Manga Review: Attack on Titan, Volume 2 by Hajime Isayama

Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin), Volume 2 by Hajime Isayama

Genre: Dystopia, Horror

Publisher: Kodansha

Date of Publication: September 11, 2012

Author Information: Website | Twitter

Tiara's Rating: 4 of 5 stars - "Eren may be at the center of it all, but a win won't be possible without the people rallying around him and the strength and trust they're placing in him [...] To quote Aristotle: 'The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.' They group is beginning to understand this to be a fundamental truth for them as they begin to rely on one another and work together in Trost."

In the previous volume, the walls that separated humanity from the titan were breached by a colossal titan standing more than 50 meters in height. Five years after that breach, Eren, Mikasa, and Armin have just graduated training to become full-fledged soldiers. During that time, Eren is even more resolved to join the scouting team, especially after the huge loss he suffered with the attack. Humans now live within two of the three walls after abandoning Wall Maria (Wall Rose and Wall Sina are the two remaining walls standing) to the titans. Humans lost 20% of their population and a massive amount of land in that attack, but they are still packed together behind the smaller walls.

Not even a full day past their graduation, Wall Rose is breached by the colossal titan. When faced with this threat again, Eren responds in kind, trying to stay true to his vow to kill all the titans. While his companions are taken aback by the reappearance of the colossal titan, Eren takes the helm and attacks, hoping to end the aberrant once and for all. However, things can't go that easily, and just as Eren is about to make his fatal strike, the titan vanishes--just as it did five years earlier.

The fight isn't over, though, as titans once again begin to terrorize the people within the walls. Here we witness an astounding transformation in Eren as the energy he's fueled with all his anger and desperation come back to aid him and his comrades in an astonishing way. Even though these books and the anime pretty much mirror one another (with the anime adding just a bit more padding, naturally), I was just as caught up in the story and the plight of Eren and his comrades, even though I already knew the outcome of this particular battle.

Mikasa Ackerman, Queen of Everything

Eren may be at the center of it all, but a win won't be possible without the people rallying around him and the strength and trust they're placing in him. Part of me believes, and I could be wrong since this is on-going, that even once this is all said and done another character will probably have a bigger impact on the outcome. Even though this is largely Eren's story, there seems to be another important story playing along beneath it in more subtle ways. More characters are coming into play who display characteristics that will be necessary for humans to win this fight.

Isayama seems to be setting up the story in a way that Eren will need the support of these characters to be successful.They're not given these talents just for show. Their talents round them out for sure, but they also play an integral part in the story, as well. Eren will need Mikasa's strength and faith in him. He'll need Armin's strategic intelligence. He'll need Jean's ability to command, even if Jean still isn't sure of himself. This has already been proven. I know all these characters will not make it out of this alive, but they will still contribute in their own way.

Many of these characters are coming into their strengths during this battle. They're learning things about themselves in the urgency of the moment that they might not have been aware of before the latest attack. Many of them joined the military to live a comfortable life, especially those who were refugees. They were tired of doing without and being treated like second class citizens because their arrival behind Wall Rose made things more difficult for everyone due to things like food shortages. However, they're more capable and resourceful than they could've ever imagined despite their youth and inexperience.

They understand that they're going to have to rely on unconventional methods to get through that hell. To quote Aristotle: "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." They group is beginning to understand this to be a fundamental truth for them as they begin to rely on one another and work together in Trost. I really like that brute strength and Eren screaming he'll kill all the titans will not be the only thing to win this war. This volume stirred up all the proud feelings that I remember having the first time I watched the anime as these characters start to evolve.

4 of 5 stars

Manga Review: Attack on Titan, Volume 1 by Hajime Isayama

Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin), Volume 1 by Hajime Isayama

Genre: Dystopia, Horror

Publisher: Kodansha

Date of Publication: June 19, 2012

Author Information: Website | Twitter

Tiara's Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars - "It feels hopeless, and the powerlessness of the characters in that situation is very tangible to the readers. However, as human nature goes, you want them to fight and win."

Nearly a century before the start of this story, humanity is attacked by a group of humanoid beings dubbed "titans" who push them almost to the brink of extinction. Titans are much larger than their human counterparts (with most standing between 3 to 15 meters) and immensely strong. They seem to possess no intellect as they can't communicate and show no signs of understanding. Even though they look characteristically male or female, they lack reproductive organs, making many question their origins.

