically generated by its creator.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Part 4 – Diamond is Unbreakable, Vol. 1 (Chapters 1 to 18) opens in the small Japanese city of Morioh, where there are a surprisingly large number of killings and disappearances.  In April 1999, 28-year-old Jotaro Kujo arrives in town, searching for a young man named Josuke Higashikata, who is the secret love child of his grandfather, Joseph Joestar.

Jotaro meets 16-year-old Josuke and his schoolmate, 15-year-old Koichi Hirose.  During a confrontation, Jotaro is shocked to discover that Josuke possesses a Stand.  Now, the sons of the Joestar family must team-up to investigate the town's proliferation of unusual Stands, including a serial killer and a pair of brothers.

[This volume includes “Author's Comments.”]

It has been a year since I last read a volume of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure manga.  VIZ Media recently sent me a review copy of the first graphic novel in the “Diamond is Unbreakable” series.  Now, I am reminded of how much I like this manga that is a mixture of period action-adventure, horror, and occult-history.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Part 4 – Diamond is Unbreakable Graphic Novel Volume 1 mixes horror and action, frequent elements in the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series.  So far, however, there is none of the period drama and occult-history that also marks this series.  Diamond is Unbreakable offers a lot of battle manga via the Stands, but creator Hirohiko Araki also delves into the characters.  He makes you care what happens to them, even to some of the bad guys.

I think the draw of Diamond is Unbreakable may be the weirdo Stands, but I think that this arc may prove to offer some unique character drama and some delightfully oddball characters.  Vol. 1 makes sure the new series is off to a good start.

A
9 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2019 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: JUNI TAISEN: Zodiac War Volume 1

JUNI TAISEN: ZODIAC WAR, VOL. 1
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

MANGAKA: Akira Akatsuki
ORIGINAL STORY: Nisiosin (novel)
CHARACTER DESIGNS: Hikaru Nakamura
TRANSLATION: Nathan A. Collins
LETTERS: Mark McMurray
EDITOR: Marlene First
ISBN: 978-1-9747-0250-3; paperback (October 2018); Rated “T+” for “Older Teen”
188pp, B&W, $9.99 US, $12.99 CAN, £6.99 UK

Juni Taisen is a Japanese illustrated light novel written by Nisio Isin (or NisiOisiN) and illustrated by Hikaru Nakamura.  Published in 2015 by Shueisha, Juni Taisen (which translates to “12 Wars”) depicts a war fought by twelve deadly mercenaries, each one with a name and power that corresponds to an animal in the Chinese zodiac.

Akira Akatsuki, who has collaborated on manga with Nisioisin, produced a manga adaptation of Juni Taisen in 2017.  VIZ Media is publishing that manga as a four-volume graphic novel series, entitled Juni Taisen: Zodiac War.  It will be released on a quarterly schedule in both print and digital (including for the VIZ Manga App).

Juni Taisen: Zodiac War, Vol. 1 (Chapters 1 to 4) opens in a city of half a million people, a city gone dark for a coming epic tournament.  Every 12 years, 12 fighters take the form of the Chinese zodiac animals and engage in a battle royale.  Using their strength and mysterious super-powers, these mercenaries fight to the death, and the sole survivor is granted the ultimate prize – any wish he or she wants.  This is the twelfth Zodiac War, and one of the combatants has been killed by a competitor before the tournament even begins!

[This volume includes a sketchbook section.]

VIZ Media sent me a review copy of the Juni Taisen: Zodiac War manga.  Prior to this manga, I was not familiar with any of the creators.  I am familiar with the term, “light novel,” a kind of Japanese version of the young adult novel, and I have read a few.  My experience with manga adapted from light novels has been good, an example being Library Wars, a VIZ Media published manga adapted from a light novel.

Juni Taisen: Zodiac War Graphic Novel Volume 1 features some absolutely gorgeous art.  It is heavily layered and textured with rich toning and lushly detailed inking.  The story seems a little weird at first, but that are so many shocking turns of events that the narrative is hard to ignore.  After the first shocker, I could not stop reading this first volume of Juni Taisen: Zodiac War.  I think readers who enjoy “battle royale” manga and also fight comics will want Juni Taisen: Zodiac War.  I cannot say that this will be an exceptional character drama, but the death and bloody mayhem look to make Juni Taisen a quite invigorating read.

7.5 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint syndication rights and fees.

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Review: BATTLE ROYALE Angels’ Border

BATTLE ROYALE ANGELS’ BORDER
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

STORY: Koushun Takami with N-Cake
ARTISTS: Mioko Ohnishi and Youhei Oguma
TRANSLATION: Nathan Collins
LETTERS: Annaliese Christman
ISBN: 978-1-4215-7168-3; paperback (June 2014); Rated “T” for “Older Teen”
274pp, B&W, $12.99 U.S., $14.99 CAN, £8.99 U.K.

