Category Archives: Otaku

Otaku Corner #09: Death Note Vol. 4

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Death Note Vol. 4 slows action

 

Bran­don Beatty, con­tribut­ing editor

Read­ers, wel­come back to Otaku Cor­ner. In this issue we con­tinue to look at the world­wide smash manga series “Death Note.” For those that have just started to read Otaku Cor­ner and Death Note, I would like to get you up to speed.

Death Note is the per­fect blend of gothic hor­ror fused with an intrigu­ing sto­ry­line in the tra­di­tion of Sher­lock Holmes, only this time it is in manga form. So far, I have reviewed three vol­umes of Death Note and took some time off to only review other ani­mated series to keep from exhaust­ing Death Note. So, hold one and get ready: Your friendly neigh­bor­hood otaku will once again present to you a bat­tle of wits between high school achiever Light Yagami and ace detec­tive L, two cho­sen men brought together by the Death Note, a note­book that will kill any­one whose name is writ­ten in it. Light aka Kira, who has one copy of the death note, vows to rid the world of vio­lent crim­i­nals, while L vows to stop Kira’s numer­ous killing sprees and restore justice.

In the fourth vol­ume of Death Note, writ­ten by Tsug­umi Ohba, illus­trated by Takeshi Obata and pub­lished by Viz Media, we last left L (aka Ryuzaki) and Light (Kira) recov­er­ing from an attack on TV news per­son­al­i­ties. Light’s father, a top offi­cer in Japan’s National Police Agency, was instru­men­tal in uncov­er­ing evi­dence at a local TV sta­tion of a sec­ond Kira. As a result, the two duel­ing geniuses called a truce to track down the sec­ond Kira, who is later revealed as Misa Amane, a up-and-coming model/actress who not only has her own death note, but the shinigami with her, Rem, has given her the abil­ity to see people’s true iden­ti­ties. The draw­back is that it would cost half of her lifespan.

Light, as a mem­ber of Ryuzaki’s team and Kira, is found quickly by Misa who offers to help him kill L in exchange for Light becom­ing her boyfriend. Light, at first, tries to threaten Misa with death, but Rem threat­ens to kill if any harm falls upon Misa. At the same time, Light tries to bal­ance life as Kira, an inves­ti­ga­tor and col­lege stu­dent while plot­ting to kill L. When Misa arrives at Light’s col­lege and tells him L’s real name, Light seems ready to declare vic­tory. How­ever, L’s wits strike again as Misa is taken into cus­tody by the NPA and is held by L in an undis­closed location.

Light, not­ing that the odds are against him, acts on his plan to keep sus­pi­cion from him­self and Misa by beg­ging Ryuzaki to con­fine him for a period of time. Light’s father, Soci­hiro, protests Light’s deci­sion, which results in him request­ing con­fine­ment as well. L agrees to Soichiro’s request except that his con­fine­ment would be dif­fer­ent in that Sochiro would still have access to infor­ma­tion, while Light is sep­a­rated and cut off.

DN Vol. 4 keeps all of the thrills and mys­tery intact, com­plete with the psy­cho­log­i­cal tac­tics that L and Light use, which are asso­ci­ated with high risk and high rewards. L decides to go under­ground to pro­tect him­self, while Light, who has a an ally in Misa, pon­ders if she is either a lia­bil­ity or an asset to his plans as Kira.

Obata’s illus­tra­tions are still top notch, cap­tur­ing every character’s emo­tion, while at the same time Obha’s story line remains flaw­less by keep­ing the fusion of super­nat­ural and mys­tery ele­ments intact. I also like the back­story to Misa in how she received her death note and Rem via another shinigami’s death in which Rem killed her stalker. In short, the fourth vol­ume of Death Note, while short on high-octane action, con­tin­ues its lure of prepar­ing read­ers for the next action-filled volume.

