Category: Recommendations

Recommendation: Castlevania – Symphony of the Night

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This week I was going to recommend the manga Hikaru no Go, but then I had a change of heart. I’ve recommended a lot of manga (and a few books) in my “Recommendations”, but I now feel I should recommend things that aren’t necessarily book-related. It’s true I read a fair amount, but I also play video games and watch a lot of movies. There’s a number of works in the latter 2 categories that I would recommend without hesitation to anyone who’s interested, so why not include these in my recommendations list too? I guess HoG will have to wait a week or so.

 

I’ve recently revisited a game that I like very much, a game that’s been around long enough (in gaming years) to qualify as a “classic” game. Not a “retro” game by any stretch (that would require going back further than 20 years), but a game that’s been around 15 years, and yet still hold up reasonably well to a lot of its contemporaries. Not just those games in the same genre, but also those in the same series. Yes, this week I recommend Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

 

 

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Konami)
(1997, Playstation)

SOTN is the, oh, I dunno, tenth in a series of games in the Castlevania series, I’m guessing. Most of the older games have been straight-forward action-platformers, none of which I particularly liked, largely because I wasn’t good at any of them. Heck, as a kid, I couldn’t even get past the first stage of the original Castlevania. So when SOTN scaled back the otherwise murderous difficulty level of the earlier Castlevanias, I was pretty darn grateful.

 

sotn-poster

 


 

Plot
Castlevania is a series that’s been around almost as long as Super Mario Bros. has, and the plot has always been very simple. Every 100 years, Lord Dracula awakens and his demonic castle materialises out of nowhere, filled to the brim with monsters from every mythology ever. Before evil spreads across the land, someone has to stop the Lord of Darkness and put him to sleep for a while. Usually, this is the job of the Belmonts, a family of warriors who wield a vampire-vanquishing whip known as the “Vampire Killer”. However, in SOTN, you only get to play briefly as Richter Belmont, the current generation of vampire slayers (up until you beat the game anyway). You instead spend most of your time as Alucard, the damphir son of Dracula.

sotn-alucardAlucard has a beautiful character design. I feel compelled to mention that – so gorgeous and gothic are Ayami Kojima’s designs that an entire generation of fangirls descended on SOTN to sigh at the male characters. Anyway, Alucard gets involved when he hears that Richter Belmont has vanished, and that Castlevania has once again appeared – with no Belmont around to stop it. He decides to storm Castlevania himself, and find out what happened to Richter.

 

Why I Recommend this Game
I love Metroidvania games. “Metroidvania” is a term used to describe a rather uncommon category of games – games that play like a cross between 2D-action/platformers and RPGs (role-playing games). Mind you, the original “Metroidvania” game was the Metroid series, again a series as old as Mario. However, while Metroid was reasonably popular, for some reason everyone rushed out to clone Super Mario Bros., and nobody wanted to copy Metroid. Why? All the Metroid games were great games (at least the 2D ones were), but even the original Castlevania resembled the Mario games more than the Metroid games. SOTN was the first Castlevania game to copy the Metroid formula, and since it was so successful, all the subsequent 2D Castlevania games just followed in its wake. Which can only be a good thing. More games for me to play.

 

Part of the reason why I love Metroidvania games so much is the exploration element. Unlike a lot of people, I play games mostly to explore virtual worlds, and SOTN gives you the whole of Dracula’s castle to explore. The game was a lone 2D game in a sea of 3D games, and to make itself stand out, it pulled out all stops in the design and rendering department. Alucard is beautifully animated in fluid 2D, the likes of which I’ve not seen since. Each segment of the castle has its own theme and accompanying music, and it was simply lovely to backtrack your way through all the various spooky environments, meeting unique monsters along the way, and then killing them. There are loads of weapons, armour, items and familiars to collect; dozens of special powers and magic spells; an encyclopaedic array of monsters and bosses to destroy… and a massive map (with many hidden areas) to discover and traverse. For people who like to explore virtual environments, this is the best kind of gaming experience to have.