Battle Royale Angels’ Border is a stand-alone, one-shot manga set in the world of Battle Royale.  First published in 1999, Battle Royale is a Japanese horror and science fiction novel written by Koushun Takami.  In 2000, the novel became a manga that Takami produced with artist Masayuki Taguchi, who drew the manga.  A controversial film adaptation directed by Kinji Fukasaku was also released in 2000.

The book is set in the near-future in the Republic of Greater East Asia, a country that is like modern-day Japan, but has an authoritarian government.  The most graphic symbol of Greater East Asia’s controlling government is something called “the Program.”  Each year, an entire class of ninth grade students is kidnapped and dropped on an island.  There, the students are forced to kill each other until there is one survivor – the winner of the Program.  The original novel follows the 42 students (11 girls and 11 boys) of Shiroiwa Junior High – Ninth Grade Class B after they are chosen for the Program.

Battle Royale Angels’ Border expands upon the original novel.  Angels’ Border reveals for the first time the full story and grisly demise of the Shiroiwa Junior High girls who hid in the lighthouse.  Their subplot was featured in the original Battle Royale book and live-action film.

Battle Royale Angels’ Border features two episodes (or stories).  Episode I (drawn by Mioko Ohnishi) opens at the lighthouse.  The students from Shiroiwa Junior High scattered from the classroom where they received their orders and rules about the killing game that is the Program.  Yukie Utsumi and five of her friends:  Haruka Tanizawa, Yuka Nakagawa, Satomi Noda, Yuko Sakaki, Chisato Matsui lock themselves in the lighthouse.  There, they cling to a desperate hope of survival. The girls all trust each other, but they also know that only one can survive this killing game.

Meanwhile, Haruka struggles with her love for her friend, Yukie Utsumi, simultaneously wanting to touch Yukie, but skittish when Yukie touches her in friendship.  Haruka wants desperately for her and Yukie to survive, but complications and the arrival of others make one of the six girls very dangerous to the others.

Episode II (drawn by Youhei Oguma) focuses on two students from Shiroiwa Junior High – Ninth Grade Class B.  The story is set in November, six months before the kids from Class B are kidnapped into the Program.  Chisato, one of the girls who makes it to the lighthouse, is taking the train home when she has a confrontation with another passenger.  Suddenly, classmate Shinji Mimura comes to her rescue.  This popular boy and basketball star, practically sweeps Chisato off her feet, turning a train ride into something that might be called a date.

Honestly, I don’t have a lot to say about Battle Royale Angels’ Border.  I have not yet read Koushun Takami’s original novel, but I have seen the film adaptation, and I have read the first three volumes of the manga adaptation of the novel.  Both the film and manga contain depictions of extreme or graphic violence, including the depiction of a rape in the manga.

Battle Royale Angels’ Border is for teen readers, perhaps older teens; one reason being that the depiction of violence is not explicit.  Although it is teen appropriate, Angels’ Border is neither shojo nor shonen manga.  I think Angels’ Border’s two stories are essentially young adult (YA) stories set in the adult fiction/mature audience world of Battle Royale.  These stories blend teen love, unrequited love, LGBTQ love, but this is manga that is about young love and not so much about teen romance.

I do not know what fans of the Battle Royale novel, films, or manga will get out of these two interesting side stories.  I think teen readers will like them.  Think of Battle Royale Angels’ Border as Battle Royale toned down to the level of The Hunger Games…

B+

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for syndication rights and fees.

Book Review: Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots

METAL GEAR SOLID: GUNS OF THE PATRIOTS
VIZ MEDIA/Haikasoru - @VIZMedia; @haikasoru

AUTHOR: Project Itoh
TRANSLATION: Nathan Collins
COVER: Yoji Shinkawa with Kam Li (designer)
ISBN: 978-1-4215-4001-6; paperback, Rated “T” for “Teen”
364pp, B&W, $15.99 U.S., $18.99 CAN, £9.99 UK

Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots is a novel tie-in to the 2004 Playstation 3 video game, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Guns of the Patriots is an entry in the stealth video games series, Metal Gear, which was created by Hideo Kojima and developed and published by Konami. The novel is written by Project Itoh, which was the penname of the late Japanese science fiction author, Satoshi Ito (Genocidal Organ).

Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots is the latest episode in the bullet-ridden adventures of Solid Snake, the legendary infiltrator and saboteur. A crack soldier, Solid Snake (or simply, “Snake”) is part of a worldwide nanotechnology network known as the Sons of the Patriots (SOP). The SOP system is a network that controls soldiers via the nanomachines inside their bodies. Time is running out for Snake because he is a clone, and he will soon succumb to the FOXDIE virus (which is programmed to selectively kill specific people). Before he dies, however, Snake will end up spreading the disease to nearly everyone he encounters, in essence becoming a walking biological weapon.

Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots is set in a time when the world economy relies on continuous war. This war is fought by private military corporations (PMCs), which outnumber government military forces. PMC soldiers are equipped with nanomachines that enhance their abilities on the battlefield, and are thus controlled by the SOP system. Snake’s enemy, Liquid Ocelot (or simply “Liquid”), is preparing to hijack the SOP network, and whoever controls SOP controls the world. With the help of Dr. Hal “Otacon” Emmerich (who is also this story’s narrator) and a host of old friends and “frenemies,” Snakes races around the world from jungle to desert and from the frozen tundra to the ocean to stop Liquid.

Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots is a light novel, a style of Japanese novel apparently aimed at middle school and high school students, but Guns of the Patriots will interest older readers. This video game tie-in is military science fiction and alternate history fiction. At least as far as I can remember, it’s the best military science fiction combination alternate history book that I’ve read to date. I certainly enjoyed it more than my first military/alternate history sci-fi experience, S.M. Stirling’s perplexing Marching Through Georgia.

Rather than offering some mere action novel, author Project Itoh presents a blend of character drama and political commentary. The author even explains why the idea of equality is actually the cause of war, death, and destruction. Don’t get me wrong: there are some good action set pieces here, and Nathan Collins’ translation deftly captures Itoh’s multiple flavors of battle action. However, Itoh’s novel is a critical look at war, from the perspectives of global economics, international politics, history, technology, culture, and society. This is all played out as character drama with a group of characters in the present and with another group of characters that only exist in the back story or in the novel’s past (many of them dead) whose actions are of perpetual consequence.

When I asked my VIZ Media representative for a copy of this book for review, I did so because something told me that it would be an interesting read. Maybe, it was just a lucky guess, but I was right. Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots is solid, indeed.

A-

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

Book Review: MM9

MM9
VIZ MEDIA/Haikasoru

AUTHOR: Hiroshi Yamamoto
TRANSLATION: Nathan Collins
COVER: Izumi Evers
ISBN: 978-1-4215-4089-4; paperback, Rated “T” for “Teen”
256pp, B&W, $14.99 U.S., $16.99 CAN, £9.99 UK

Hiroshi Yamamoto began his career as a video game writer, designer, and developer. As a fiction writer, he created the Ghost Hunter series and gained acclaim for his science fiction novel, God Never Sleeps. 2010 saw the publication of his novel, The Stories of Ibis, in English. In January 2012, Haikasoru, an imprint of VIZ Media, published a second Yamamoto novel in English.

Originally released in Japan in 2007, MM9 is a science fiction novel composed of five interconnected short stories. MM9 follows the challenging labor of a Japanese unit that fights giant monsters called “kaiju.” The kaiju are monsters/creatures of the Godzilla, 50-Foot Woman, and giant plant variety.

MMD is an acronym for Monsterological Measures Department, a special unit under the Meteorological Agency. The MMD is a special anti-monster unit in Japan that deals with “natural disasters of a high ‘monster magnitude.’” “Monster magnitude” is a measure and designation related to the size of a monster and how much damage it can cause with MM9 being the most powerful and most dangerous kaiju.

The stories follow the members of the MMD as they fight various kaiju. There is Ryo Haida, a top member of the MMD’s Mobile Unit, and Sakura Fujisawa, a soft-hearted young woman and a specialist of Mobile Unit, Vehicles and Transportation, and she’s actually a whiz at driving to avoid monsters. Yojiro Muromachi, Mobile Unit, Director, keeps these two in line and on the job. Yuri Anno is the resident astrophysicist, but she sometimes feels out of place. Department Chief Shoichi Kurihama sweats the details and the small stuff, but when he really needs to be in control, he’s the ultimate take-charge guy who can manage a crisis as well as anyone.

In the opening story, “Crisis! Kaiju Alert!,” a sea-based kaiju threatens Japan, but nothing about the way this kaiju moves or its composition makes sense. The MMD will have to solve this mystery in time to save the coast of Japan. In “Danger! Girl at Large!,” meet Princess, the girl who is taller than a five-story building… and growing. Is she really a kaiju or a science experiment? Sakura will put her life on the line to get all the answers. In “Menace! Attack of the Flying Kaiju,” Ryo Haida and his date, Eiko Hamaguchi, find their night-out interrupted by a radioactive, flying kaiju with Tokyo on its mind.

