![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Feb. 24th, 2010 11:47 amOkay, so between yesterday and today I have read Volume 7 of 20th Century Boys and Volume 1 of Pluto, which makes this Let's Talk About Naoki Urasawa Day over here.
In news that is unsurprising to anyone, Twentieth Century Boys continues to be my favorite Urasawa series. (Whyyyy is there only one volume every two months ;_; My life, it is tragic.) This volume did not make me shriek quite as much as the last one, but the story is pretty clearly continuing to build to awesome! ( More spoilery thoughts. )
The first volume of Pluto I just finished on the subway this morning, and I am a.) really fascinated by the worldbuilding and interested to see where it is going and b.) really, really torn about whether to stop and go read the Astro Boy story it's based on, or, alternately, read all of Pluto, go find the Astro Boy story, and then read Pluto again! (It's only eight volumes or so . . . so it won't take that much time! Um.) So far, the story as I read it - completely unspoilered by any context - appears to be about a mysterious killer who is taking out famous/influential robots, and the robot detective who is investigating the case. The part that fascinates me is the range of robots we see and their integration into society - some of them look completely human and some of them don't at all, but regardless of their appearance they can marry, hold paid jobs, adopt children. (I kind of loved Prizefighter Robot and his five million adopted kids, I'm not going to lie.)
It does keep throwing me, I'll admit, how similar the character designs are to some of the designs in Monster. I don't have this problem with the art in 20th Century Boys - while it's totally recognizable Urasawa and there is some overlap in character designs (Kanna and Nina, anyone?) most of the main cast look different enough that I'm not jarred - but with Pluto I keep forgetting that I'm reading a totally non-Monster story and being like "HEY AN UNDERGROUND JAPANESE DOCTOR IS THAT - no. No, that's definitely not." It doesn't help that it's set in Germany. Though I do love the thought that Urasawa puts into drawing his futuristic cities. And also, into everything, because, let's face it, it's Naoki Urasawa.
In news that is unsurprising to anyone, Twentieth Century Boys continues to be my favorite Urasawa series. (Whyyyy is there only one volume every two months ;_; My life, it is tragic.) This volume did not make me shriek quite as much as the last one, but the story is pretty clearly continuing to build to awesome! ( More spoilery thoughts. )
The first volume of Pluto I just finished on the subway this morning, and I am a.) really fascinated by the worldbuilding and interested to see where it is going and b.) really, really torn about whether to stop and go read the Astro Boy story it's based on, or, alternately, read all of Pluto, go find the Astro Boy story, and then read Pluto again! (It's only eight volumes or so . . . so it won't take that much time! Um.) So far, the story as I read it - completely unspoilered by any context - appears to be about a mysterious killer who is taking out famous/influential robots, and the robot detective who is investigating the case. The part that fascinates me is the range of robots we see and their integration into society - some of them look completely human and some of them don't at all, but regardless of their appearance they can marry, hold paid jobs, adopt children. (I kind of loved Prizefighter Robot and his five million adopted kids, I'm not going to lie.)
It does keep throwing me, I'll admit, how similar the character designs are to some of the designs in Monster. I don't have this problem with the art in 20th Century Boys - while it's totally recognizable Urasawa and there is some overlap in character designs (Kanna and Nina, anyone?) most of the main cast look different enough that I'm not jarred - but with Pluto I keep forgetting that I'm reading a totally non-Monster story and being like "HEY AN UNDERGROUND JAPANESE DOCTOR IS THAT - no. No, that's definitely not." It doesn't help that it's set in Germany. Though I do love the thought that Urasawa puts into drawing his futuristic cities. And also, into everything, because, let's face it, it's Naoki Urasawa.
