Matteo
Wow! I didn't expected it would go so deep starting from the first volume. A fantastic introduction to this yokai-inspired, distorted-romance, horror manga. I won't tell you much in order to avoid any revelation, but if you like body-horror, myth and religious elements of Japan used in a disturbing way (similar to Chilla's Art games), and a summer lecture which goes terribly wrong, this is absolutely for you!
Blacksad has always been a comic for which I had a strong curiosity since the first time I discovered it. We are talking about this kind of production in which the entire American history is rewritten using the animal anthropomorphic trope, and focused on some fantastic cold cases solved by John Blacksad himself, a black cat detective. I love noir genre, and Blacksad embodies his purest meaning, with all the classical characterizations and events typical of this kind of stories. We find broken loves, melancholic sunsets, obscure pubs and mysterious organizations. Obviously what hits mostly is how all these themes are treated using animals instead people, with great results in particular in style, always saturated and full of colours and perfect in character design and peculiar locations. Despite this expected premise, I noticed the production has a not so iconic cast of characters. Despite John and the journalist Weekly, you could find difficult to empathize with victims or secondary creatures. Maybe because lots of them are over-used in crime novels, maybe because the protagonists steals the scene, but I hoped for a better attention onto this aspect, which impacts the worldbuilding turing it into something intriguing but not memorable. Blacksad is a love letter to noir stories, and with all his limitations, represents a piece of finest Spanish comic production.
STYLE: 5
STORY: 4,5
WORLDBUILDING: 4
RHYTHM: 4,5
MAIN CHARACTERS: 4
ANTAGONISTS: 5
ARTISTIC FEATURE: 5
ATMOSPHERE 5
EMOTIONAL IMPACT: 4
FINAL VERDICT: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
I think that the real protagonist of Batman stories is Gotham itself. The corrupted, twisted city represents the perfect cursed place where everyone is forced into madness, but not only the chaotic one, but also the diverse spectrum of psychoses and the way people interact with it. Because the justifier, the inspector or the villain are three different mad dreamers in a destroyed world, a hell on earth where fear will always reign unchallenged. And yet, for a twist of fate, the actions of the “goods” of this story always makes Gotham return to their new happy dawn.
Batman Year One is an origin story which takes everything I have quoted and uses the personalities of Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon as the new arrivals in the city forgotten by God himself. Since this premise you can immediately see how these figures, so dutiful and obscure at the same time, are only the completion of a world made of different souls and characters, of enemies and criminal bosses, of masks and hard-boiled clubs, arriving at the menace of the Asylum, peering from upon its further reality. Frank Miller is exceptional in representing a terrific Gotham, unpredictable but colorful, powerful and alive while its fundamentals are dying. A great help arrives from the style of David Mazzucchelli, in which the lights and shadows are marked by a heavy china, in which pop tunes borrowed by the best Japanese productions mixes itself with expressive characters, iconic for costumes and appearances. The way all the main actors of Gotham are here represented has made school not only in the comics medium, but also in the cinematographic one, where “The Batman”, “The Dark Knight Trilogy” and even the Tim Burton's iterations on the crusader takes inspirations, for style and writing, from Year One. This labyrinthic, deep immersion inside the quoted city, however, weakens the emersion of the two faces of the quoted franchise. Because Batman and Gordon soon lose their interesting points for the human essence they shows, for being so run in and for the choices they make which never evades from their known archetypes. Furthermore, the absence of iconic Batman villains, substituted by escaped patients, violent military men and corrupted members of the police never evokes the extraordinary cases in which Batman has investigated in the past. In this sense, Batman Year One is a foundational comic about the superhero and its modern presence in Pop Culture, in an epic origin story which sees Gotham as the absolute selling point.