 

Interestingly, the biggest “problem” with this game is also the reason why I like it so much. SOTN is quite an easy game. Since it has an RPG leveling-up system where you increase your stats from gaining experience points, you can get really powerful, really fast. Combine that with some of the stronger weapons you collect, and the game becomes a total cakewalk only halfway through. Some people will complain about that, but any game that doesn’t get in the way of me doing my exploring gets a big thumbs up from, so curiously, I mark it up in this department. Besides, those who want a SOTN-style game and a decent challenge can look up the other games in the series.

 

Other Castlevania Games (in the same style)
Castlevania, like a lot of game series, has evolved into the 3D realm, but not with much success. I haven’t played the 3D games (nor do I want to), but at least the 2D SOTN clones are of a reliably good quality. I’ve listed all the ones I’ve played here, so if you’re a huge fan of exploration-action games, you can check these out:
 

Circle of the Moon: This game was made for the Gameboy Advance, and given the limitations of the GBA, it’s decent. You play as Nathan Graves, something of an honorary Belmont, so he is armed with a whip. The controls aren’t great, but then it was made cheaply to capitalise off SOTN on the handheld market. It did well enough that they decided to make more of them on the GBA.

 

harmonyofdespairHarmony of Dissonance: Also made for the GBA, but this is a little strange. Graphics-wise, it is far more intricate and detailed than Circle of the Moon, but the colours are scary-garish, especially the reds. You play as Justin Belmont, armed with his whip and a glaring red coat that will stab you in the eyes. Justin’s sprite is also strange-looking… with what appears to be an oversized head. Rumour has it that this was originally made for a console like the Playstation, but scaled back to a GBA release. Hence the weird graphics.
 

ariaofsorrowAria of Sorrow: This is the GBA game to play, and is definitely the best game out of the GBA Castlevanias. It goes back to the inventory system of SOTN, and you play as Soma Cruz, an exchange student in Japan. The game has a soul-collecting mechanic, which allows you to copy the attacks of your enemies, making for a lot of variety. It also drives completion-ist types crazy, as they go back and forth in Dracula’s castle, trying to collect all the souls to make 100%.
 

dawnofsorrowDawn of Sorrow: This is the first Castlevania game on the Nintendo DS, and it is exactly like Aria of Sorrow but with much better graphics and a few new additions. It’s an improvement in every way on AoS, except for the designs, which all of a sudden has gone anime-ish. It’s a small complaint (done to appeal to a younger market), but I miss Ayami Kojima’s designs (though by then, they were getting a tad old).
 

portraitofruinPortrait of Ruin: A solid follow-up on DoS, this DS game stars Jonathon Morris and Charlotte Aulin – two vampire slayers instead of the usual one. This game has some kind of buddy-system going, and due to the story having them go into portraits, a wide variety of terrains and areas are available. A welcome change from Dracula’s castle again, I guess. Unfortunately, I didn’t much enjoy this game, possibly because I wasn’t much taken in by the buddy system.
 

orderofecclesiaOrder of Ecclesia: This DS game is possibly the hardest game in the whole series – you play as Shanoa (a girl! Not since the ret-conned Sonia Belmont!), a member of a secret cult sworn to destroy Dracula. You go through a vast array of environments before you end up in Dracula’s castle, so it’s more varied and feels longer than the other Castlevania games. It also has a soul-absorbing magic system where you can absorb enemy powers, but also at the cost of collecting no actual weapons. All-in-all, I like this game, but I’m too ham-handed to play it at anywhere near its best.
 

Recommendation: Genshiken

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I’m now back from Melbourne, and staying put for the rest of the year, finishing off my book. I’m about halfway through the “House of Odd” inks, and it’s a good feeling to be close to the finishing line! I’m looking forward to finishing the inks at the end of this month.

While I’m at it, I’m making another manga recommendation, this time for something a bit different to what I usually read. If I must describe it in a sentence, I will call it a “character-centered dramedy about Japanese Otaku culture” – aka Genshiken. Otherwise known as “the Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture”.

