PREFACE
Kazuki is a college student lacking direction until his friend Taishi
introduces him to the world of doujinishi. Mizuki, another friend of
Kazuki's believes that all things anime are a complete waste of
time. After spending the day at the comipa, or Comic Party, Kazuki
is hooked.
After being pushed and prodded by Taishi, he agrees to write and
self-publish a doujinishi. When Mizuki finds out what he is
planning, she tells him in no uncertain terms what she thinks and storms
out of the apartment. Kazuki's first attempt is a complete success,
so much so that Yuu, another writer, asks him to do a collaboration for
the next convention.
This is where things begin to get weird. Mizuki is pissed, but
watching his back. He is attempting to expand his horizons again,
while dealing with very pushy partners. With all this going on, will
his next comipa be a success or failure?
MANGA VISION TEST
ARTWORK: The artwork is generally well
done, detailed and not overly stimulating. The few lightly
shaded drawings are noticeably so and the dark ones are,
well...dark. I did, however notice that most of this manga was
gray. Gray pictures are, in their proper place, very moving and
beautiful. There are several good examples in this manga, but
mostly, they are simply flat and under contrasted.
There are
a few highly detailed pieces that caught my attention and held it for
several pages. These moments do not happen often in this book. The
extra effort put into these few images feel like they are done for
show. I have to give credit to Sekihiko Inui for his great work in
those instances.
SOUND EFFECTS: The kakimoji is
not overly conspicuous. I like the fact that not very much of it was
in English. The thoughts of the characters, those that were not
completely obvious, were written in English. This leaves a nice contrast
between sound effect and internal dialogue.
EDITS: No
edits have been noted.
EXTRAS: Included in this volume is a brief photo essay on "What is
Cosplay" and a manga term glossary.
BOOK REPORT
STORY:
Comic Party may be billed as a "comedy" but it's not that
funny. It plays more like a manga version of "Otaku No
Video". Sekihiko Inui takes a little too long to get the story
going. He also throws in a couple of subplots that really don't go
anywhere. I am sure that the pay off is later on, but I don't have
that kind of patience.
TRANSLATION: The translators for this piece did a
fair job. The basic interpretation and structure were grammatically
sound. There were some very simple structure reversals in the first
three or four chapters, however. Inadvertent perhaps, but noticeable
nonetheless. Sound translation had a few very simple errors that,
unless I were translating, I would never have noticed.
CHARACTERS:
Kazuki strikes me as a pushover. He doesn't really even want to go
to the comipa with Taishi. I think he only follows Taishi out of
boredom. He then finds doujinishi interesting, but is not moved to
Taishi's level of obsession. He also lets Yuu push him into a collaboration
that he deems a luke-warm use of talent and time.
Taishi is a highly
pushy and manipulative character. He practically shoves Kazuki into
his first comipa and considers him recruited into the writing ranks before
he has even made up his mind. His use of "comrade" is
overdone and reeks of obsession. It even borders on communist.
There are other available appellations that can be used. He is a simple,
yet dramatic character that I found easy to dislike. Others will deem a fan boy
after their own heart.
Mizuki likes her bat. That is almost all there is to say.
She beans people with it for a number of reasons. There is almost no
line to distinguish between her friends and people she cannot stand.
Other than that she is very opinionated and reminds me of someone very
close to my heart. Me.
FAN SERVICE: A few tame panty shots that really don't serve any kind of
purpose. There are plenty of references to other mangas, like
"Macross 7 Trash" and I think To-y.
FOOTNOTES:
This was a new one for me.
I started out completely hating this story. I thought it was shallow
and underdeveloped. I didn't even want to finish it. About
halfway in, I proved to myself how much patience I have. While not
overly shallow, it is just a bit on the kiddie side of the
pool. Once things start rolling, it is a very good
piece.
Sekihiko Inui very slowly brings out his dry humor in this manga.
At the beginning, I noticed little to no development. Time and
attention remedied that. His sense of humor leads me to believe his
feelings about doujinishi are much more pronounced than he is willing to
show in Kazuki. His use of Taishi may be a vent for all the
emotional and explosive things he would like to write about.
I am not really sure where Mizuki comes in. She seems to be the
potential love interest, but Yuu also fits that basic role. I
suppose variety is the spice of life, but too many options lead to
my imagination hitting overdrive. This is never a good thing
when trying to tell a story.
The use of Mizuki's emotional attachment to Kazuki is the one thing I
found truly funny. Initially, her incredibly violent behavior hides
a very pathetic kind of attachment. As she showed her quiet support
to her "man", she had me empathizing with her love-stricken
plight. Like most women, I may like a guy, but it's hard for me to
admit it.
The art work is another thing that I was unable to understand at
first. I didn't comprehend why he would go into exceptional detail
at seemingly random points, and then draw "standard" the rest of
the time. When I reached chapter eight, I came to realize that this
was intentional. The pieces that were overly detailed and extremely
beautiful emphasized whatever major event that was occurring. Two
great examples are the appearance of the one person that scares everyone
(chapter 5) and where Yuu and Kazuki are trying to make copies (chapter
8). These scenes are done to such perfection, I remembered these parts
long after I had finished the book. This is now one of my
favorite things about the manga.
The fact that I liked this story, after complaining about it to the rest
of the staff amazes me. It will never go down as one of my top 10,
but I would definitely like to find out what happens next. Go
figure, I actually changed my mind.
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