STYLE: 5
STORY: 3,5
WORLDBUILDING: 5
RHYTHM: 3
PROTAGONISTS: 5
ANTAGONISTS: 3
ARTISTIC FEATURE: 5
ATMOSPHERE 5
EMOTIONAL IMPACT: 4,5
FINAL VERDICT: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Gachiakuta has an incipit I have never seen before. Kei Urana, one of the best Ōkubo's students, portrays a world inspired by Elysium or other sci-fi stories, with an environmentalist twist. Ruta is the classical shonen protagonist disgraced by all the other inhabitants of the upper-world. He lives inside this sort of Slums, where all poor and criminals find a place to live. One day, Ruta is attacked for the death of his curator, a good man called Regto, and he is sent to The Pit. Here, he discovers the powers of his gloves, a gift from the person he loved, and uses it to find a way to return to the “Heavenly Paradise”.
Gachiakuta has a splendid style, vulgar in some points, brutal in others but most importantly it shows us the terrible downsides of discrimination and consumption of objects. Despite being not so original, because of all the classical tropes of the genre, the world built by the author saves the ship, it's so amazing you really want more.
The world and lore of League of Legends is a brilliant cauldron of stories which could revalue entirely the infamous reputation of the MOBA videogame. We have seen something like this in Arcane, where the incredible story of Vi and Jinx has the ability to forge a vibrant world in which Silco and Vander, Jayce and Caitlyn, Ekko and Heimerdinger, Viktor and his limits are couples full of contrast, heroic and archetypical alliances or fights. The setting of Piltover and Zaun evolves since the incredible influence of the “Legends” who act inside them.
Ruination arrives in a moment for the Riot franchise in which everything appeard at his peak. The season of the Ruined King brought us the first RPG spin-off, which narrative quality is really surprising, the quoted Netflix original series and some of the best Champions the game ever had. The novel created by Anthony Reynolds could be seen as the last of a series of great ideas with the twist that after that success nothing happened, waiting for another incredible period.
This fantasy book created by the Riot Team with one of their best storyteller is an interesting tale of loss and transformation, in which revenge starts from the world of the lost souls than on the living one, where the mutilation and bestiality are ways for struggling against the egoistic narcissism of an oppressive ruler. The entire plot is seen from the perspective of three different protagonists. Kalista, a brave warrior searching constantly for peace for his reign, Camavor; Grael, a mischievous and evil Keeper of the Blessed Isles which searches for a way of destroying his native lands; Ryze, an apprentice of one of the best masters of the Blessed Isles which is hardly hoping for anctient scrolls useful to increase his power. These three different heroes are fundamentally great and immortal warriors, which changes are more like radical modification of morals, etichs and powers. As in the Arcane series, here we have strong champions changes the ambience around them, fighting against violent traitors (which I would not quote for avoid every spoiler).
Obviously the incredible evolution of this setting requires a strong worldbuilding, but here I have to say that the development of the entire Runeterra is the only negative thing of the entire operation. The location visited are too simple, and the medieval quotes, the honorful messages behind the existence of Viego or Hecarim feels like something seen in the past. Something not so problematic, because of a functional style with a beauty artistic feature of the novel towards the first of a series of periods of success of one of the most interesting universes the entertainment could give us.
STYLE: 3
STORY: 4
WORLDBUILDING: 2,5
RHYTHM: 3,5
PROTAGONISTS: 5
ANTAGONISTS: 5
ARTISTIC FEATURE: 3,5
ATMOSPHERE 3,5
EMOTIONAL IMPACT: 3,5
FINAL VERDICT: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Look Back is an intimate One-shot created by Fujimoto. The author of Chainsaw Man and of Goodbye, Eri reduces, but not eliminates, the supernatural elements in favor of a story about the sacrifices made by Mangaka to follow their dreams, asking himself if it's worth it following this road. Look Back intertwines perfectly the stripes, styles and concepts of friendship of the two protagonists with a world which doesn't understand their passion, considering the artists as otaku you should exploit to have fun or immerse in great stories, and never following it as a true art to avoid distancing yourself from the social mass. Serialisations and personal achievements affect the frustrations of the multiple people who don't obtain success in a cruel world, with a destiny broken by individuals lost on the streets. In this sense when “Look Back” returns to the weird peaks to which Fujimoto has accustomed us, proposing “what ifs” and temporal connections made with different realities based on comics, we observe genius ideas mounted on the edgy artistic style of the author. Instead, when the slice of life and construction of the world of mangakas takes over, it forces the reader to notice the exaggerations and the plot holes which the other projects turned into strengths. Look Back is a production which doesn't abandon the road of the eternity of the art and the remembrance, but yet it works less because of an excessive realism linked with telling a more personal set of events.
