Teru Teru x Shonen Volume 7

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By Shigeru Takao. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by CMX.

By now, we’re more than halfway through this series, and it’s mostly abandoned all pretense that it’s a light-hearted comedy. Not that it isn’t still very good, but I think there’s only one joke in this entire volume, when Harumi thinks that Shinobu and Saizo are sleeping together. And Shinobu has totally thrown off the mask of ‘evil bitch’ that she wore for the first couple of volumes.

But these aren’t missed, as we’re too busy coping with all the revelations we get here, and dealing with the emotional drama. The revelation that Shinobu made at the end of the last volume is expanded on, and helps to underscore that Shinobu has had a really crappy childhood. The scene where she gets the tattoo is portrayed about the same way that you would see a rape drawn in comics, which given that she’s about six years old is terrifying.

The flashbacks keep coming, but at least this one’s a little more lighthearted, as we see how Shinobu’s mother Shoko first met her guardian Shogo (romanization makes things confusing), and the revelation about her true parentage. This too makes sense when you put it in context, and if nothing else helps to make all those earlier scenes of Shinobu in Shogo’s bed slightly less creepy. But only slightly. The resolution of their story is obviously not going to go well (the danger of all flashbacks), but at least it’s refreshing to see Shinobu’s mother portrayed as something other than the cold and uncaring mistress that she has been to this point.

We’re meant, of course, to see Shinobu and Saizo paralleled in her mother and Shogo, though things are at least slightly better this generation round. Shinobu’s not as cloistered as her mother was, and she and Saizo are supposedly developing a closer relationship. I say supposedly as the two of them, especially Saizo, both have episodes of self-hatred that prevent them from ever truly committing to the other, so it’s very much a case of “I will be with you forever, which will likely be until we are torn apart in a few months”. Of course, I doubt this manga is going to end that badly, so look forward to seeing how it gets its happy ending.

Or I would look forward to it, if it weren’t a CMX title. Sigh. Volumes 8-11 remain untranslated, and there’s very little chance of a license rescue here. Which is a real wrench here as, unlike Stolen Hearts 2, this ends on a nasty cliffhanger where Shinobu’s mother collapses at a hospital, coughing up blood. Since she and Shinobu have been edging, millimeter by millimeter, towards an understanding, this is rather vexing. Still, if you like dramatic ninja romance, I do recommend getting the 7th (and final?) Teru Teru x Shonen.

Walter Lantz Cartoons Part 1: Hells Heroes, Spooks, Grandma’s Pet, Carnival Capers, Five and Dime

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As many people have already gathered, I’m a huge, huge fan of old theatrical cartoons. Looney Tunes first and foremost, but I definitely watched other studios growing up as well. Woody Woodpecker was right up there on my list of favorites, and Universal has released 150 of their cartoons, including 75 with Woody, restored and uncut on 2 DVD sets. As future DVD sets are unlikely due to both a poor economy and a fire at Universal destroying some prints, this may be all we get. As such, I’d like to take this time to review some of these cartoons.

That said, I’m going to try to review them in chronological order. And Woody was not Walter Lantz or Universal Pictures’ first cartoon star. That was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, created by Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney for producer Charles Mintz. Unfortunately, Mintz owned the rights to the star, so when Ub and Walt wouldn’t take a huge budget cut, he stole most of the staff out from under them and starting making the cartoons himself. (Not sure what happened to Iwerks and Disney, I guess they found work somewhere.) However, as if to show that karmic retribution was still a force back then, Universal was unsatisfied with Mintz and fired HIM, opting to produce new Oswalds in house. The man they got to produce these was named Walter Lantz. Lantz actually asked Walt for advice before starting his series, so there was less bad blood there.

These early Oswalds are from a very early period when it comes to animated cartoons, and I’ve found it’s very much a case of ‘either you get it or you don’t’. Many cannot get past the fact that these are 6-7 minute cutesy cartoons with crappy animation, dumb gags (few of which are verbal), and all based around seemingly endless singing and dancing. On the other hand, I’ve always liked the musical aspect myself, mostly as I’m a huge fan of the popular songs of that period. And if you get into the mindset of realizing these are not Disney, or even Schlesinger cartoons, there’s a lot of quiet innovation here.