Vol­ume 4 has take a break from the fast-paced action and focuses mainly on emo­tions, yet con­tin­ues the strong pace of super­nat­ural hor­ror and mys­tery. You should be warned that the action and mind games will pick up again in its high-paced style with even more twists and turns that will keep you guess­ing who has who. My fel­low otaku, come back to “Otaku Cor­ner” for more Death Note reviews. A piece of advice: be wary of the gothic blondes. They are VERY possessive.

Bran­don Beatty is con­tribut­ing edi­tor of Gam­ing Insur­rec­tion. He can be reached by email at brandonb@gaminginsurrection.com

Otaku Corner #08: All-New Tenchi Muyo Vol. 2

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Face alien doom with the sec­ond vol­ume of Tenchi

Bran­don Beatty, con­tribut­ing editor

Wel­come back to another seg­ment of “Otaku Cor­ner” where my job is to review anime and manga for your leisure. In a pre­vi­ous OC review, I cov­ered the first issue of Viz Medias’ adap­ta­tion of the “All New Tenchi Muyo!” graphic novel series in which good times of watch­ing Tenchi and Co. on Car­toon Network’s “Toon­ami” block were revived. “Long live the Abso­lu­tion Rev­o­lu­tion,” I say. Now, with my shoutout to a leg­endary show com­plete, let us board Ryo-oh-ki Air­lines, Flight 803 to check out the sec­ond install­ment of the “All-New Tenchi Muyo: Doom Time.”

In this sec­ond vol­ume, Tenchi and Co. are at it again doing what they do best: Flirt­ing, bick­er­ing to no end, and keep­ing Earth and the rest of the uni­verse safe from the most out­landish and rogu­ish vil­lains ever known though seven chap­ters. In “Doom Time,” hence the sub­ti­tle, Washu invents a very cool device to alter time; trou­ble is, every­one except Ryo-oh-ki and a cute lit­tle vis­i­tor named Taro are trapped in time where Team Masaki is lit­er­ally fight­ing against the clock to stay alive and keep­ing young Taro safe. Next, our favorite goof­ball in uni­form, Mihoshi, finds her­self in the mid­dle of a bank rob­bery that quickly goes beyond awry when the pro­posed rob­ber grabs Mihoshi ‘s gun result­ing in teach­ing would-be crim­i­nals why crime does not pay at all.

Photo cour­tesy of Amazon.com

Poor Sasami has three chap­ters in which she is the star; only she is help­ing the oth­ers to fight against cute-yet-murderous build­ing restora­tion robots and to some­how keep her father from anni­hi­lat­ing her fel­low class­mates. Finally, Washu and the gang face off against an old enemy, Dr. Clay, and his newest weapon: an evil clone of Washu. Pro­grammed at first to strike at Washu, it has the entire house­hold fac­ing off against not one but five clones known as “Dark Washu,” set­ting off a “to be con­tin­ued” sto­ry­line for Vol. 3.

While read­ing this sec­ond install­ment of “Tenchi Muyo,” I found that every­thing that pulled me to this series is still here, keep­ing the sprit of the Tenchi anime and manga series intact and intro­duc­ing a new gen­er­a­tion of anime fans to harem manga that isn’t just girls domain. The action ele­ments are superb in feed­ing adren­a­line junkies their lust for action with­out overuse of “Gun­dam” or “Dragon Ball Z” ele­ments. I must inform you that there is fan ser­vice abound in this issue. Ryoko’s cover shot, while allur­ing, passes the stan­dards and prac­tices rules.

Viz Media has earned the respect of Tenchi fans by hav­ing the Eng­lish adap­ta­tion team of writer Fred Burke, trans­la­tor Lil­lian Olsen and edi­tor Eric Sear­le­man dive into the Tenchi Muyo phe­nom­e­non, under­stand­ing that Tenchi Muyo is a cor­ner­stone of Japan­ese ani­ma­tion and not the lat­est mon­ey­mak­ing fran­chise. Hitoshi Okuda’s tal­ent in the sto­ry­line and art areas will make you feel as if you’re watch­ing your own per­sonal episode of TM with­out any com­mer­cial breaks.