 
 

Genshiken (Kio Shimoku)
(9 Volumes, though it’s continuing in a 2nd series)

NB. “Otaku” is the Japanese word for “fan”, denoting anyone who is an obsessive fan of anything. In this instance, nearly all the characters in Genshiken are Otakus of manga, anime and video games. In English, the word “Otaku” mostly refers to manga/anime obsessives, though in Japan it’s used in all instances that involve crazy fandom.

Genshiken was published by Del Rey in English, and boy, am I glad they translated it, because this would otherwise have completely flown under my radar. For some reason, while I’ve seen much more obscure fare in Chinese translations, I’ve not once seen this manga in Chinese stores. Which is… strange. Perhaps it’s too culturally-specific for Chinese audiences to care, whereas English readers will consider this study of Japanese Otaku-ism as a very “hip” reading experience. Mind you, if you’re looking for a window into the lives of Japanese Otaku, this is a very accessible and very well-written series.

 


 

Plot
The main character of Genshiken is freshman Kanji Sasahara, who finally fulfills his long-held dream of joining an Otaku club. The club he joins is called “Genshiken”, short for “the Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture”, filled with a variety of interesting characters who all share a common obsession – Manga, Anime and Video-gaming. For Kanji, it’s his first time openly hanging out with like-minded people, and he forms a bond with them, eventually learning to accept the parts of himself he was always ashamed of. Especially when he sees the antics of other members who join after him – including fanboy Kousaka, who despite being a hardcore Otaku, is very, very good-looking (and very, very strange).

 

 

Kousaka attracts a “normal” to the club, a strong, opinionated young woman called Saki Kasukabe, who has had a crush on Kousaka ever since they grew up in the same neighbourhood. Running into Kousaka again in her freshman year surprised Saki, but she was appalled when she discovered what he was now into. Undeterred by the weirdness of the Genshiken folks, Saki pursues Kousaka relentlessly, trying to “normalise” him, to little success. Saki’s trials and tribulations with Kousaka becomes the story’s second thread, as she is lead on a crash-course through cosplay, conventions, video-gaming, figurine-collecting and other staples of the Otaku lifestyle.

 
 

Why I Recommend this Story
Genshiken’s genius lies in its accessibility, which sets it apart from other manga about Otaku culture. People reading this blog will know what an “Otaku” is because I explained it above, but generally when you talk to other people about “Otakus”, you get 3 possible reactions: (a) incomprehension, (b) interest if they are American and into manga/anime culture, and (c) a vaguely-disgusted look if they’re Japanese and not interested in manga/anime. You see, Otaku-culture may be Japanese in origin, but these people are considered social outcasts in Japan.

 

 

I actually sorta agree with Madarame here (skinny guy with glasses).

 

 

Unlike other countries where Japanese pop culture has taken root, Japanese Otaku are like Trekkies or Furries – they are looked down on by the general populance as unbearably geeky and socially-challenged. Genshiken is well-aware of this, and instead of telling the story from the perspective of a down-trodden fan, it tells the story of a “normal” who has stumbled into this gathering of freaks and geeks, and due to reasons outside her control, is forced to (grudgingly) hang-out with them, and even try to understand them. Saki Kasukabe and her clashes with her Otaku “friends” is what gives Genshiken a lot of its human comedy, and to Kio Shimoku’s credit, he never softens Saki, and never makes her into a would-be fan who is just waiting to be converted by the “right” anime. At the end of the series, Saki is still resistant to Otaku culture, but she is now willing to overlook and accept what was once so irritating to her. Likewise, all the other characters grow and change throughout the series, and it’s rewarding (and a little sad) to watch them survive their university days and enter the workforce.

Genshiken has a great sense of its characters, who are a varied bunch. Many of them feel like “types” you would encounter at a fan convention, and their interactions has a feel of the “real” about it. Certainly the creator has spent a great deal of time hanging out with Otaku, and if you’ve done the same, you would probably smile in recognition at some of the scenes. The environments also have a wonderful sense of the clutter that such people would collect in their obsessive hunt for the right “doujinshi”, and the meeting room for the Genshiken folks is rendered in loving detail – possibly from a photo of such a meeting room in real life. The dorm rooms of its members, the shops in Otaku central Akihabara, the mass gathering-place of Otakus on their yearly pilgrimage – these are all drawn with a level of care that underscores how much of this series is grounded in the real (if not exactly reality).