A TV camera crew follows the MMD in “Scoop! Twenty-Four Hours with the MMD!.” All is quite, but a plant menace may turn a documentary special into a disaster movie. In “Arrival! The Colossal Kaiju of the Apocalypse!,” meet the kaiju with an ages-old mystery of history behind it. And it may also be the end of the world as we know it.

In the eight years that I have written reviews for the Comic Book Bin, publishers have sent me copies of their manga titles for review. Sometimes, they also send copies of the light novels they publish.

I was surprised to find that the MM9 novel is not like other light novels, if it can be labeled a light novel, at all. Middle and high school students that already read novels can comprehend this, but while MM9’s subject matter is light (giant monsters), Yamamoto executes it in an inventive manner, which shows that he clearly intends on engaging adult readers.

Hiroshi Yamamoto’s novel shares elements and ideas similar to the Men in Black film franchise and Warren Ellis and John Cassaday’s Planetary. MM9 is a high concept like the former and a deeper excursion into subgenres like the latter. This is not just a novel about giant monsters and the characters that fight them. This is also science fantasy; in the sense that Yamamoto takes fantasy, mythology, and real-life faith and belief systems and builds a scientific structure in which the natural and supernatural are not opposites, but are related. They are part of the human condition and part of our history.

MM9 is smarter than you think, because you might think an author would not put so much thought into a novel about a special agency that fights giant monsters. On a scale of 1 to 10, MM9 won’t even settle for 9.

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

Japanese Science Ficiton Novel, MM9, Also an eBook

NATURAL DISASTERS OF HIGH “MONSTER MAGNITUDE” THREATEN JAPAN IN MM9, NEW FROM VIZ MEDIA’S HAIKASORU IMPRINT

Special Team Of Scientists Must Save Japan In A Gripping New Novel From The Author Of THE STORIES OF IBIS

VIZ Media’s Haikasoru imprint brings a fantastic new tale of science fiction and giant monsters to North American readers with the release of Hiroshi Yamamoto’s novel MM9, available now. The release will carry an MSRP of $14.99 U.S. / $16.99 CAN. An eBook edition is also available on the Amazon Kindle, Apple’s iBooks Store, the Barnes & Noble’s Nook Books Store, and the Sony Reader™ Store for $8.99.

Haikasoru publishes some of the most compelling contemporary Japanese science fiction and fantasy stories for English-speaking audiences, and is the first imprint based in the U.S. dedicated to Japanese science fiction and fantasy in translation.

The Japan of MM9 is beset by natural disasters all the time: typhoons, earthquakes...and giant monster attacks. A special anti-monster unit called the Meteorological Agency Monsterological Measures Department (MMD) has been formed to deal with natural disasters of high “monster magnitude.” The work is challenging, the public is hostile, and the monsters are hungry, but the MMD crew has science, teamwork...and a legendary secret weapon on their side. Together, will try and save Japan, and the universe!

“Hiroshi Yamamoto takes on the perennial Japanese science fiction theme—the giant monsters known as kaiju,” says Nick Mamatas, Haikasoru Editor. “The B-movie monsters we know and love are basically treated like meteorological disasters along the lines of hurricanes or earthquakes by the MMD, who measures the “monster magnitude” of the various threats and uses both science and folkloric knowledge to try to save Japan from constant repeated attack. Yamamoto knows his science as well as pop culture—MM9 is both a loving parody of Japanese icons like Ultraman and Godzilla, but gives an intriguing and wild answer to the question of how such enormous creatures could exist without the laws of physics kicking it. The book was very popular in Japan, and the cinematic nature of Yamamoto’s storytelling made it easy for Japanese television to adapt into an action-adventure- science fiction TV show.”

Hiroshi Yamamoto was born in 1956 in Kyoto, Japan. He began his career as a writer and game designer with the game development company Group SNE in 1987. He gained initial popularity with titles such as February at the Edge of Time and the Ghost Hunter series. His first hardcover science fiction release, God Never Keeps Silent, became a sensation among readers and was nominated for the Japan SF Award. Other novels include Day of Judgment and The Unseen Sorrow of Winter and THE STORIES OF IBIS (which is published in North America by VIZ Media’s Haikasoru). Aside from his work as a writer, Yamamoto is also active in various literary organizations as an editor of classic science fiction anthologies and as president of To-Gakkai, a group of tongue-in-cheek "experts" on the occult.

For more information on MM9 and the Haikasoru imprint, please visit the dedicated website at http://www.haikasoru.com/.