Count_Zero
I've been a big fan of Naoki Urasawa's work for quite some time, and while Urasawa didn't write Master Keaton, I was interested in seeing how his art helped carry across the story of the manga.
In short, Urasawa's work meshes with the story of the manga incredibly well - giving the narrative and the action the pacing it really needs, and doing a great job of showing instead of telling. That said, there are a few chunks of the story where it's clear that the writers decided to tell instead of showing, where things can consequently undermine Urasawa's art a little.
Still, fans of Urasawa should definitely give this manga a look. You'll definitely enjoy it.
Really fun and interesting mix of science fiction and fantasy... and it also has a lot of smutty content, so this definitely isn't for the prudish. The narrative moves really fast, the characters are very fleshed out, and in particular the relationship between the two leads feels very real. Some of the designs of the other characters (particularly the TV-headed) robots, feels odd for aliens which are technically from a Science Fiction world, yet design wise they scientifically shouldn't work. This isn't a big problem (I was able to roll with FLCL), but it made the tone a little weird. Not bad weird, just weird.
I'll have a review of this going on Bureau 42 in July. In short, the manga is a good adaptation of the light novel (and anime), though the manga uses more super-deformed character designs in comedic moments than the show did. Generally, the manga feels like it plays up the comedy a little bit more than the show, though the dramatic beats are there.
I thought this radio play was fairly enjoyable, though having someone other as David Suchet playing Poirot caused a bit of cognitive dissonance for me. The narrative resolution wasn't as good as I'd like - thought that's perhaps a problem of the nature of radio plays as a medium - you have to tell everything, which means omissions are an even bigger problem then they'd be normally.
This volume gives considerable more development for Eiji Nizuma, changing him from a villainous looney toon to a character who is more likeable, though his “request” makes for an odd plot thread. Additionally, this volume provides more background on the life and role of an Assistant then I knew about in the past.
In short, assistants in Anime & Manga are comparable to inkers, letterers, and (to a certain degree) colorists in western comics. Their importance to the end result is significant enough that I kind of wish assistants got credit in the tankoubons.
The (admittedly incredibly good) flashback arc has concluded, and now we return to the White Base - first as they come into port at Belfast, before moving to Gibraltar and the Mediterranean as part of the final push to drive Zeon forces from Earth, with Operation Odessa.
As with the earlier volumes, Yasuhiko's art is incredibly good, and while he's still working from Yoshiyuki Tomino's original framework, with the TV series, he builds on it in ways which do in incredible job of expanding of some of the characters. In particular, M'quve gets some considerable character growth. Miharu also gets some additional screen time, as opposed to basically being a one-episode wonder in the show.
However, after Miharu's arc, the focus of this volume is particularly on action, and the action sequences here are played out brilliantly. We have a tense cat-and-mouse duel in Gibraltar leading up to the fourth battle between Char and Amuro - along with the various parts of Operation Odessa. Yasuhiko does an excellent job basically doing a montage in sequential art. Where the original series budgetary limitations restrained the scope of this larger war, Yasuhiko is able to use the implied gaps in time between panels to let our mind fill in the pieces.
Unfortunately, with the conclusion of combat on Earth, and the next volume likely taking us back to space, this does mean that we won't get my favorite episode of Mobile Suit Gundam - the episode where a Zeon Patrol blunders across The White Base, in the forests of Northern Europe, and hopes that the Feddies will be just as caught off guard as they are, and they attempt a sneak attack. The plan doesn't work - but in the episode the Zeon troops survive, and no one on White Base is killed, so the incident serves as a nice psychological rest break, focusing on the idea that sometimes in war, a lot hinges on luck, not everything goes according to plan, and occasionally you legitimately get moments where you can end up saying “Someday, when all this is over, we'll look back on this moment and laugh.”
This is certainly a mixed bag, when it comes to the storylines. On the one hand, the first Annual, with the Flyers, is very well done, as is the whole storyline with The Wheel. On the other hand, the clear “Seven Samurai”/”Magnificent Seven” storyline that kicks off the the comic's first original story after the events of A New Hope is a bit much.
There are some recipes in this cookbook that fit the criteria of Simple, Delicious, and Affordable.
Almost every chapter features multiple dishes that involve expensive cuts of meat like filet mignon, or expensive fish like salmon. Also, while the book is generally good about giving pictures of how to perform some of the more uncommon culinary techniques (like butterflying), the fact of the matter is that I wouldn't have someone try a recipe (or even look at a recipe) that involves butterflying until they'd figured out cutting, chopping, dicing and mincing. Butterflying requires dexterity and a really sharp knife, and if you don't have those (and I'd frankly expect most people to not have those), then it's not something your average reader (who Jamie claims he's shooting for) should be trying to do.
That said, the very first chapter of the book, where Jamie gives a list of (to use Alton Brown's terminology) useful and necessary hardware for your kitchen is incredibly useful and valuable. With the exception of the mortar and pestle, with this assortment of equipment, you have absolutely everything you need to learn to cook. The cupboard list is okay too, though I'd probably recommend dropping the Marmite or Vegemite for peanut butter.
There's a lot of overlap here with the other America's Test Kitchen cookbook I've read. Hopefully when the Cook's illustrated cookbook comes out, it'll have a bigger selection of new recipes. Still, the recipes that are here are certainly quality recipes, and I'd definitely consider the book to be a worthwhile purchase.
I think Fujishima's art is at his absolute strongest this volume, with some interesting designs for some existing (and new) characters, as well as some interesting mechanical designs (and imagined - and actual - destruction)
I do like the conclusion to this story - with Bell and Keiichi telling each other reaffirming their feelings for each other - [spoiler]and the Ultimate Destruction Program fleeing into a floppy disk, and getting erased by Skuld.[/spoiler]
I'm kind of disappointed in this book. I've got a review of the book going up on my YouTube Channel on the 31st, so I don't want to give away the store, but here's the short version.The presentation of this book hurts this book. It's presented with a fictionalized narrative as opposed to the more distant tone of stuff like [b:Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture 222146 Masters of Doom How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture David Kushner https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386923206s/222146.jpg 215133]. We have significant events presented as one person describing an event to another person, which puts me, as an amatueur video game historian, in a pickle. Is what's being described hearsay, in which case the veracity of the event being recounted is questionable, because even putting any agenda out of the picture, there is the question of time's impact on memory.The fact that there is no chapter at the end of the book with references to clear some of this up, or an index to make finding particular pieces of information, also reduces the book's utility.It's an okay read. However, as a historical document, it's utility is heavily reduced by the way the material is presented - which is horrible, because had the material been presented better, this would have been the extensive and complete book on the console wars ever written.
Having the members of the Mugai-Ryu be just as bad, if not worse, than some of the members of the Ittou-ryuu does make for an interesting way of setting up shades of grey in the story, particularly due to how utterly reprehensible some of the members if the Ittou-Ryuu have been in previous volumes in the series.
