I’ve never read or watched anything from Tiger & Bunny. That might have been why I didn’t really get into this story. That and it seems as if it’s geared more towards female readers/fans because of all the attractive men and the subtle love between the characters. Sure it’s brotherly love, but everyone that reads manga know what’s up. The story is about the Next (basically mutants) causing mayhem all over the city and Tiger and Bunny trying to stop it. They get some inside help and eventually learn that the man they’re after can read minds. There’s a lot of action, the bad guy gets away which is all part of his plan and really the police seem incompetent. We also get some backstory on our villain which was okay and definitely the deepest character moment of the volume.
The story isn’t deep. It’s thick with drama and moves at a snail’s pace. I haven’t read the last seven volumes and yet I didn’t feel lost or behind on the story. Sure I had some generic “who’s that”, “what’s going on?” questions, but nothing that really need to be answered in order to read and enjoy the story. It’s just not a very deep world which is probably why I’ve passed on it before. It attempts to be cute and playful because again it’s an action drama trying to capture a very specific audience that basically already likes this style of story and world creation. I would argue that because it chases that audience it alienates new readers looking to just explore the world and not have a formula forced upon them. And sure there’s powers and fighting, but you can get that anywhere so it doesn’t actually hook me on the product.
The art is good of course. I don’t think it has as much personality or visual storytelling skill as a lot of other mangas out there. By far things like Food Wars, One-Punch Man and Ultraman blow it out of the water, but it’s still skilled. It just needs to have its own personality and it doesn’t. It feels like a licensed product with very tight restraints on what it can and can’t look like visually and that’s a shame. Because if the story is just meh, then the art can at least blow you away but it doesn’t here.
I doubt I’ll ever read or watch anything else set in the Tiger & Bunny world. It’s not terrible, but it’s not interesting either. It’s just there. Some people obviously really enjoy this franchise, but I doubt they’d ever be able to win me over with their reasoning. It’s just not something that I want to read.
Score: 3/5
Tiger & Bunny Vol. 8 Story: Sunrise Script: Masafumi Nishida Artist: Mizuku Sakakibara Publisher: Viz Media Price: $9.99 Format: TPB; Print/Digital
The characters aren’t there yet. They have potential, but right now they’re too one-dimensional. The daughter, Olivia, is a wild card for sure. She’s so wild that she’d likely be suspended by any police force and yet they just kind of ignore her and let her go wild. We are given some explanation as to why she’s like this, but the story really needs to tone her down some otherwise our main character risks becoming annoying.
This story is fantasy, but then also very meta. I think that’s why I like it. The creator and the character share the same name. The comic Ceri has a comic book about Corrsolla and everything that her Corrsolla does is in her comic book. There’s just this great bit of back and forth and it becomes a joke at times because of it. There’s a lot of humor in the comic as well. Not all of the jokes land. There’s just not enough of a report with the characters yet and unfortunately comic Ceri and her new pizza delivery boy kind of talk the same. The writing just relies on Ceri to be the butt of the joke too much or deliver the punchline which often breaks her from what she’s doing too often.
This is not a Blaxploitation story, at least as far as Issue #1 goes. In fact, the second time through (and maybe it’s the Steve Dillon-esque feel of some of the characters) this felt a lot more like a Punisher book to me. Shaft’s Vietnam cred is on display as he tears ass (not a pun) through multiple baddies like a finely tuned machine. The character models don’t quite fully express the stoic nature of a man like Shaft or the desperation and fear of a kidnapped sex slave but still manage to adequately move the story along.
In this is a dark and gritty Canada the coloring really stands out; asserting itself in what I will use my super non-art educated brain to classify as ‘layered opaque’. Ooh la-la (said in French Canadian)! Lisandro beautifully marks each character who’s tied to the underworld with aged faces, lined with the stress that such a life would bring. Not to say that every innocent character getting wrapped up in this macabre world is cherub faced buuuut…
That all sounds horribly negative, but with a book as strong as Manhattan Projects used to be, there are a number of elements that still work. Nick Pitarra's cartoony but hyper-detailed art continues to be a joy. And Michael Garland (who replaced Jordie Bellaire recently) makes excellent color choices (which keep Pitarra's art from collapsing under its own frenetic convolution). Similarly, the relationship between Yuri and Laika, for all that it remains unexplored, is surprisingly sweet, as this whole messy space escapade is predicated on one man's search for his dog. As such there is a bit of charm that keeps the whole issue from sinking entirely.
In the true begging of the story she and her cat person partner Push are on their way to a job. Ora has asked none of the important questions about the job which makes Push nervous. Ora breaks all of the smuggling rules that keep them safe and she knows it. Once at their meeting spot some natives give Ora a hard time about being a human or a “Hume” as they call her. She beats their ass in a very “Han shot first” type of moment and they bounce. Their contact ended up waiting for them outside anyway. The job is fishy. Ora pumps the guy for info to appease Push, but it turns out poorly when their third crew member Ziggy (who is some kind of space squirrel) interferes with the cargo.
ABC Warriors grabbed my attention again this week, with it's awkwardly levitous robot humor mixed with outright murder, terrorism, and revolution. It's like that every week, but there's one scene in particular that occurs in a robot bar (a... robar?) that I just sat and stared at for awhile. Part of the appeal is the fact that this page felt more analog than some of Langley's heavily rendered pages at the beginning and in other parts of his story. Unlike many other pages in this story, if you told me Langley made this one entirely by hand, I would believe it. The whole aesthetic of this page was just right up my alley, even if a lot of the ABC Warriors story feels like it's been spinning in circles from issues one.
