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The Layer Method
Our top Secret time-saving technique for creating and merging balloons and tails in Illustrator.
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Tuesday, February 9, 2010
P is for...
You’d think that dying in the first ten pages of Yasunori Mitsunaga’s Princess Resurrection (Del Rey) would be the worst thing that could happen to nerdy young Hiro Hiyorimi. You would be wrong. And honestly, what mangaka worth their salt can’t come up with a few fates worse than death for their protagonists?
Hiro’s life has been unnaturally and rather callously extended by Hime, an ass-kicking princess from another realm caught up in lethal royal intrigue and plagued by a who’s-who of classic-horror adversaries. Hiro’s resurrection isn’t a one-time deal; he needs regular doses of Hime’s blood to stay alive. As werewolves, vampires and invisible men pay regular and unwelcome visits to Hime’s earthly residence, Hiro is forced to join the fray.
This kind of comedy – shivering nerd in service to ruthless cute girl – is hardly novel, and it isn’t automatically entertaining. Mitsunaga sidesteps the potential pitfalls in a by-the-books character dynamic by lavishing the chapters with gory action sequences and unexpected bits of comedy. While Hime’s arsenal is well stocked with swords, crossbows and the like, she’s also got an improvisational way with found objects, including a shamelessly product-placed, menacingly mammoth sport-utility vehicle.
I also found poor Hiro’s ongoing misfortunes more amusing than I probably should have. Hime isn’t the most cautious or nurturing of employers, and Hiro isn’t the most effective of monster battlers. He’s also more than a bit of a whiner, so the varied and grisly misfortunes that befall him are actually kind of welcome. Call me a sadist, but the knowledge that a few drops of Hime’s blood can counteract the loss of buckets of Hiro’s allows me to sit back and enjoy his repeated mutilation.
On the down side, I’m not exactly smitten with the supporting cast. Other members of Hime’s staff include Flandre, a soft-hearted child-robot who can swing a felled tree when circumstances demand it. (She’s around just in case the dissonance of a girl in a tiara with a chainsaw wasn’t sufficient.) Then, there’s Hiro’s sister, who works as a maid for Hime. You can tell when the sister is preoccupied, as her giant breasts don’t jiggle as vigorously. They’re mood boobs.
But the sprightly, blood-soaked action more than compensates for other shortcomings. Mitsunaga brings real energy and imagination to the carnage, modulating between out-and-out mayhem and genuinely funny black comedy. Settings are lushly illustrated, and character design is solid. It’s particularly strong in regard to the varied horde of monsters on display.
That makes sense. The mayhem and the monsters are the main attraction here, and Mitsunaga certainly delivers both.
The first volume of Princess Resurrection ships May 1, 2007.
*
If Princess Resurrection is an okay story elevated by vibrant art, Hitoshi Iwaaki’s Parasyte is the reverse. While Iwaaki’s illustrations are just serviceable, the story he’s telling is so absorbing that it hardly matters.
Popular and acclaimed in Japan during its early 1990s run, it was originally published in English by Tokyopop precursor Mixx without much success. With a vastly different marketplace and the unflipped format Tokyopop pioneered at its disposal, Del Rey is taking another crack at Parasyte. I hope it finds a wider audience this time around, because it’s creepy and thought-provoking.
One night, a swarm of pods that look kind of like buckeye husks drift down to earth’s surface and crack open, releasing wormlike creatures who look for the nearest available human brain to consume and replace. These unfortunate people are transformed into hosts with shape-shifting heads and an insatiable appetite for human flesh.
At least one of the parasitic creatures doesn’t quite reach its target. Deterred by teen-aged Shinichi’s headphones, the worm ends up replacing the quick-thinking boy’s right arm instead. After some uneasy early coexistence, Shinichi and what used to be his arm reach an understanding of sorts. The parasite knows it can’t survive without Shinichi and successfully argues that the boy would be better off with limited control of a shape-shifting arm than an empty sleeve. The parasite even consents to being called “Migi,” though it argues that it isn’t human or pet.
It isn’t long before Shinichi and Migi begin to encounter hosts whose parasites actually reached their targets. They quickly realize that the widely reported “Mincemeat Murders,” gruesome deaths where only saliva-covered bits of human remains are found, are the work of Migi’s kind. This knowledge places them in a unique and uncomfortable position, and they’re uncertain as to what precisely to do with it.
Iwaaki successfully argues that the parasites are acting without malice. Their actions are horrifying, but they’re simply feeding according to their natures like any creature would. It’s a much more interesting approach than bland villainy would have been, and it becomes more intriguing as the hosts display a troubling learning curve. Not all of them are content to feed and hide; some want to understand and expand the boundaries of their mysterious existence, which poses even more troubling questions for Shinichi and Migi.
As I noted before, Iwaaki’s illustrations aren’t that great. The more out-there transformations have a gory wit to them, but there’s a clunky quality to the pages overall. They don’t really move in the way great manga can. I found some of the character design a bit distracting as well. (Shinichi’s bright, cute schoolmate Murano often looks more like a 40-year-old woman that Shinichi’s troubled mother.) But I’ve been reading comics for a long time, and I’ve seen much, much worse art in service of significantly weaker stories.
The story is ultimately what matters here. Beyond being a suspenseful thriller, it asks increasingly complex questions, challenging characters and readers.
The first volume of Parasyte ships May 1, 2007.
(These reviews are based on complimentary copies provided by the publisher.)
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