Of the five cartoons I began with, the first two are specific parodies of popular films of the time. Hells Heels is a take off on the popular 1930 melodrama Hell’s Heroes, released (not coincidentally) by Universal. The movie is rather bleak, featuring a bunch of nasty crooks and a lot of death. The Oswald cartoon, needless to say, is a lot more lighthearted, although not exactly a laff riot. Oswald is coerced into robbing a bank, and escapes pursuit into the desert, where he comes across the toddler child of the local sheriff. They then head back to town, avoiding skeletons trying to kill Oswald (ghosts of his former friends, who were blown up in the bank heist?) while Oswald tries to keep the kid from crying by dancing to the music (this being 1930, there wasn’t a lot of syncopated singing yet). Strangest gag is when the toddler drinks a pool of ‘poison water’, which turns out to contain an orchestra conducted by a walrus.

Spooks is not much better, despite having a far more familiar parody, the 1925 silent movie The Phantom of the Opera (which had been re-released in 1930, the year Spooks was made). This is where you first hear the composer’s knack for not-quite-the-same-theme background music, as much of the cemetery scenes here are Funeral March of a Marionette, only slightly altered so that it’s different enough. The villain, the Phantom himself, ends up at an opera house, where he sees Oswald and a female pig serenading the crowd. (Oswald has a high peeping voice, so naturally the pig’s is much lower, despite the gender roles). Oswald’s girlfriend Sadie (who is a kitten, but cross-species romance is common in cartoons) is jealous but talentless, so the Phantom sticks a gramophone player in her ass and sends her out to be a star. (The scene where he does this is probably the funniest in the cartoon.) She’s a hit, but only has eyes for Oswald, so he kidnaps her and goes to his underground lair. Oswald follows, and a long chase ensues. In an utterly bizarre ending, the chase is stopped so that the Phantom can tell Oswald an incredibly lame joke, and the cartoon just ends. I imagine they were running out of film.

Easily the best cartoon of these first five is Grandma’s Pet, from 1932. 2 years have done a lot for Oswald cartoons, which now have much more dialogue and better singing. More importantly, a new animator named Tex Avery has joined the staff, and his influence is already being felt on this cartoon, despite not being the director. The plot is, at first, standard Little Red Riding Hood, with a ‘dream sequence’ wraparound. However, once the plot gets rolling we really start to see the cartoon take advantage of the fact that it *is* a cartoon. The wolf accidentally hurts a sapling, and the ‘mama’ tree next to it grabs him and starts to wail on him. Oswald’s girlfriend (now a dog) is Red Riding Hood, and her grandmother swallows a harmonica when the wolf surprises her, not only being funny but meaning they don’t need another voice artist – just a musician. Most importantly, at one point the wolf gets a magic wand, and starts to zap the background into various dangerous scenes – a high rise under construction (with Oswald standing in thin air), a railroad track in midair with a train coming, and a shooting gallery. Finally Oswald grabs the wand and send them back to Grandma’s house – with the wolf turned into turkey dinner! Utterly random, but it works great by using cartoon logic. An underrated gem here.

Unfortunately, the next cartoon, also from 1932, is pretty boring. Carnival Capers is your standard ‘we need to churn out a cartoon every 2-3 weeks’ time waster, with Oswald and his girlfriend (still the dog) at the fair taking in various sights. I was amused at the milk shake stand, where they get the milk shake by sticking it in the swaying hips of a hippo doing a belly dance, but once the villain arrives, things get very predictable. (I should note the villain has a pegleg, and that several of the other cartoons feature blatant Mickey copies. The Disney ripoffs back then were so obvious it wasn’t even funny – and EVERYONE did it.) Still, there are better cartoons than this.

The last cartoon I saw, 1933’s Five and Dime, I enjoyed a great deal, but how much you may depends on how much you like the song Million Dollar Baby, which this is basically an 8-minute music video for. Oswald ducks out of a torrential downpour (which is shown by two thunderclouds becoming boxers and beating each other up – another great example of using cartoon logic to its fullest) and heads into a five and dime, where he quickly meets his dog girlfriend and serenades her with the aforementioned song. There’s lots of celebrity caricatures here, which likely explains why it’s on the set (the caretaker of these DVD sets, Jerry Beck, adores cartoons with celebrities caricatured), including Durante, Chaplin, and Laurel and Hardy. Having been unfairly kicked out of the store, Oswald decides to propose, and the last two minutes of the cartoon are basically a long cakewalk, as Oswald and his girl get a ring, gown, tux, hit the church, then go to his house, all without breaking step. (Confession: I got my dates mixed up, and this actually comes after two other Lantz cartoons on the DVD sets. Oh well, I’ll cover those next.)

If you’re going to get the Lantz DVD sets, chances are you’ll get them for Woody Woodpecker, Chilly Willy or Andy Panda. But give Oswald a try, and try to get into the depression groove while watching these. Some of them are very rewarding!