They mindlessly graze on human beings, ignoring all other forms of life in favor of only devouring people. Titans have lived 100 years without feeding on people which seems to indicate that they don't feed on humans to satisfy hunger. Many believe their goal is to exterminate humankind, but the reasoning for that is a mystery. In response to the threat, three 50 meter walls were built, which effectively keep the titans out while keeping the people inside. Talk of the outside world is considered taboo and information about the outside world has been outlawed and destroyed.

Our story begins with Eren Jäeger, Mikasa Ackerman, and Armin Arlert. Eren dreams of joining the scouting team and seeing the outside world. The scouting team's primary goal is to find whatever information they can about the titans with the hope of learning their origins and how they can be eradicated for good. Eren hopes to contribute to that effort. He equates the people within the wall to "cattle" waiting for the slaughter and becomes increasingly disillusioned with the complacency of everyone inside the wall--especially after Armin shows him a book that talks about the outside world and all the beauty humans have had to relinquish.

Mikasa, Eren's adopted sister and one of the most awesome people in the manga and anime, feels she owes Eren a great deal, and she's resolved to be by his side to protect him even if it costs her own life in the process. Even though she doesn't agree with Eren's decision to join the scouting team, she's willing to travel that road with him when that time comes.

After 100 years of relative safety, the walls are breached by an aberrant titan--aberrant because it exhibits behavior unusual for a titan and because it's huge--standing more than 50 meters in height. In the beginning, before the breach, the world that these people live in isn't exactly bleak inside the walls. They seem to live relatively normal lives, but they're happily corralled and confident as long as their walls are up. They know the titans are out there and there's fear of them in the back of their minds, but it doesn't seem to truly touch the illusion of safety they have behind the wall. The only time the mood shifts is when the scouting team, who always suffers losses when scouting, returns to remind them just how dangerous things are beyond their walls.

Read from right to left.

With the breach of the wall comes the all too shocking realization of how fragile their safety is in this new world they live in (a world they have largely ignored for the past century), how much arrogance has been placed on those walls to keep the titans out. The situation becomes dire quickly since they have nothing that is truly effective against the titans. After a hundred years, they still know very little about them. The titans, and how nigh unstoppable they are, quickly add apprehension to the story, making readers wonder how the people in this book will ever hope to survive. Making the titans themselves more human-like in appearance rather than some fantastic monsters makes the story even more unsettling and grim. It feels hopeless, and the powerlessness of the characters in that situation is very tangible to the readers. However, as human nature goes, you want them to fight and win.

I'm not sure if this was Isayama's intent, but this manga (and its anime) seem to be an extreme reflection on life now and how those who live in relative comfort sometimes choose to ignore the monsters outside that threaten their comfort until that comfort is actually attacked.

Now, I do like the manga, but I am partial to the anime a bit more because it adds a bit more detail to some of the scenes. Some of the art is sort of awkward in places and distracted me from the story a little bit. Eren is obviously the most important of the three main characters we've encountered, but he can grate on your nerves, especially with how hotheaded he can be. I try to chalk this up to him initially having a very black and white view of life. Things are either good or they're either evil to him. Evil things must be eliminated no matter the cost in his eyes, and he's very passionate about that. He's now having to adjust to gray areas in his life, and it's leaving him a bit off balance right now.

If you're not a fan of violence, you probably don't want to read this. If bleak situations where sudden, violent death is the norm rather than the exception, you probably don't want to read this. The situation is depressing, but you have to hope that, despite whatever frailties and foibles humans possess, their indomitable will to survive will prevail.

3.5 of 5 stars

Manga Review: Deadman Wonderland, Volume 4 by Jinsei Kataoka

Deadman Wonderland, Volume 4 by Jinsei Kataoka

This manga. I can already tell that this is going to be one of my all time favorite mangas. It may even beat out my current #1 favorite manga, a title held by Bleach. It just seems to be the perfect combination of horror, thriller, mystery, drama, and humor. I've also found myself tearing up quite a few times because it manages to capture intensely emotional moments so well. One minute I'm laughing over something funny, such as Crow's ridiculous awkwardness around the opposite sex, and the next I'm tearing up during the death of a character or angry to the point that the sound of my pounding heart fills my ears.