My favorite scenes of the manga were in chap­ter five when King Jurai tries to teach one of Sasami’s class­mates about man­ners in his own way, and in chap­ter seven when Washu and Dark Washu engage in intel­lec­tual and phys­i­cal com­bat. I felt the action and the intense rivalry seem­ing from the pages. Any­one who is for­tu­nate to pick a copy of a Tenchi Muyo manga will def­i­nitely get their money’s worth as great care in the Eng­lish adap­ta­tion and the com­bi­na­tion of excel­lent art and sto­ry­line ensures a great time for all with­out compromise.

As I close out this edi­tion of Otaku Cor­ner, I would like to take this time to say thanks to you, the read­ers, for read­ing this col­umn; it was some­thing that Lyn­d­sey, Jamie and myself thought about for a while within GI and finally added to the video game realm in which anime and manga have a strong con­nec­tion with Japan. Again, I say thank you, and now must fas­ten my seat belt per stew­ardesses Mihoshi, Ayaka and Ryoko as Ryo-oh-ki Air­ways Flight 803 has safely landed and awaits its treat of all things car­rots. I won­der where was she when I needed a veg­gie wingman?

Bran­don Beatty is con­tribut­ing edi­tor of Gam­ing Insur­rec­tion. He can be reached by email at brandonb@gaminginsurrection.com

Otaku #07: Devil May Cry 3 Vol. 1

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Devil May Cry 3 manga a great start for Dante

Bran­don Beatty, con­tribut­ing editor

In this issue’s Otaku Cor­ner, I’m tak­ing a look at manga based on pop­u­lar video games. One of these manga is based on the third install­ment of Capcom’s best-selling game “Devil May Cry,” which allows DMC fans, for the first time, to expe­ri­ence the fast-paced action of the game series in graphic novel for­mat in Eng­lish thanks to the good peo­ple of Tokyo Pop Inc.

In the first vol­ume of DMC3, everybody’s favorite demon slayer/bounty hunter Dante is unem­ployed and bored until his trusty man­ager Enzo sets him up with a miss­ing per­son case with a reward of $4 mil­lion. All is not as it seems as Dante not only takes the job, but also faces a sur­prise attack by unknown demons that leads our hero on an adven­ture beyond his wildest imagination.

When I read the first edi­tion of “DMC 3” from start to fin­ish, I felt that I was on a non­stop thrill ride from the open­ing page to the last. Author Sug­uro Chaya­machi did not take the

Devil May Cry 3 Vol. 1 / photo cour­tesy of Amazon

DMC3 saga lightly and per­fectly mixed great art and story plot with the ele­ments of a high-octane game. All of Dante’s swag­ger and cool gun/swordsmanship came intact as he flows through each page prov­ing that he is wor­thy to be among the great­est video game char­ac­ters of all time.

Tokyo Pop deserves a ton of the credit as trans­la­tor Ray Yoshi­moto and Eng­lish adap­ta­tion writer Aaron Spar­row flu­ently brought DMC 3 to life with­out a hitch. Truly, Cap­com did try a new method of bring­ing a pop­u­lar fran­chise to fans with­out the usual hitches that most com­pa­nies expe­ri­ence. Over­all, I find DMC3 Vol­ume 1 worth re-reading, guar­an­tee­ing absolute satisfaction.

Devil May Cry 3 Vol­ume 1 is a per­fect addi­tion to any DMC’s fan col­lec­tion. Dante retains the skills that make him the liv­ing night­mare for all demons and suc­ceeds in his first travel though manga for­mat thanks to cre­ative col­lab­o­ra­tion between Cap­com and Tokyo Pop.

This is a bold and trail­blaz­ing move for video game devel­op­ers to make on their fran­chise know­ing the risks. Keep read­ing Otaku Cor­ner for more reviews of this series as we give gaming’s elite demon slayer five-star treat­ment in the world of Japan­ese comic art.

