In today’s ever-changing comics industry, there are two universal truths. First, Dogman is once again an iconic comic of our time. The second is that more people are reading comics and online comics (also known as vertical comics) than ever before. So, we at Comics Beat have chosen to embark on a new adventure: Beat’s Bizarre Adventure. Each week, three authors recommend some of their favorite books and series from Japan, Korea, and elsewhere. This week we have Tokyo Death Game, even more vampires, and of course the cast.
Alice’s Endless Land
Writer/Artist: Haro Aso
Translation and adaptation: Jonah Mayajara-Miller
Modification Art and Lettering: Joanna Estep
Publisher: Visualization area
forward squid gamehave Alice’s Endless Land. This live-action adaptation was one of the biggest premieres on Netflix, and I’ve been a loyal viewer since the beginning. After watching eight episodes, I waited and waited until Viz published the English print version of the manga.
For those not involved Alice’s Endless Land It’s a death-defying game series that became popular when everyone was stuck at home during the 2020 pandemic, in which players are transported to an alternate version of Tokyo. They have to play there and win to survive. The story revolves around a young man named Ryohei Arisu who, in the real world, prefers to spend time with his friends Karube and Kouta. One day, the three of them saw fireworks, and before they knew it, they found themselves alone in an abandoned Tokyo. Arisu and his companions are caught up in a game, the difficulty of which is represented by the suits and numbers on the playing cards. If they win, they survive until the next day and buy themselves enough time to find a way out or play another game to extend the day. If they lose, the game is over.
what i like Alice’s Endless Land is its pure creativity. The purpose of these games is to test the player’s physical strength and endurance, mental fortitude, emotional and mental endurance, and intelligence. It was exciting to read because I couldn’t guess until the end what the real goal of the game was. By then, if I were a gamer, I would be dead, which is enough to show the strength of the cartoonist. Haro AsoWriting. While Netflix’s adaptation made some changes to some of the games to make them more exciting on the big screen, I think they did a good job of retaining the essence of the corresponding games from the comics.
Arisu starts out as a lazy, useless player, but quickly, almost unconsciously, becomes a leader. (Perhaps all Sanctuary needs is to put him in a life-or-death situation to unleash his personality traits.) His ability to stay focused and calm, especially during mind games, makes him a powerful ally to others. Threats to the King and Queen.
While I have some complaints about the ending of the story and the big plot twist, overall, Alice’s Endless Land This is a comic that death game fanatics will enjoy. — Liang Haoying
Blood: The Last Vampire 2002
Writer/Artist: Tamaki Benkyo
English adaptation: Carl Gustav Horn
translate: Ohki Yuji
Modification Art and Lettering: Rich Anderson
Publisher: Visualization area
Blood: The Last Vampire 2002 A sequel to the film of the same name (minus the date), Saya is still alive at the turn of the millennium, hunting chiropterans. She was disillusioned with her status as a hound leashed by humans to hunt vampires. But she must once again infiltrate a high school to find the connection between a young girl and a group of chiropterans.
Saya obviously doesn’t want to do this anymore. Whether her mission succeeds or fails, her new handlers berate her. Things aren’t getting any better for the girl she’s tracking, Akiko. She escapes her turbulent home life and comes to the criminal Chiroptera. Their leader is very similar to Saya.
This gives Saya a fascinating backstory, but may have strayed from the film’s original intent. I prefer the original intention, but this isn’t bad either. We also get an elaborate Chiroptera origin story.
Yuxing The book is infused with the action, gore, and gore you’ve come to expect from the series. Sometimes I wish we could see more than what we see, but that’s fine. Tamaoki is also a porn artist, so there’s quite a bit of sex and nudity there too. If you don’t feel comfortable with it, don’t choose it.
I do think this book could be reissued twenty years later because – I don’t know if this is a translation issue – there are dialogue issues in the book. The dialogue doesn’t read correctly, and some sentences are even incomplete. I think an update is needed. Overall, I enjoyed this comic. This is a great entry in Saya’s story and well worth a look. — Derek Crow
double
Writer/Artist: Noda Ayako
Translator: Marcel Gutierrez
Copy Editor: Zentina
Quality check: fundamental earth
Proofreading: Katie Kimura
Retouching and lettering: Vibrant publishing studio
Publisher: tokyo pop
Yuhito Kamojima and Takarata Takara are partners who have different ways of doing things. Yuujin studies every detail of a scene to determine exactly how his character will behave at any given time. Takara gets so deeply into his characters that he doesn’t so much “act” as he dreams about his subjects’ inner lives. Unfortunately, Takara was unable to tie his shoes, do his laundry, or hold down a job to save his life. So Yuujin lives with him, taking care of his every need, hoping that one day, the charismatic Takara will become a star.
simple sales pitch double is “a toxic co-dependence between two talented actors.” But that doesn’t quite sum up the comic’s unique appeal. double Doesn’t follow the typical beats of other comic series you may have read in the entertainment industry. The characters argue, get lost, and go out drinking with each other. Sometimes they deceive each other and even themselves. artist Noda Ayako Let the reader go with the flow and decide for themselves how they feel about any character at that time.
That is, until those scenes where Noda locked in and turned the intensity all the way up. There is a scene in the second volume where Bao is filming a movie by a well-known director. The director asked Bao to act in a certain way, but Bao disagreed. He developed his character very early on with Yuujin. “Who asked you to do this?” the director asked. “Did you bring something in from outside?” Noda pulled his face out from his protruding eyes and mouth, like a wild beast. What was in front of him, however, was something even more striking: Yuujin manipulated Takara’s mouth from behind as he held Takara’s body close.
double is a short read, with only five volumes published between 2019 and 2023. Not only was it adapted into a critically acclaimed TV series in 2022, but the manga also won the prestigious Japan Agency for Cultural Affairs Media Arts Festival Excellence Award. I still recommend this book, even though it was published in the United States by Tokyopop, a publisher whose crimes against manga artists are well documented. Only the best could overcome my distaste for Stu Levy and his empire. good or bad, double Is that okay? — Adam Westcott
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