I'd been reading the English version, licensed by the now defunct Tokyo Pop. There are 5 official English releases of the manga. Imagine how I felt when I found out there were 11 volumes available in Japan , and that there was no new English distributor releasing the manga. I'm using fansub (scanlation) sites to catch up with the rest of this series. When I first started read manga, I often had to read fansubs because not many series were being licensed for English reading fans. Should the rest of these be released in English, I'd be glad to purchase them for my collection.

Ganta has gone through many changes since arriving at Deadman Wonderland and has overcome many challenges, but I was completely blown away by the story about the Scar Chain gang, which is yet another community within the prison. Their goal is to not escape the prison, but to destroy it completely. However, they’re hindered by betrayals and a person who seems to be immune to their powers. To me, this arc was flawless, a real masterpiece that brought a powerful emotional punch, and it's a story that will stay with me long after I've finished reading this series. I wasn't too thrilled about the introduction of the "rock super-monk" Genkaku or the Scar Chain gang when I first got into this, though. I thought things were going to take a schlocky turn. I didn't think I was in for bad writing, but I didn't expect it to be as well executed.

I'm happy to report that I was wrong. As I learned more about Genkaku and the Scar Chain gang leaders, the story just really culminated into a beautiful disaster of a narrative with so many complex issues weaved around each other to tell the story. Once I finished reading it, I needed a moment to process and reread parts that hit me the hardest, which were basically all of Owl's parts near the end of the story. He was the breakout character for me, and later in that same arc, the brief glimpse of Genkaku's background really added something intricate to him that made me reflect on who he was. Excellent volume.

Final Verdict:

5 of 5 stars

Book Review: Another vol. 1 by Yukito Ayatsuji

Another by Yukito Ayatsuji

I grabbed this galley because I was really intrigued by the cover image. I later learned that this was a novel based on a manga, which in turn spawned an anime. I was very curious about the concept, wondering how such a visual format could be translated into a novel. I'm a very visual reader and also a fan of anime and manga, so I was easily able to visualize the characters and setting. Unfortunately, that wasn't good enough to make this book interesting to me. Lost in translation is an apt way to describe the experience - though I don't merely mean the translation from Japanese to English. There are elements of culture and events that the non-Japanese person or anime fan will miss unless they spend a bit of time googling, but I didn't find this enough of an issue to deter me. I did, however, feel like the book dragged considerably and I grew increasingly frustrated with the main character, Koichi Sakakibara's attempt to unravel the mystery of Mei Misaki and the strange curse of Class 3 at North Yomi school.

With a mother dead shortly after birth and a father away on business in India, Sakakibara has moved away from Tokyo to the little village of Yomiyama to stay with his mother's family. He is unable to start his third year at his new school due to a genetic lung illness that forces him to miss the first few weeks. When he starts a few days into the month of May, he meets a mysterious girl name Mei Misaki and he is warned about the "North Yomi Fundamentals" - superstitions that apparently exist to prevent the occurrence of untimely accidents. Students at the school are friendly enough, but when Sakakibara tries to broach the subject of Misaki, everyone does their best to dance around the question and Sakakibara's subsequent questions about the curse of Class 3. Then people start dying.... (finally).

Around the time that the first death occurred, I was as frustrated as Sakakibara with the way everyone was avoiding his questions, but more frustrated with the amount of time it was taking for him to figure out the truth of his existence on his own. I admit, I was wrong in my assumption of the obvious, but I was still long bored by the amount of time it took to get to that point. There was a lot of repetition as Sakakibara went over his own circular thoughts and the events and at times, I actually thought I was reading the same page again. Given the length of the book, I could find no reason for it to have taken that long to get to the point and move on to solving the mystery, which I assume happens in volume two.