 

 

Like all good things, Genshiken does come to an end, a satisfying conclusion at a short 9 volumes. I wonder why the series isn’t longer, because I certainly would have liked to see what the characters did when they became fully-functioning adults (as full-functioning as these kinds of people can be). Perhaps that’s why there’s a second series, separate to this first one, that follows these characters while making room for new, younger members. Personally, I haven’t read it, but I would be looking out for it if it were available in English.

 

Recommendation: One Piece

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This week, I’m recommending a pirate story that involves little-to-no actual “pirating”. A story that is quirkily-drawn, richly-characterised, tightly-plotted and original in every atom of its being. Yes, I’m recommending One Piece. What else fits that description?

 

One Piece (Eichiro Oda)
(62+ Volumes)

One Piece is a publishing phenomenon. It’s the best-selling manga series of all-time. It has beaten Japanese first print-run records multiple times, the latest record being 3.8 million copies for volume 61. It has been nominated for, and won, multiple awards. It has sold over 230 million books (and we’re only halfway through the story).

So, if you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t yet heard of One Piece, you will eventually hear about it. Might as well be from me.

 

Plot
One Piece is about a 17 year-old “pirate” known as Monkey D. Luffy, a gluttonous and eternally-cheerful kid who possesses the power to stretch his body. When Luffy was young, he consumed something called a “Devil Fruit”, which endows the person with a unique power, but which also makes them unable to swim. A bit of a problem when the world you live in consists mostly of islands, and your dream is to become the King of all pirates.

Luffy quickly gathers some crew members and sails off to the “Grand Line”, a thin stretch of ocean full of danger and adventure. At the very end of the Grand Line is the island Raftel, where the previous Pirate King Gold Roger is said to have buried his greatest treasure – the “One Piece”. Whoever finds the One Piece will become the next Pirate King, and as you can imagine, many other dangerous people are also seeking the One Piece for themselves. Luffy gathers more crew members as he traverses the Grand Line, and encounters lots of strange enemies, many who also have “Devil Fruit” powers.

 


 

Why I Recommend this Story
I love One Piece, but I didn’t always love it. I admit that when I first encountered this story in a late-90s issue of Shounen Jump, I was put off by the weird and stylised drawings. The characters were elongated, the designs were bizarre to the point of silliness, and the humour in it was goofy. If I had bothered to read it properly, I would have realised that the story-telling was solid and that the plot dense and engrossing, but I wasn’t interested. It wasn’t even until much later that I realised that as wacky as One Piece‘s art style was, it was also unique, expressive, and more technically accomplished than most manga artists.

 

 

Years went by, and after hearing multiple people rave about it, I eventually went back to One Piece. And this time, instead of reading one or two issues, I picked up the first 10 volumes and read it all in one sitting. Looking back, I’m glad I did, because One Piece is, no joke, one of the best adventure stories ever created, in any medium. It has possibly the most creative, well-rounded fantasy universes ever wished into being, and if you’re looking to create epic fantasy yourself, One Piece is necessary study. You actually can’t do better than this, in terms of action-adventure.

Ofcourse, with this being a Shounen Jump title, there’s still plenty of room for Pirate-King wannabe Luffy and his crew to Ad-ven-ture~, while extolling the virtues of Dreams! Courage! and Friendship!! All Shounen Jump titles are required to have these values by default, including a healthy dose of battle/action scenes, a formula created by Dragon Ball and responsible for selling hundreds of millions of manga volumes. I’ve read plenty of manga who followed in Dragon Ball’s long shadow, and One Piece is the first, and possibly the last, shounen-fighting manga series to ever completely transcend the box it started in. It surpasses the best parts of Dragon Ball in every possible way – in the inventiveness of the fighting, the richness of the world, the continuity and complexity of the plot, the interplay between the characters… I’d go on, but I’ll just mention that One Piece is the only serial manga I know of that still manages to be fresh, innovative and engrossing at volume 62. Most manga series die around volume 30-40, and anything that comes after is overkill, but Oda definitely planned his story out from the very start – and it shows. When you invest emotionally in this series, you’re rewarded, instead of being jerked around because the creator didn’t properly plan out the story.