The group of powered characters we meet; we’re given no back story on. Other than their parents left and are probably dead. It was a change in pace from the format the first two issues had and I don’t think it was the best choice. I think it was a good issue to do it on because you don’t want to be too boring with your formula, but not the best characters to use it on. I really needed more time with them to care about them as they came face to face with not just one, but two evil organizations. That’s right, there’s a religious element to the story now and again, it hit those X-Men buttons in all the right places. That might be why I really enjoy this series, I don’t read X-Men anymore because of how terrible and jacked up it is, but with The Troop, it’s like a fresh start.
It's nice that Luna seems nonplussed by much of the nonsense surrounding her. Off-the-wall comedy can sometimes falter because the figures at the wacky center of it all fail to register the sheer weirdness of their circumstances. As a result, in those situations at least, the reader has no recognizable point of view without someone acknowledging at least some part of the craziness. Here, Sheikh smartly has Luna shrug in confusion and furrow her brows in frustration through most of the proceedings. But Luna is thankfully not a passive passenger in her life. She stands her ground when needed and pursues her goals with vigor. She's miserable at work, so she tries to improve her situation. Of course it all goes to pot in the end. But she tries. And that's kind of how adulthood works. Luna doesn't wallow in self-doubt and sadness. She moves on. The book then takes time to jab the Stephenie Meyer crowd just a little bit as Luna visits a convention. In fact, obsessive fandom gets some ribbing in general. Luna, for example, is so fixated on grabbing some kind of collectible that she all but ignores the guy unsubtly pining for her.
I’ve said enough about the writing so I’ll just move on to complimenting the art. It’s gorgeous. It’s gorgeous from the beginning and Paulina Ganucheau is amazing. She illustrates, colors and letters everything and it feels like it. It feels like one cohesive style and it’s better for it. Her art is so fucking good that she needs two flatteners to keep up with her and that’s not sarcasm. That’s just mad fucking skill that Ganucheau has. I would pick up any book that she’s illustrating and I imagine she was heavily scouted by other publishers and we’ll be seeing a lot more of her. Hopefully it’s a book worthy of her talent and not like a Howard the Duck special issue in which he learns about anime or something equally stupid. Though is saying that I would totally write that issue if she was the artist… it would be terrible, but awesome. It would be your favorite worst issue.
This issue is the fourth part out of five of the “Godland” chapter of this comic, which all takes part after the crew is separated in a massive Pillar explosion a few issues back. Really this mini-arc gives Remender the opportunity to flesh out Grant and his issues (his many, many issues). We have seen him as a remorseful, resentful, and all around sad man, but this is finally his chance to redeem himself. Although he has pretty much failed many of those around him (especially the ones that he let die), but no matter! Grant will save the day! Well, Remender never lets things get that cut and dry, there’s always going to be some tragic twist to the story that will leave us questioning our humanity. That’s why we read his books right! To read something that’s fun but makes us think and/or feel sad, he’s pretty good at it. 
That’s the most consistent thing about the series when Mendoza is at the wheel, it’s not a happy story. That’s actually why I like it. It’s what keeps it from being just cheesecake, there’s a real depth to Janey and her life actually sucks. Even when she wins, it’s really not that big of a win. At the end of the day, she’s alone, dead and hunted. Mendoza has really peeled back the layers of this character with the one-shots and I wish that the main series took more moments like this and slowed down and built the character up instead of constantly keeping her on the move and repeating themes. This issue is focused and fitting of the holiday because of how tragic it is.
This issue also sees some much desired information finally dropped about what has been going on (delivered in the time-tested Bond format of a 'Since you are about to die..." speech). Once again, no single revelation is thrillingly original or particularly shocking, but it's nice to feel like the story is really getting under way. Also, Ellis' ability to mine horror from the description of scientific processes remains as unsettling here as it is anywhere else.
After that the Lady steps out for the night and slums it. She’s very rich and well known so going somewhere to blend in and dance is special to her. Here she runs into the Captain again and things don’t go well. She leaves early and runs into the police who hit her up for a bribe for being out past curfew. The Captain tries to intervene on her behalf which makes her reveal herself when she uses her rune to control the porcelain cats. She decks the Captain.
Something dumb is probably going to happen in Bleach pretty soon, and a more charming kind of dumb manifests itself in Food Wars as Soma is pretty much one step away from a real high stakes Shokugeki with another member of the council.
There doesn’t seem to be a large sweeping narrative that creator Christine Larsen is going for. As I said, it’s more of a setup of a world and an introduction of reoccurring characters. In a way it reminds me of the animation formula of shows like Regular Show or a vast majority of Fredorator animations. It feels like an afternoon cartoon in that you’ll get a conclusion of the story by issues end and what you learn about the characters is carried on to the next story, but never mentioned again. It's a fresh start and story every time.
This is a book about a fight, plain and simple. The backstory is brief and the action is everything. The consummate underdog, all of Christian's endeavors are drenched in desperation. The larger than life kaiju battle and the come from behind, dig deep performance of Christian gives Darkness Within a very anime feel. Lots of collateral damage to hapless military personnel, villain with a god-complex that increases in size and power drowning the city in his fleshy tendrils, the usual. The dialogue takes itself very seriously and there is not an ounce of humor to be found. The grim tone seems appropriate considering London is being devastated by a horrific flesh-beast, but is betrayed by the sheer magnitude of the action, which reaches an almost comedic level. A little self-awareness would have gone a long way.