Believing this was a book based on a manga, it felt very much like descriptions were glossed over in favour of a lot of text, mostly in the form of Sakakibara's tedious thoughts. It failed to give me any sense of mystery and, when the curse started to take effect, it wasn't very shocking. However, upon completion I learned that I was incorrect in my assumption. The bunkobon came first and inspired the manga, followed by the anime and a live-action movie. So while I did not enjoy this book very much, I can see how it could translate into a very interesting story when powerful visuals and music can be used to create the right mood. The idea behind the curse of Class 3 and the way everyone decided to try to fight it was interesting, once we finally got to know what it was all about. But I think I'd much rather learn more in the manga or anime, than by reading the second volume of the original novel.

2 of 5 stars

Manga Review: Deadman Wonderland, Volume 3 by Jinsei Kataoka

Deadman Wonderland, Volume 3 by Jinsei Kataoka

I think this has been my favorite book so far in the series. Unlike volume 1 and volume 2, this one pretty much captured my interest from the beginning rather than getting more intriguing as I got deeper into the story.

Manga Review: Deadman Wonderland, Volume 2 by Jinsei Kataoka

Deadman Wonderland, Volume 2 by Jinsei Kataoka

This manga. This is the second time in a row where this manga started a little slow for me but picked up right before I decided to read something else and come back to it later. It wasn't that I thought the beginning was boring, but I had other books that were starting to get really interesting that I was reading at the same time. And then, they introduce Crow, the Corpse Carnival, and Ganta's new friends in the G ward.

Manga Review: Deadman Wonderland, Volume 1 by Jinsei Kataoka

Deadman Wonderland, Volume 1 by Jinsei Kataoka

The story starts with a devastating earthquake hitting Japan, leaving most of Tokyo underwater. Ten years later, 14-year-old Igarashi Ganta is joking around with his friends in class when a mysterious “Red Man” appears and kills everyone in Ganta’s class--except him. Ganta passes out in the classroom, but later regains consciousness to find out that he is the sole suspect in his classmates’ murders, which he is convicted of and sentenced to death.

Ganta is sent to Deadman Wonderland, a privately owned prison that uses its inmates to entertain the public. It’s purpose is to gain money to rebuild Tokyo. Supposedly. Ganta is placed in a collar (that he later learns emits poison that can only be counteracted by “candy”) and finds himself thrust in this bizarre prison life where inmates are mutilated and killed for the enjoyment of others. The public, however, believes that these “games” are staged.

This volume basically chronicles Ganta’s “introduction” into the system. There isn’t a lot of time spent on his life, his trial, or his classmates’ death. The readers are pretty much thrust into the beginning of his new life at Deadman Wonderland. You learn a little about the rules in his new home. Even though there is a “rule book,” you only learn pieces of the “rules” as Ganta learns the rules (of course he hasn’t read the rule book, silly) instead of having everything spelled out for the readers.

At first, I thought I would only give this three stars. I was enjoying the story, for sure, but I wasn’t bowled over. Around the middle of the story, though, I was trying to hurry through so I could find out what happened next. The pace picked up considerably as more characters and variables were introduced and as Ganta struggled with finding some way to make his prison stay bearable, which he at first decides will be done by following the rules of the prison--until he finds out there are too many conflicting rules in that place.

Two of the characters introduced in the story fascinated me--Shiro and Yō.

I really enjoyed Shiro. Shiro is very childlike and loyal. She’s quick and dexterous, seeming to view the prison as a playground more than a punishment. I love how protective she is of Ganta, even going as far as trying to ensure that he won the game they were in together. They seem to have a history together that Ganta can’t quite remember which dates back to the Tokyo earthquake. Ganta has blocked out the event, but Shiro remembers.

Then, there’s Yō. When we first meet Yō, he seems mostly innocent. He appears very friendly and somewhat shy, but as the story progresses, we’re given hints that something sinister is going on behind Yō’s mask. Even later in the story, we find out that the man overseeing the facility is using Yō to spy on Ganta and giving him large sums of the prison currency in exchange for information. I’m looking forward to finding out more about Yō and his motivations.

There’s a supernatural/sci-fi element that is hinted at throughout the story, also, but never fully explored, but I’m guessing, given the way this ended, that we’re about to find out so much about that part of the story and this “branches of sin” thing. Will definitely be reading the next volume soon. And I hope they start answering some of the questions I have like where are Ganta’s parents? Did they die in the earthquake? Great read overall, though

Final Verdict:

4 of 5 stars