I’m not writing the summaries for Black Lagoon volumes six and seven anymore. Now, it’s not because I’m lazy or anything, but I noticed that they have already been scanlated. Whatever, saves me work anyway.

What you all will get instead is a, brief for now, impression of Black Lagoon volume one by VIZ.

I was pretty torn between keeping the book sealed and removing the wrapping. After mulling it over for almost a week, my inner critic won the battle. Okay, let’s get down to business.

The fronter cover is left untouched except for some minor text and positional adjustments. Comparison is below.

The art is completely unedited from what I can tell at this point. All the blood is still there. I’ll being doing a more comprehensive read-through when I have the time so consider the evaluation in this category subject to change.

A quick flip shows the language being pretty damn foul. The word “shit” seems to be a staple to the dialogue, and f-bombs are dropped continuously by characters without hesitation. There are some occasions where the English in the original Japanese publication is put through a font change, although why that happened is anyone’s guess. Again, I’ll be going through the book for a more complete impression, so consider this category also subject to change.

I was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of the volume end extra. Truthfully, I didn’t expect this. A nice touch by VIZ.

At almost $16 a book, perhaps justified by its physically larger size in comparison to the standard size of North American releases, this is a hefty investment for a single volume. But I’m inclined to say it’s totally worth the money.

Okay, that’s it for now. A more completely impression will be posted when I have to time to write it up.

*Not spell-checked so beware of typos*

*SPOILERS BELOW!*

Summary

Onboard the flying machine, Cou and the gang are approaching the national boarder of Nad Lezen. They’re still under the pursuit of the air force lead by Commander Houston. Bocca calls Cou to his side and whispers something in his ear that causes him to be taken aback. Unwillingly, Cou herds everyone to the back of the plane on Bocca’s instruction. Before heading to the back himself, Euschut stops him and reminds him of his promise to Ren.

Once in the rear compartment of the machine, Cisqua asks Cou why have they been relocated and Cou reveals Bocca’s plan of severing the plane in two to allow them to escape while Bocca himself acts as a decoy to lure away their pursuers.

Houston and his squad fires on the flying machine and manages to score a hit, but Bocca’s plan executes without a hitch and the rear compartment is ditched from the main body of the flying machine. As the gang falls, Cou purges the fuselage, exposing the true nature of their plummeting sarcophagus: a mini flying machine.

Having rid himself of some excess weight, Bocca gains the upper hand in manoeuvrability. He swerves behind one enemy fighter jet and puts it out of business. Anger by this sudden show of force, Houston faces off directly with Bocca in a game of chicken. As the two machines seemingly collide in the confrontation, readers are led to believe Bocca’s plane is downed.

Cou and company pray for the safety of Bocca and Euschut, but they are quickly spotted by the last remaining enemy fighter under the command of the female officer Coachner (コーチネル). Cisqua retaliates with her trademark missiles which, much to everyone’s surprise, rids them of their problem. Unfortunately, they are also out of fuel and the mini flyer resumes its uncontrolled descent towards the surface. The crew exits the wreckage miraculously unscathed to find themselves before the grand causeway that bridges the continent with Edel Garden.

But fate is not so kind to our traveller friends, as now the path to their final destination is well in sight they face a possible new threat. Blocking their way across the causeway is the gun-toting Pleasure from previous volumes and his Edel Raid partner, Endi (エンディー). After a round of questions and answers, the Pleasure refuses the group passage across the causeway, stating keeping them from reaching Edel Garden is the mission given to him. With negotiation no longer a viable option, Rowen, Kuea and Cisqua assaults this mysterious obstacle in hopes of toppling him. For the first time in the series, the ARC AILE trio is easily swept aside by a single opponent. It is now blatantly obvious that compared to the man standing before them, they are mere amateurs.

Seeing how his companions are in need of backup, Cou requests for a reaction, but his wish is unrequited by the snores of a sleeping Ren. Endi approaches Cou and cautions him to allow Ren to rest and is attacked by a Cou keen on keeping his promise to his partner. The displeased Endi makes quick work of our untrained hero and pins him to the ground with oversized hairpins that she pulls from her hair.

The skirmish with the Pleasure continues, but the ARC AILE trio is unable to even scratch their adversary no matter what they throw his way. The Pleasure is also shockingly knowledgeable about the trio and the workings of ARC AILE in general. Finally, in possibly one of the cheesiest plot twist techniques known to literature, the mystery man reveals his former* identity: the commanding officer of former ARC AILE Special Forces BG, Vargret (バーグレット).