Bran­don Beatty is con­tribut­ing edi­tor of Gam­ing Insur­rec­tion. He can be reached by email at brandonb@gaminginsurrection.com

Otaku #06: Robotech

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Mech drama in space brings back memories

Bran­don Beatty, con­tribut­ing editor

I decided to fol­low in my GI com­rades’ foot­steps and begin a new seg­ment where I review ani­mated prop­er­ties, but with a lit­tle anime fla­vor. While I will con­tinue to review great manga that reaches our shores, I hope that all of you will like this new addi­tion to Otaku. For now, I give a big hearty wel­come to Otaku Cor­ner The­ater where the motto is “review­ing great anime for, by, and wor­thy of the otaku.” (patent pending).

To cel­e­brate OCT’s grand open­ing, I’m start­ing off with a leg­endary anime series that is undis­put­edly con­sid­ered not only as essen­tial to an otaku’s col­lec­tion, but also a required piece to intro­duce those who are new to the won­der­ful world of anime. This series has not only launched the careers of well-known voice act­ing vet­er­ans in the anime indus­try, but also is well known among sci-fi anime series such as “Star­blaz­ers” and “Mobile Suit Gun­dam.” It’s none other than “Robot­ech” from ADV films.

For those who are unfa­mil­iar with this series, a bit of back­ground infor­ma­tion is in order. “Robot­ech” is an 85-episode series pro­duced in the 1980s by Har­mony Gold USA and Tasunoko Pro­duc­tions, also known for Karas, G-Force, Tasunoko All-Stars vs. Capcom.

Con­sist­ing of a rich story that spans three gen­er­a­tions, “Robot­ech” has mankind engaged in bat­tle with alien space forces for con­trol of the “Pro­to­cul­ture,” a mys­te­ri­ous and pow­er­ful energy source. The first chap­ter of the series focuses on the “Macross Saga,” in which Earth, recov­er­ing from a bru­tal global civil war finds in its pos­ses­sion a highly advanced war­ship called the SDF-I, sent from space. Upon find­ing the SDF-I, human­ity must defend its self from the Zen­tradi, a war­like race whose main goal to reclaim said ship by using SDF-I’s advanced tech­nol­ogy. In addi­tion to this great space opera, you are intro­duced to the exploits of ama­teur pilot Rick Hunter and his men­tor Roy Fokker as they and the rest of the SDF-I’s human crew bat­tle the Zen­tradi through space to pro­tect the restored bat­tle­ship, but also its inno­cent inhab­i­tants and Earth itself.

As an anime fan grow­ing up in the ‘80s, “Robot­ech” met my needs for any great space-based anime. It had heroic char­ac­ters and cun­ning vil­lains, and it was the first, in my opin­ion, to boldly fuse con­cept designs of vehi­cles and mecha. For instance, the SDF-I and Veritech fighter jets took on actual designs of a naval car­rier and its fighter jets and com­bined them with the designs of a fight­ing mecha, result­ing in futur­is­tic war machines of which my favorite hero Jug­gie would give his “cus­tom made” seal of approval. The Zentradi’s ship design, also impres­sive despite their cucumber-shaped look, dis­plays incred­i­ble speed and fire­power that is also reflected through their “bat­tle pods” design, which con­sists of a cross between a metal ostrich and a gat­tling gun.

While ADV and Har­mony Gold did do a out­stand­ing job in remas­ter­ing this series, they do deserve credit for retain­ing renowned voice actors. Tony Oliver and Dan Woren to reprise their orig­i­nal roles as Rick and Roy, respec­tively. I also give ADV and Har­mony Gold credit for not only keep­ing the sto­ry­line intact, but also keep­ing the orig­i­nal music and sound effects refreshed using Dolby Dig­i­tal. There’s also unseen bonus footage, ensur­ing that “Robot­ech” stands the test of time as an anime series. This means a lot to me because dur­ing my first time view­ing Robot­ech when it was released on VHS, the tape cut off mid-play, leav­ing me with unan­swered ques­tions about the SDF-I and how Earth played a crit­i­cal part in regard to Pro­to­cul­ture. How­ever, watch­ing Robot­ech Vol. 1 got me caught up, and I give ADV and Har­mony Gold my high­est praise for doing so. Although the “Shadow Chron­i­cles” saga has revived “Robot­ech” for a new gen­er­a­tion of otaku, the orig­i­nal will show its view­ers how the saga started and, with­out fail, show the bril­liance of a world-renowned ani­ma­tion studio.