Megatokyo Volume 6

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By Fred Gallagher. Originally released online as a webcomic here. Released in North America by DC Comics.

As always, the Megatokyo reading experience is very much a two-step process. First you read the strips as they’re posted online, getting the immediate gratification combined with the slow, frustrating process of waiting days to occasional weeks for the next strip. Then, every blue moon or so, you get a book collection released, and re-read them all in one gulp. There’s less impact as you already know what’s going to happen (the “Stop teasing me!” scene must be epic for those who hadn’t seen it online), but you gain even more, as a lot of the complex plotting and characterization makes much more sense when you’re taking it all in at once.

Most webcomic reviews, especially ones as long-running as Megatokyo, note how the art improves with successive volumes, but it really bears mentioning here: Fred’s art has *really* improved. The shading brings out a lot in a strip that used to have huge whitespace all around it, and there’s plenty of background gags that I didn’t get the first time around, rewarding multiple re-reads. (My favorite is taking down Ed in the Cave of Evil: I’d seen Erika’s elbow and the Tetris block, but I’d missed Boo’s mini-bombs till this collection.) It’s a handsome strip now.

It is also, one must say, a bit overly complex. As always with most fan-oriented works, it’s a good thing that Fred lacks a brutal editor for these strips, as I suspect at least two of the 80 gazillion subplots seen here would have been cut out. Same with a Japanese serialization. (Fred’s strip has been licensed in Japan by Kodansha, apparently, although I’m not certain if it’s still coming out there. I suspect were it serialized, Young Magazine or Shonen Sirius would fit it best.) This does, admittedly, reward re-reads, but it also makes them required, which is not necessarily a good thing, especially as the series is now over 1200 webcomics.

Of course, I mostly read Megatokyo now for the characters. Amusingly, my favorite keeps changing as the series goes on. Initially, I was most fond of Miho and her goth loli shenanigans, then Largo and Erika’s romance drew me in, now I’m enjoying following the adventures of frustrated normal girl Junko and Magical Thief Saint Yuki. All of these people, needless to say, get some wonderful moments here. (As does seiyuu Kimiko, though she’s verging on becoming a Mary Sue at some points. Still, that’s after a low ebb in previous books, so maybe she’s due.)

Largo in particular has come miles from the start of the series (though there is still debate as to whether his direction is a good thing), and I love his interaction with Erika. Several side glances and stammered remarks show you that this relationship is *not* taking place in Largo’s imaginary fantasy band camp, and that he *is* trying to make it work. What’s more, Erika gets that. The scene where she uncuffs him after finding the results of his chaos (and checking her voicemails) is beautiful.

Miho’s development is a major part of this volume, and I feel bad that the fact that Chapter 9 and 10 being put out together means readers miss the impact of what happens at the end of 9, which was an incredible stunner when it came out. However, that’s OK, as we have the even more stunning personality shift at the end of Volume 10. We still don’t really have an explanation as to why Miho suddenly seems a lot more blushy and normal, although I do wonder if it has to do with Junko and Ping’s putting pictures on the ‘Net to alter her image to her fans. Definitely looking forward to this even more in future chapters.

And then there’s Piro. Now, I will admit that Piro has come a LONG way since the start of the series. I used to want him to fall in an open sewer and die, and I no longer do. He’s still the most frustrating, but that’s just because his character development is taking the longest. (And, admittedly, because his character “type” is not one I like in my Japanese manga leads either.) In any case, he does get some nice bits here (his refusal to storm into Kimiko’s presser to give her “support” was very well done), and does balance out a lot of his ineffectualness elsewhere. Hopefully this will continue even more.

Lastly, I want to note the bad guys Dom and Ed. In a series that got its start as a series of blatant self-inserts, it’s rather stunning to see how incredibly evil these two are. Ed is slightly less effective, mostly as his complete psychosis is more loud and obnoxious than actually evil. (He’s very much Largo’s dark self, while Dom is Piro’s.) But Dom is almost terrifying in his smirking manipulation, and willingness to do anything for Sega, his ‘parent company’ (who hopefully don’t mind Fred portraying their employees as evil). Ed is there to get his ass kicked, but Don’s plans are still very much unknown. I look forward to more.

This is manga influenced, and certainly has a ton of shout-outs (Saint Tail only being the most blatant), but I’d still say its sensibilities are definitely Western. It’s also, despite what detractors might say, managed to keep its balance between romantic escapades and wacky cartoon action-adventure lunacy without one overtaking the other. This volume is a horrible place to start, of course; you’ll want to begin at the beginning. But for those who’ve been following along, this volume will not disappoint. Plus he actually finished the art.