STYLE: 4
STORY: 4
WORLDBUILDING: 5
RHYTHM: 5
PROTAGONISTS: 4
ANTAGONISTS: 3,5
ARTISTIC FEATURE: 5
ATMOSPHERE 5
EMOTIONAL IMPACT: 4,5
FINAL VERDICT: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The ending in a story represents maybe the most important part of it. A great final section of the narrative remains forever in the mind of a reader/viewer/player, with all the emotive pathos arriving at his peak. A great last occasion to show the best of what you can offer, among a splendid plot twist, new discoveries, a cliffhanger for the future of a franchise or an epic melancholic search for eternity. Babel offers a remarkable ending, but the problem is that all the contents we find inside the novel run out in the few conclusive pages.
Babel is an historical low-fantasy book which promises for great events and strong worldbuilding while never fulfilling this ambition. It is a story about racism, cultural appropriation, colonialism and imperialism. It is both a praise and a critique to the entire academic system, and it is the representation of the worst moments in the history of Britain. Our protagonist, Robin Swift, arrives in Oxford after being raised to eradicate his Chinese origins and appear as pure English at all. The problem is that the branch of Oxford in which he studies, the Institute of Translation called Babel, sees him as a sort of instrument. As soon as his objective should arrive at an end, he could be thrown out and substituted. In this setting the steampunk inspiration of the Victorian age is changed using the concept of silver. The “silver tablets” are this sort of magic object whose property of channeling the forgotten meaning of words in their different translations is used to enhance the common life. All the ideas of poverty, overusing of resources inside the colonies and disparity between riches and humbles are maintained as we have studied them.
The problems starts as we see how Kuang has inserted her fantasy grounds inside the real part of the world, without creating substantial differences and most importantly focusing the story more on the academic life than on the main plot. Babel feels like this enormous rush to the end in which the pages of diaries of a frustrated student finds place, adding just the glimpse of magic we all experience every day. While all the meanings, the way you arrive to hate the terrible persecution made in that period represents the core of a brutal, violent and distinguished ending, the lack of personality of the setting and the frustrating passages around exams and all the anxious and the stress lived by the students kills the possibility of a great fantasy tale.
STYLE: 4,5
STORY: 4
WORLDBUILDING: 1,5
RHYTHM: 0,5
PROTAGONISTS: 3
ANTAGONISTS: 5
ARTISTIC FEATURE: 4
ATMOSPHERE 3,5
EMOTIONAL IMPACT: 3
FINAL VERDICT: ⭐⭐⭐
The main elements which made me curious about the Blackwater saga were mainly two: the incredible art style of the Italian publication, whose cover is so good that his creator is featured among the main comic convention here around; the suggestion made by Stephen Kings which says he loves this world and all the horror elements which composes it. When I was approaching the first book of this franchise I immediately felt thrilled, the same sensation you can try when you are going to a big event in your city, and the fact that the reduced dimensions of the new edition granted me to read it during my daily trips was that plus which increased the atmosphere of the moment. As soon as the story starts, we feel the flood happening because of the overflow of the Perdido River, and we make acquaintance with the mysterious Elinor Dammert...all the events evolve in Mary Shelley's like stuff. Because what I didn't know about Blackwater is that the gothic horror it purports to be is nothing else than a mix of lovecraftian weird events and family vicissitudes. In particular, the development of the Caskey's Family is built around the fight between two generations. The young one, polite and open-minded to news and people from outside the protagonist city and the old ones, ready to control others or accept facts only for their individual objectives. We enter an intricate web made of marriages, love affairs, threats and heritage problems, on the background of a racist town of the end of 19th Century. The entire representation of all the peculiar characteristics of that age are wonderful, granting the reader the curiosity around the intriguing destiny of every single figure, even the most secondary ones. As you can imagine reading these worlds, it seems really difficult to find, inside Blackwater, horror traits. Lots of the creepiest moments are linked with the true nature, shown at the very beginning of the book, of one of the center of the narrative, a powerful lady who doesn't display herself completely, while weaving her plans and killing around in the most brutal way. A villain which is incredible in premises, but then the scenes in which we really understand the potential of this danger are only a few.