If you would like more info on Robot­ech, visit the offi­cial web­site at www.robotech.com.

Bran­don Beatty is the con­tribut­ing edi­tor of Gam­ing Insur­rec­tion. He can be reached by email at brandonb@gaminginsurrection.com

Otaku #05: Death Note Vol. 3

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‘Death Note Vol­ume 3′ adds faces, intrigue to Light’s saga

Bran­don Beatty, con­tribut­ing editor

This quar­ter in the Otaku cor­ner, I’m con­tin­u­ing the review of the biggest bat­tle of good ver­sus evil ever seen in Japan­ese ani­ma­tion in Vol­ume 3 of “Death Note.”

A word of advice: Buckle your seat belts because new play­ers arrive on the scene to shake things up and  set the foun­da­tion for more intense bat­tles in the manga’s future.

A small recap: “Death Note” is the tale of Light Yagami, an ace high school stu­dent with great prospects who is com­pletely bored with his life. That changes when he finds the “death note,” a note­book with the power to kill any­one whose name is writ­ten in it. Light, using the name Kira, vows to use the death note to rid the world of crime, result­ing in crim­i­nals drop­ping dead. This leaves author­i­ties no choice but to send in world-renowned detec­tive L to solve the case.

photo cour­tesy of Amazon.com

In vol­ume 3, Light has dis­cov­ered that L has placed 64 sur­veil­lance cam­eras and micro­phones in his home. Once again, how­ever,  Light/Kira man­ages to evade cap­ture: He uses a bag of bar­be­cue potato chips with a minia­ture TV inside and acts as though he is prepar­ing for col­lege entry exams as Ryuk, orig­i­nal owner of the death note and com­pan­ion to Light, searches for the cam­eras and micro­phones. L, not com­pletely fooled by Light’s tac­tics, decides to up the ante by enrolling at the same uni­ver­sity that Light is attend­ing using the name of Hideki Ryuga.

The mind games are tem­porar­ily stopped when Light’s father is sent to the hos­pi­tal with the spec­u­la­tion that Kira caused his heart attack. At this point in the story, I con­sider both the mind games and Soichiro Yagami’s heart attack to be a filler break , lead­ing read­ers to an action-packed stand off that results in the arrival of a “new” Kira as the femme fatale who, unknow­ingly to  Light and L, will have a major impact in upcom­ing chapters.

Tsug­umi Ohba and Takeshi Obata con­tinue to keep the per­fect fusion of para­nor­mal action and mys­tery through pre­cise writ­ing and ener­getic art in “Death Note,” refrain­ing from the use of fan ser­vice ele­ments usu­ally found in anime and manga. While read­ing Death Note, you will be chal­lenged to think more about their per­sonal morals while at the same time evolv­ing their appre­ci­a­tion for inno­v­a­tive storylines.

We’ll get fur­ther along with more Death Note action in future edi­tions of Otaku, so keep an eye out for more com­men­tary and analy­sis on the tale of Light, L and Ryuk. By the way if you root­ing for “Team Light,” be like Kira and sup­port your local shinigami by buy­ing them apples. They’ll thank you for it.