There’s also one final element of One Piece I find unique – the juxtaposition of goofy humour with heart-wrenching character moments. As I said earlier, the humour in this story put me off initially, mostly because I thought a story with such a childish sense of humour couldn’t possibly handle serious character drama… but how wrong I was. It’s a testament to Oda’s strength as a story-teller that he can muster both humour and sadness at the same time, and One Piece is one of the few manga that I can call genuinely moving. It’s actually changed my impression of the role of comedy in my own stories – from something to be avoided to something to be embraced.

 

 

Since One Piece is a daunting 62 volumes and counting, I can imagine how picking it up can be a scary experience. People don’t want to waste time on things they may not enjoy, but I also feel that reading just a few volumes isn’t sufficient to judge this story. So I will suggest reading from volume 1~12 first, and if you still don’t enjoy it, don’t bother continuing. As great as One Piece is, it’s one of those stories you either love or hate. If it’s not your thing, it’s not your thing – what can I say?

 
 

I end this with one of my favourite moments from early One Piece:

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recommendation: Berserk

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It’s been a long, long while since I made a manga recommendation. I made quite a few when I first started blogging, but as work and other distractions took over, I found I had less time to blog. It’s a pity, because in the years since I last made my recommendations, I’ve read many books/manga, played many video games, and watched many movies that I love very much. Writing about them seems a great way to get back into the habit of blogging, now I have a new site and all.

 

You can see my previous recommendations on my “Other Writings” page. This recommendation is for something that is definitely R-rated, the dark fantasy manga Berserk.

 

BerserkBerserk (Kentarou Miura)
(35+ Volumes)

Berserk is a very dark fantasy manga, and not at all for children. It’s got an anime series that stopped at around volume 13, and the English-language version is currently being published by Dark Horse. However, if you’re not over the age of 18, you seriously should not be looking at anything from Berserk – I’m not kidding about it. Not only is it not for under-18s, it’s not for anybody who is faint of heart.

 

Plot
Berserk is a dark story about a cursed man named Guts, a mercenary doomed to battle demons (both real and personal) on a nightly basis. He lives in a medievil world of warring nations, religious fanatics and demons who feed off human hatred and lust. He himself became cursed when he joined the mercenary band called the Hawks, led by their charismatic leader Griffith; a young man of low birth who aspires to lordship and kinghood. A series of extraordinary and unfortunate events led to Griffith’s downfall, and Griffith, in return for immortal power, decides to sacrifice his entire mercenary band to the God Hand, a group of powerful demonic creatures. Guts and Casca, the woman he loves, were the only survivors of the grisly event, but in turn they were both marked by a scar that will bleed nightly and cause demons to hunt them down.

To evade them, Guts becomes the “Black Swordsman”. Taking a mad Casca with him, he criss-crosses the world, trying to hunt down and kill Griffith. He fends off fearsome demons on a nightly basis, and gains a group of fairly powerful companions in his quest. Meanwhile, the war between the Kingdom of Midlands and the Kushan Empire continues to rage, as Griffith returns in human form as a Conqueror of the World.

 

Why I Recommend this Story
If Heaven and Hell were at war, and Satan was winning, you’ll get Berserk. If you took the stuff of your worst early-morning nightmares and gave it form on paper, you’ll get Berserk. It pulls no punches on the grittiness front, and you simply won’t find a darker fantasy manga, or a better-drawn one. It’s also wall-to-wall with violence and rape, and for once, I have to say that all this actually adds to the story, rather than detract from it. Yes, people. Berserk is a story that needs to be told with flying heads, limbs, torsos; fountains of blood and emotional anguish… because that’s the kind of story it is. And to his credit, Miura never shies away from the horror and the essential ugliness (yet also beauty) of the world Guts exists in.