We can't say that Blackwater is not engaging, mainly because of good stylistic choices and an organic system made by fantastic art features and atmospheric moments of great tension. Yet, all the qualities are engraved inside this “noblemen and houses” fiction, whose predominance sacrifices the space which would be granted to purest horror.
STYLE: 3,5
STORY: 3
WORLDBUILDING: 4
RHYTHM: 3,5
MAIN CHARACTERS: 3
VILLAINS: 4
ARTISTIC FEATURE: 5
ATMOSPHERE: 4
EMOTIONAL IMPACT: 3
FINAL VERDICT: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
My love for Dungeons & Dragons starts during the pandemic. The beautyness of the stories told using the most famous roleplaying game of all time captured me and brought me in this wonderful world. As a huge fan of D&D, one of my greatest curiosities was around the birth of this tabletop experience, and while searching for a gift for a friend, I have found “Rise of the Dungeon Master”, a graphic novel about the theme. This comic is the adaptation of a famous Weird article about Gary Gynax made by David Kushner, with the drawings of Koren Shadmi, an isreali author. The style of this creation is not one of my favourites. I don't like the “adult-swim” inspiration Shadmi has, and I find the amount of content found by Kushner impossible to reduce to a single volume. Despite that, those are little critiques to a huge operation.
The entire production starts from the rise of D&D, his first ideas and the debt it has with the tabletop war games, coming to the last moments of the creator of this marvellous universe.
Rise of the Dungeon Master is an heartwarming tribute to a cultural movement more than to a simple game. Using he great technique of investigative journalism, Kushner and Shadmi perfectly portrayed all the figures who contributed to this success: Dave Arneson is the light-hearted dreamer searching for the funniest game; the videogame developers are personalities ready for tributes and new creations expanding the base; William Dear is a meticulous private detective ready to hunt down D&D and than chaning the opinion on the game. All these names are little encounters in the life of a hero. Gary Gynax is the tormented author the readers loves these days, but he shows so hard his geek lifestyle to represent those kids fighting for their passions. The atmospheres and the emotional impact of this incredible reportage have the power of memories and meloncholy, with a supported rhythm similar to one-shots and campaings made with friends.
STYLE: 3
SCREENPLAY: 4
RHYTHM: 5
REPORTAGE QUALITY: 3,5
CHARACTERS: 5
ATMOSPHERE: 4
EMOTIONAL IMPACT: 5
FINAL VERDICT: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
What if Dune, Game of Thrones, Divergent and Hunger Games had a baby and he was a fan of Heavy Metal? Well, that kid would be Red Rising. The incredible thing about it is that it transcends this definition, because it is the best Young Adult I have ever read. Let's clear up what it could give to passionates.