Bran­don Beatty is con­tribut­ing edi­tor for Gam­ing Insur­rec­tion. He can be reached by e-mail at gicomics@gaminginsurrection.com

Otaku #04: The All-New Tenchi Muyo

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Tenchi Muyo’s habit of chas­ing love comes back in new manga

Bran­don Beatty, con­tribut­ing editor

I’m dust­ing off a leg­endary anime throw­back. Doing this brings back mem­o­ries of Car­toon Network’s hit show Toon­ami, which brought its view­ers the best action shows around. Of course, great anime helped com­ple­ment Toon­ami, along with its host Tom the Robot and the bad­dest ride around, the star­ship Abso­lu­tion. How­ever, one of its anime shows had a guy who was not only the stan­dard of what heroes should be, but he was also pop­u­lar with women from outer space. Yes, otaku, I’m talk­ing about Tenchi Masaki, and he and his friends are back in vol­ume one of The All New Tenchi Muyo pub­lished by Viz Media.

The All New Tenchi Muyo is part of the orig­i­nal Tenchi Muyo sto­ry­line from which the series itself spans and con­tains movies, TV series and spin-offs. It is con­sid­ered among the great­est anime series of all time. The entire main

Photo cour­tesy of Amazon.com

cast is back in this series, star­ring in sev­eral adven­tures in the first vol­ume, which is sub­ti­tled Alien Nation. Each of Tenchi’s lovely lady friends has their own story from Ryoko get­ting a job, Sasami bak­ing a deli­cious cake that holds a spe­cial mean­ing to her and Ayeka (Sasami’s sis­ter) to Tenchi and Ayeka going on a date. Also Mihoshi, the galac­tic police offi­cer, crashes her space­ship in Masaki Lake, the super genius Washu stops a bur­glary attempt by two space thieves, and in the final chap­ter, Ryo-oh-ki trans­forms into a sexy and adult form of her­self to go on a date with Tenchi as a reward for learn­ing to walk in her adult form.

As a Tenchi Muyo fan, I was very pleased that Hitoshi Okuda kept the for­mula intact that made this series loved glob­ally by anime fans from the begin­ning. Each page is guar­an­teed to bring back the great mem­o­ries fans have of see­ing Tenchi and company’s adven­tures on Toon­ami. All the char­ac­ters and set­tings stayed true to the orig­i­nal sto­ry­line with­out any miss­ing links. To be fair, I must also give Viz Media’s Fred Burke and Lil­lian Olsen credit for a flaw­less Eng­lish adap­ta­tion and trans­la­tion in this return of Tenchi and com­pany to fans out­side of Japan.

In short, The All New Tenchi Muyo: Alien Nation did not let me down as a Tenchi fan. Until Tenchi and crew return to U.S. air­waves for their sec­ond con­quest via Ryo-oh-ki Air­lines, this vol­ume will please all Tenchi fans who believe that this series is not a fad but a true icon among anime. Tenchi now, Tenchi tomor­row, Tenchi forever!

Bran­don Beatty con­tributes Otaku each quar­ter of Gam­ing Insur­rec­tion. He can be reached by e-mail at brandongi@gaminginsurrection.com.

Otaku #03: Death Note Vol. 2

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Death Note Vol­ume 2 fills out its pages with inter­est­ing twists

Bran­don Beatty, con­tribut­ing editor

Pre­vi­ously in Otaku, I reviewed the manga Death Note, which tells the story of high school ace Light Yagami who finds a death note, a note­book with the power to kill any­one whose name is writ­ten in it.

Light, learn­ing of the death note’s pow­ers, decides to use it to kill off crim­i­nals. How­ever, when crim­i­nals world­wide start dying simul­ta­ne­ously, the author­i­ties send in L, a leg­endary detec­tive to track down the killer. In vol­ume two, the bat­tle between Light aka “Kira” and L rages on when Light uses Kirchro Osoreda, one of his reserved crim­i­nals to lure out Raye Pem­ber, a mem­ber of the FBI team sent to Japan at L’s request to inves­ti­gate mem­bers of the NPA’s Kira Task Force who are sus­pected of leak­ing infor­ma­tion on Kira. When Osoreda dies and Pember’s iden­tity is known, Light quickly hatches a plan which results in not just Pem­ber but all of the FBI agents in Japan dying simul­ta­ne­ously. As a result, L is forced to not only reveal him­self, but also to rely on the remain­ing six mem­bers of the NPA task force, includ­ing Light’s father.

