Tsutomu Takahashi - Jiraishin

How about some tasty reading? It has truly been a while. Dunno why really. Must be the times (forgot most of my sources for manga).

Jiraishin right off the bat might seem a little too "tough guy" to be taken seriously. The main character can be a little stiff and sometimes the plot might be too absurd but once you get used to this world it's actually a really fun read. The manga went on from 1992 to 1999 making most of the volumes (and chapters) episodic with an overarching plot lurking somewhere behind. The stories themselves vary a lot and some are outright absurd while some are excellent thriller dramas and murder intrigues. When the story works it really works great. Luckily for the most part it works. The characters themselves are very distant from what you would find in a mainstream manga. They're very sombre and nihilistic at times and they act out much like slimebags act in real life. The main character after who the manga is called is a ruthless murdering detective who only cares about reaching his goal. I think he's a bit comparable with the Punisher.

The setting is another very bright point in this saga as well. Artstyle is very noir like and it's absolutely gorgeous to look at with a lot of double page scenery. Characters themselves as the volumes progress from looking mediocre to better and better but at the start they might seem a little too stiff. At least that's the impression which I got. Another interesting fact to point out is that apparently Nihei (of Blame! fame) worked as an intern or something like that for Takahashi and honestly you can really see how this influenced his later works. He helped only with art though (most visibly with the buildings I think).

Overall this is a very good detective saga. It never really got stale for me despite the plot being weak here and there. So I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for something more serious and longer to read.

vol. 1 to vol. 5
vol. 6 to vol. 10
vol. 11 to vol. 14
vol. 15 to vol 19

I did some separation so that each link contains only volumes indicated, you can just download the first link if you feel like only checking this out to see how it looks. You don't need to combine all the links is what I'm trying to say.

Ubiytsy

Director(s): Andrei Tarkovsky, Marika Beiku and Alexander Gordon
Made in: 1956
Language/subtitles: Russian/English hardcoded
Runtime: 17min and 28sec
Format: .avi

Please take note that the sound on the rip I have of this movie is a little bit messed up in a way that it tends to cut off the last words in a sentence. This could be because of the noise filters or something (or my drivers are messed up?). Since the movie itself is only 17 minutes long it does not get annoying (for me at least).

This was the first semi-official film in which Tarkovsky participated in. It was a student film that he and two of his friends directed back in film school. For the time when this was released it was pretty weird since the cold war was full on so students making something American wasn't exactly common. The only reason they managed to pull this off is because some of Hemingway's works were published in the Soviet Union for the first time.

The movie itself is a remake of sort of the story/movie The Killers albeit only first two scenes which are the bar and the apartment. The movie itself is more of an artifact for fans than a good movie. The acting is okay I guess, Tarkovsky plays a costumer here where he whistles a song (lullaby of birdland, a tune that was then known as a song of freedom, subtle anti-communist remarks by Andrei?) and orders some sandwiches. The hired killers weren't very convincing nor menacing (that's what you get for being a film student) but overall it's an enjoyable ride if you're interested in it.

I'd say if you're in filmschool or a fan of Tarkovsky you should give this a watch. Otherwise I'm not sure you'd enjoy it in the fullest but on the other hand you can then brag that you watched soviet student films to your friends and score some mad pussy. Or something.

Download.

Shohei Manabe - Dead End

Hello everybody. Let's cut the crap and do some posts.

It has been a while since I shared some reading material so here's a manga that I've read a while ago.

Dead End is about a guy who finds a woman that falls from the sky. As absurd as that sounds he takes the girl to his home and decides to take care of her, it's not like anything particular is happening in his life anyway. Their relationship evolves a bit - he shows her around a bit and introduces her to his friends who are mostly low life thugs. Everything starts like a usual semi-serious seinen romance manga but things get a little weird when one day our hero arrives at his flat and finds all sorts of things. Things that used to function as limbs to his friends.

As the story goes more and more things we discover and through those events we learn more of our characters. It's kind of hard to explain what's going on in this manga because whatever that I want to mention it ends up being a spoiler for something. So to prevent this I guess you'll just have to read the thing if you want some more plot exposition.

All I can say is that the story is good. It has it's weak moments and cliches but it ends up being a rather enjoyable read. The ending to me was unexpected but once you realize what's it all about it makes perfect, if not obvious, sense.

The art style of this manga is simply great. I always like it when Japanese authors decide to break free from the usual conventions of manga styled drawings. The environment is drawn pretty good although there isn't much variation in locations but there are always a lot of details to look at (especially in the buildings). Some much needed breaks from the usual routine every now and then happen so it does not get tedious. In general the art is simplistic, especially when it comes to facial features. Somehow the characters don't look very Japanese because of it. Speaking of characters most of the are characterized fairly good. Some are predictable but still likeable while other more focused characters have a lot of things going for them. Throw in a little philosophy in it and you have a very nice read.

Enjoy.


I posted this once already. Check the first post for the links.

Hideo Yamamoto - Koroshiya Ichi aka Ichi the Killer

If you're into Japanese or extreme cinema in general you probably heard of or watched Ichi the Killer. A wonderful adaptation of this manga directed by Takashi Miike and starring Tadanobu Asano.

The movie itself was a fairly truthful adaptation when it comes to characterizations and main goals but naturally the plot of the movie finished rather soonish. Despite that it still felt like a complete journey. The manga is like the movie but with more of everything. The characters are much more fleshed out, each has a backstory and there are themes here which weren't explored in the movie. For example necrophilia wasn't even alluded in the movie (if I remember right, I haven't seen the movie in quite a while) and it has a prominent sub plot in the manga.

The overall plot is still pretty much the same on the other hand. Aside from how the end plays out of course.

Ichi The Killer is about a lot of themes but it's main storyline is about a guy called Ichi that goes around killing yakuza. He apparently thinks they bullied him in his childhood so he decides to chop them down with razor blades on his boots. Naturally he's guided by someone else called Jiji, an old man with somewhat questionable but still good goals. Jiji has his own henchmen who go after Ichi and clean up the mess and they plan to clean out a particular yakuza gang. Whats interesting about the plot is that there are essentially two main protagonists, the good guy and the villain. Both get equal time in the spotlight up to the point that you forget that there's the other guy as well. Some might consider this bad but I think it's balanced just right and it works well.

When it comes to gore and violence there's, of course, plenty of it and even more of it than in the film. This is obviously so because the movie has much more restrictions while the manga has only the limitation of the authors imagination. And his imagination goes to a lot places. In that department I think this is enough to satisfy most gore hounds.

Artistically speaking, eh, I wasn't really that impressed. A lot of drawings seem soulless and they sometimes lack the polish they deserve but this is probably because there are a 10 volumes and shit had to be done to publish it in an orderly fashion. The whole design and style actually reminds me a lot of Gantz (minus the gigantic boobies that are often featured in Gantz) so if you like how Gantz looks you'll have no problem here either. I just kinda like it when an artists tries different things and this just doesn't happen here. Nevertheless it's highly enjoyable and I firmly believe you'll breeze through these 10 volumes.

Part 1, 2 and 3.