Red Rising is a Pierce Brown trilogy which mixes in a splendid way the epic space operas with the Roman Empire culture, adding lots of different inspirations in the middle. One of my main struggles with the YA category of books are the excesses in romanticism, with lack of coherence and realism and the most beautiful thing about Red Rising is how it deals with love inserting it inside the story, as a matter of Honor but also of feelings and sensations, never trivializing it. Since this marvelous idea, what perfectly works inside Red Rising is the construction of the legend of Darrow of Lykos, from the grounds of Marth to an epic trial of saving its similars. Because inside Red Rising' society the hierarchy of humans has changed completely, with the rise of the Golds as a role of prestige. Under them, lots of other people, divided by Colors, see the head of this organization as Gods in the Solar System, now completely colonized. The Reds, specialized in the risky mining of Mars, represents in a certain way the highest force among men, for the events they need to overcome, and for this reason they are maintained in a state of ignorance. As soon as one of them discovers the truth, the rules of the entire world start to fall apart.
Red Rising is a trilogy of powerful strength for the evolution given to its characters and its worldbuilding. Forcing the plot twists to make enormous changements, Pierce Brown is capable of increasing the bar at every sequel of his original story, giving it always a larger sight. The first book focuses on Mars, and on survival in terrible lands and situations, giving us the sense of cruelty of a world in which even a brother or sister can become the target for a climb through success. The second publication instead makes an expansion to the whole system, in which everything it's around households, trying to conquer power while fighting the laws of a dying world. The third iteration, instead, follows an incredible pacifist path all around the universe, struggling with the nonsense of the war and on the force given by friends and dear people in the moments needed. All these three different souls perfectly embrace the same matrix, the one of the exaggerations of modern elegance instead of the popular grounds. Because Red Rising is a story pivoted around pop culture, with all the quotes and inner references which elevates the events of Darrow onto the level of the epic actual productions. Red Rising shows the beautiful creativity of humankind, trying to convince us that we are also exceptional in giving life to new things instead of only destroying and creating disparities.
FINAL VERDICT: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
La Taverna degli Assassini by Marcello Simoni is the last case of one of the most emblematic modern author for historical/mystery genres. I have to admit that I had never read anything of the creator of this case inside the Tuscany of the French Revolution, and this first experiment was really intriguing with little struggles mainly in the development of narrative. We have to say that Marcello Simoni is an expert of those kinds of adventures you could find inside the publications of Glenn Cooper or Dan Brown, with intricate enigmas leading to the successive proof, into huge ambiences and great atmospheres (or at least this is something I have discovered talking with people who have read other productions of this prolific writer). For the first time, however, we are captivated by a whodunit all set inside a castle suspended beyond time, in which his inhabitants have a sight toward the future while the place reminds of the ancient medieval secrets scattered through the entirety of Italian country. The story is focused on a couple of detectives, the private Vitale Federici and its little learner Bernardo. They are both invited to the court of the count Calendimarca, of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, in order to solve the mystery linked with the death of a wine seller whose activities seem more dangerous than the ones suggested by his role. We are immersed, in this way, into a magnetic representation of an original setting, because of the lack of perspectives onto Italy during the quoted period and, most importantly, of crimes narrated in contemporary times with the assault on the Bastille. In this sense all the core events of the seizure of power in the Grand Nation are mutated through the curious eyes of a country in which all the little news arrived only after months and in which the little dimension of the whole territories granted the birth of personal ideas and legends from those unknown lands. As soon as the rumors go over the edge, making people think about their condition, it is time to start a scheme of intrigues and mysterious deaths, in a way which reminded me of The Name of The Rose. A development which is possible only for the incredible writing style, simple but not superficial, and thanks to the great cast of characters, in which the two main protagonists seek for a truth no one would ever like to discover. The main issue of La Taverna degli Assassini is linked with the construction of the whole investigation. The entire story seemed like one of those adventures through open spaces, as the ones quoted in the introduction, but yet the limitative rooms and locations are put side by side with omissions which didn't give the right time to permit the readers of understanding the whole plot, forcing them to follow the deductions of Vitale and making the acquaintance with all the little problems of the personalities involved. Obviously the majestic artistic feature, in which animals and humans are well-mixed up, with a resolution among the most iconic possibles for the bond with Agatha Christie's masterpieces, is something which elevates this short tale.