Death Note Vol. 2/Photo cour­tesy of Amazon.com

At this point in the story, I’m still in awe of how Light has evolved from a model high school stu­dent to an indi­vid­ual of pure evil, who believes that his actions are shap­ing a bet­ter world. He proves this when he kills Naomi Mis­ora, Rayes’ fiancé and a for­mer FBI agent who was close to reveal­ing Light as Kira. As vol­ume 2 con­tin­ues, L, now going by the name Ryuzaki, is not out of the bat­tle yet by pro­vid­ing the task force with fake police IDs in addi­tion to mak­ing his hotel room the secret HQ for the Kira investigation.

Sus­pi­cious that Kira can still access clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion from the NPA, Ryuzaki increases the psy­cho­log­i­cal war­fare by plac­ing a hid­den cam­era and lis­ten­ing devices in the final two homes Pem­ber was inves­ti­gat­ing where the Yagami fam­ily are sus­pects. Light, in the final pages of vol­ume two, dis­cov­ers that he is under sur­veil­lance and hatches a plan to counter Ryuzaki’s efforts using Ryuk to find the cam­eras. Read­ers pick­ing up the sec­ond vol­ume of Death Note will not be dis­ap­pointed, since Tsug­umi Obata has kept the plot fresh from the start of the series. His writ­ing has ensured that Death Note is more than a reg­u­lar who-done-it mystery.

The mas­ter tal­ents of artist Takeshi Obata will not dis­ap­point manga otaku. He reg­u­larly suc­cess­fully mixes super­nat­ural and phys­i­cal ele­ments with few hitches. The stage is set. Two cho­sen peo­ple are fight­ing in a bat­tle des­tined to be one of ages. Who will win? Stay tuned as we con­tinue to review a super­nat­ural mys­tery manga that’s tak­ing the world by storm.

Con­tribut­ing Edi­tor Bran­don Beatty can be reached via e-mail at gicomics@gaminginsurrection.com.

Otaku #02: Eagle

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‘Eagle’ takes prophetic look at United States polit­i­cal process

Bran­don Beatty, con­tribut­ing editor

Eagle is a series with clair­voy­ance. No one could have known that it would pre­dict Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s elec­tion eight years after it was pub­lished. In 2000, author Keji Kawaguchi, best known for his best-selling graphic novel “The Silent Ser­vice,” which goes into detail about the post-Cold War era, wrote a story about the 2000 U.S. pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. It evolved into what we know today as Eagle:The Mak­ing of an Asian-American President.

“Eagle” was orig­i­nally intro­duced in “Big Comic,” one of Japan’s biggest manga mag­a­zines and simul­ta­ne­ously pub­lished by Viz Media. It focuses on Japan­ese jour­nal­ist Takeshi Jo, who after deal­ing with the tragic loss of his mother, is assigned by his news­pa­per to go to Wash­ing­ton, D.C., to cover New York Sen. Ken­neth Yamaoka, the first Asian Amer­i­can to run for the U.S. pres­i­dency. In the first chap­ter read­ers are intro­duced to Takeshi and his back story involv­ing him and his mother and his search to find the U.S. Marine that is his father. The sec­ond, third and fourth chap­ters reveal more about Sen. Yamaoka.

Cover of the manga Eagle

Photo cour­tesy of Amazon.com

Yamaoka reveals to Takeshi that he is, in fact, Takashi’s father, which forces Takashi to be more involved in the story than he bar­gained for.

While read­ing Eagle, I gained a new and pow­er­ful per­spec­tive on how U.S. pol­i­tics are con­ducted beyond reg­u­lar print and TV head­lines. At the same time, Kawaguchi has cap­tured both pos­si­ble sce­nar­ios of the 2000 and 2008 U.S. pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns that manga fans and non-manga read­ers will enjoy.