Despite the great art, where Berserk makes its greatest impact is in the story and characterisations. Its story of revenge and redemption has a horrifying kind of fascination to it – the kind where you can’t help but feel that Fate has a vice-like grip on Guts; and that him, Casca and Griffith are destined to act out the plans of a higher power. Whether the power is good or evil, no one can say. I can say that the relationship between Guts, Griffith and Casca in the first 14 volumes was engaging and well-written, and truly gut-wrenching when you see the outcome. The relationship between Guts and the group of companions he gains later on is also interesting to watch as it develops, as some of the characters change radically in their outlooks and motivations. Possibly the only issue I have with Berserk is that some of the rape scenes aren’t necessary. They don’t add to the plot, they don’t detract from it either, but I’ll rather not see it in there sometimes, that’s all.

Overall, if you’re into dark fantasy, you can’t do any better than this series. It’s well-written, well-drawn, and always true to its spirit, no matter how terrifying or shocking that may be. It also explores themes of religious fanaticism, of love and forgiveness, of the cruelty of the class system, ideas of good and evil… and so on. It may not have any answers to them, but it explores them effectively, and takes them to its logical conclusion. Berserk is, after all, a very morally ambiguous universe, and who knows if Griffith comes again as a dark lord, or as a force for good? Given it’s 35 volume and counting, it’s impossible to predict where this could lead.

 

Is Berserk misogynistic because of the rape scenes in it?
This is a genuinely interesting question. In the second-last paragraph, I mentioned rape scenes that don’t add to the plot, and could easily be taken out if the author-artist wanted it to. This is a touchy subject, because while Berserk features rape for a reason – so do a whole lot of other stories in other mediums. It’s not uncommon to use rape of womenfolk as a kind of plot device, a motivating factor in stories for the hero to then go on a rampage (thus giving us a story). Sometimes it’s done well, sometimes it’s accused of misogyny. So what makes rape as a plot device acceptable, and when is it not acceptable?

I had a debate with Yunyu, and we both agreed that the graphic rape in Berserk is not misogynistic. In the story, there was a very graphic rape scene of Casca, and various other rape scenes, but our verdict was based on how Casca was treated before and most importantly, after the rape, not so much during it. Could the graphic rape be toned down? Well, sure, but the overall graphic violence could also be toned down as well – and then Berserk will be a completely different story.

What the deciding factor for us was, was that Casca wasn’t raped and then thrown away like a plot device after the hero gains his revenge motivations. There are some that will argue that because Casca was a strong warrior-woman before the rape, yet a mad and useless character after it, the character change reeks of misogyny. Yet if it truly did, you would never see Casca again after her rape – but you do. Not only do you see Casca, but she’s around 24/7 with Guts; she accompanies him on his journey even though she’s a huge burden, and at no point is she treated as inconsequential. Say what you like about Casca’s madness, but she’s an important character in her own right, and continues to be, even after Guts is joined by other strong female characters like Schierke and Pharness.

I guess that’s what gives Berserk a pass in my book, even though I find it annoying that only the women are graphically raped. I should also mention that while Casca is a rape victim… so is Guts and Griffith. Guts was raped as a child, and Griffith sells his body at one point to raise money for his mercenary band, so all three main characters are rape victims. Guts’ rape affected him deeply, so from that perspective, Casca’s madness and her being around as a constant reminder is probably the author’s way of showing that rape has permanent effects, and is not to be taken lightly. And in this story, it isn’t.

Perhaps that’s where Berserk differs the most from other stories that use rape as a plot device. Other stories have women characters raped, and once they’ve served their purpose, they disappear from the story as if that’s their sole purpose for existing. Berserk doesn’t do that, and despite being much more graphic, successfully manages to show that rape has life-long consequences, and doesn’t shy away from the reality of dealing with that kind of trauma. For that reason, I would argue that Berserk isn’t misogynist in its depictions of violence to women.