STYLE: 4,5
STORY: 3,5
WORLDBUILDING: 3
RHYTHM: 4
PROTAGONISTS: 4
ANTAGONISTS: 4
ARTISTIC FEATURE: 4
ATMOSPHERE 5
EMOTIONAL IMPACT: 3
FINAL VERDICT: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Hayao Miyazaki is an absolute master in creating wonderful worlds and making his imagination live forever. Everything he has done, every piece of art is part of a bigger universe, whose themes and productive stories turn the director, writer and artist into one of the most beautiful minds of the entire human history. Obviously we don't have only Miyazaki's movies as material, but his entire graphic novel production gives us a glimpse of his incredible talent. Shuna's Journey is not an exception, appearing as the saddest and deepest narrative you can find among Miyazaki's productions.
The plot, written and crafted for the first time in 1982/1983, is centered around Shuna, the young Prince of a poor village who starts a long exploration of nearby lands in order to find the golden seeds, useful to produce a great amount of food. He will discover desert cities with human hunters, inside the arid remnants of past wars. He will be immersed inside the fabulous god lands, until the love for a forgotten lady saves him from a primitive fate. In fact the entire meaning behind Shuna's Journey is the humility we need in the common existence, where robbery turns us into beasts or irrational creatures and war shows the worst of humanity. A mix of common themes of the author while, at the same time, we find the first experiments for a strong changement of his characters, both temperamentally and aesthetically, inside a setting which would inspire Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Princess Mononoke. What highlights this moral fight between the hero in search for the survivallence of his people and the mad men ready to sell their similars is the style of the Master. Miyazaki chose a watercolor painting so that all the locations and imaginific creatures stand out, with an elegant artistic feature granted by the great work of Bao Publishing, at least in the Italian version. In the end we live another adventure you can find inside the “Ghibliverse”, a sadder one with a visceral link between characters and their transformations, offering the classical atmosphere of these japanese tales, which will be part of ourselves forever.
FINAL VERDICT: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
My relationship with pop culture links the modern arts with fragments of my life. Cinema (with Movies, TV Series and Animations), Literature (among Novels, Comics and Books) and Video Games (without forgetting everything which could be declared as part of Pop Culture) are glimpse of eternity inside our existence, other than motivations of community, discovering new people, making new friendships and living the development of artistic moments. Goodbye, Eri takes exactly this meaning of infinity and turns it into an instrument for talking about multiple original arguments, rarely used in modern manga. The little fantasy of our life, the expectations destroyed by reality, the idealization of important figures of our life arriving at peaks of meta-narrative I rarely have seen inside this medium, going beyond it in creating a true compendium of what Cinema aspires to be. The story focuses its attention on Yuta, a boy in love with creating films, with the mother asking for videos of her life until the last moments, forced by a terrible illness. All the material created by the boy becomes a scandalous movie, whose presentation in the Festival of its school is slowly transformed into a way of making fun of the boy. When Yuta decides to end his life, he meets Eri, whose passion for cinema shows the kid clhe has the abilities for creating another project, this time around the mysterious girl. As it seems a normal slice of life, Goodbye Eri excels in creating twists, bringing the genre in lots of different directions (from dramatic moments to fantasy glimpses, with surprises and complete breaking of the screenplay rules). The creativity of Fujimoto explodes into a marvelous mosaic of ideas and messages, in which every single phrase counts, seeking for the last perfect scene, a searched closure for readers and for the protagonist itself. No one in Goodbye Eri appears as it seems, or at least as it is shown by the lenses of a camera, despite those moments appearing as more real than the madness of what happens in the absurd and death-linked Yuta's life. Because in the middle of the depression of never leaving the world, never truly loving its limitative nature, and the existence of constantly perish visions, only explosions create a sort of shock, and in this way, giving sense to everything.
FINAL VERDICT: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