Will Ken­neth Yamaoka become pres­i­dent? Can Takashi Jo man­age both an irre­sistible career oppor­tu­nity and a shaky fam­ily con­nec­tion to the man who could be the first Asian Amer­i­can to lead the free world?

These ques­tions are inevitably answered in future editions.

Bran­don Beatty is con­tribut­ing edi­tor of Gam­ing Insur­rec­tion. Con­tact him by e-mail at gicomics@gaminginsurrection.com.

Otaku #01: Death Note

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Death Note Vol. 1 a stroke above

Bran­don Beatty, con­tribut­ing editor

I’m going to throw in a lit­tle manga for all of you otaku out there. Don’t worry Mar­vel and DC comic fans, GI will always have you cov­ered since we know both com­pa­nies have made a major impact on not only the comic world, but also on world­wide pop cul­ture. For now, though, it’s manga’s time to shine, so I’m kick­ing it off by ask­ing you to name five of the worst peo­ple you can think of. Next, imag­ine if you had a note­book that could kill them just by think­ing of the images of the peo­ple you chose plus writ­ing their names in that note­book. If you guessed that I’m review­ing the first vol­ume of Death Note, you’re in the right place.

Death Note is a 12-volume series cre­ated by writer Tsug­umi Ohba and artist Takeshi Obata, who is best known for his work on the Shonen Jump series “Hikaru no Go.” The Eng­lish adap­ta­tion of the Hikaru no Go and Death Note series are pub­lished and licensed by Viz Media. In the first vol­ume of Death Note, read­ers are intro­duced to Light Yagami, an ace high school stu­dent with great poten­tial who finds the Death Note, a note­book of death dropped on earth by a shinigami or Japan­ese god of death. Any human whose name is writ­ten in the note­book dies and Light decides to use the Death Note as a weapon to elim­i­nate evil. But when crim­i­nals around the world started dying back to back, the Inter­na­tional Police Orga­ni­za­tion sends in a leg­endary detec­tive known as “L” to hunt down Light who is using a new per­sona, “Kira.” Be warned that the first vol­ume of Death Note sets the stage for 12 vol­umes of both super­nat­ural and psy­cho­log­i­cal cat and mouse games.

The first two chap­ters intro­duce Light, L, and the dis­cov­er­ies of both the Death Note and the shinigami Ryuk, who is attached to light. Also, read­ers are shown the meth­ods that Light is using to kill crim­i­nals. The third, fourth, fifth, sixth and sev­enth chap­ters look at the meth­ods both Light and L use to out­wit each other rang­ing from Light’s method of killing crim­i­nals while leav­ing cryp­tic clues, and L’s use of agents from both Japan’s National Police Agency and the FBI to inves­ti­gate Kira. Ryuk’s deal with Light to use his shinigami eyes to expose fake names is also explored.

While read­ing, I learned that both Light and L have a strong sense of jus­tice, but their level of intel­li­gence dur­ing their bat­tle will make read­ers think of Sher­lock Holmes and Dr. Mori­arty, only this time they are both claim­ing to be defend­ers of jus­tice. Read­ers will find that Death Note’s plot is a first in manga to com­bin­ing three of the most pop­u­lar sto­ry­telling ele­ments that will please both manga and non-manga fans. In addi­tion it com­bines sci-fi, hor­ror and mys­tery gen­res that will have its read­ers hooked from vol­ume one to the end. If you are look­ing for a mix of sci-fi, hor­ror and mys­tery with nail-biting bat­tles of wits, then Death Note is for you. Will Light Yagami see his dream of an evil-free world come true, or will L deliver on his promise to bring Kira to jus­tice? Stay tuned for fur­ther reviews on Death Note as this new clas­sic in manga begins its rise to the top.

Bran­don Beatty is con­tribut­ing edi­tor of Gam­ing Insur­rec­tion. Con­tact him via e-mail at brandongi@gaminginsurrection.com.