The news comes as a shock to even the ARC AILE trio, who apparently has never met a member of the BG Corps. As a way of proving his identity, Vargret plays a recording from Commissioner Faulk briefing him, rather emotionally**, on the mission. While the recording is unquestionably from Faulk, Rowen recalls that the special forces are already dissolved, and Vargret notes the dissolution is due to his constant absence. He also addresses the possibility of punishment in the forms of demotion, pay deduction, transfer, with the worst case scenario being immediate dismissal for the trio upon their return to ARC AILE headquarters. Driven mad by the possibilities, Cisqua goes berserk and attacks Vargret with Rowen. Again they are easily dispatched by the skilled veteran, who then proceeds to point out their individual faults.

By now Ren has opened her eyes and is somewhat confused by the situation. In another twist of fate, Vargret announces they can now journey to Edel Garden, but on one condition. They must serve as his subordinates. He begins to impart about his other mission, but a dishevelled Coachner emerges and starts throwing a tantrum about how they destroyed her military passion and blah, and in the process discloses the information of Bocca’s survival. But the surprises don’t end there. Coachner’s real position isn’t with the Nad Lezen air force. She is a member of Benellita’s personal army, the Framboise Honey. At a snap of her fingers, the group is surrounded by a platoon of Viro.

Judging from their current position, escape for all of them is highly unlikely. Vargret has Cisqua convince Cou to take Ren and head across the causeway first while they hold off the Viro. Despite being reluctant to leave his comrades, Cou complies and takes off with Ren. This plans fails, however, as a hidden sniper shot makes the group realise nobody is going to get away unless they stand and fight.

The battle with the Viro proves extremely difficult. Endi is ensnared by her spider Viro enemy who traps her with adhesive strands formed from saliva. Vargret liberates her before the Viro could make the final strike, and slaughters two of them with ease. His physical prowess takes Coachner by surprise and he is able to seize her by the neck, but Coachner manages to injure Vargret and runs to her Pleasure Ferris the sniper. Together they react and put their sadistic session into action.

Vargret contacts the trio via radio informing them of the sniper and Coachner’s real form. He leaves the Viro for the trio to take care of while he sets his eyes on Ferris and Coachner.

Rowen is having quite a bit of trouble with his Viro opponent due to her cute appearance. Unable to bring himself to harm a female, Rowen’s progress is greatly hindered. In a flash of pure genius, he recalls his experience as a male escort and discovers a suitable tactic to tackling his troubling enemy. Employing the basics of pleasing female customers as a male escort Rowen woos the Viro into submission before delivering the final blow.

Cisqua isn’t faring well, either. Her battle with the Spinning Viro can only be described as catastrophic. Yet despite all her injuries, she does not fight back….

*Okay, so who introduces themselves with their former identity? This just strikes me as being very dumb considering the truth comes out right after his intro. Kills the dramatic reveal completely. Dumb. Just dumb.

**More like screaming his head off.

Impression

Boy, oh, boy. This has to be one of the worst and messiest volumes of the series so far. While the sudden return to humour is welcomed (even if it’s kind of stale and extremely intrusive), this volume simply fails to hold itself together. As if two inconclusive battles are not enough, Azuma goes the extra length and shoots herself in the foot with this Vargret character. There’s nothing inherently wrong with Vargret as a character other than he’s somewhat bland, but the contents of his dialogue bothers the living shit out of me, specifically his criticism of Rowen and Cisqua. If this is Azuma’s idea of character evolution, I’m just not for it at this point. Cisqua’s missile spam is a trademark of the slapstick humour in the series. Removing that would vastly undermine her comedic edge. Rowen’s “lack of determinism and certainty” in battle gives him a genuinely humanistic fortitude rarely seen in other shounen action titles. To “correct” that would reduce Rowen to a standard, run-of-the-mill, and possibly even mildly repulsive shounen fighter. Should any of this come to pass in future volumes I’d be pretty damn disappointed.

I’ve also a bone to pick with the whole Viro affair. Back in volume eleven when the unique portrayal of the internal state of Megane Viro captured my attention, I was curious as to how Azuma will take advantage of it. Well, she didn’t. Instead of capitalising on the infrastructure she’s already built, Azuma takes it apart and spits on it. With the stage set for some perfect exploration of the Viro order, their nature, and their twisted servitude to Orga Nite, and perhaps even some commentary on the psychology of the Viro, Azuma could have really kicked some new life into the stagnant story of Elemental Gelade. But she does the complete opposite by demoting the Viro to insignificant cannon fodder and cookie-cutter villains.

Elemental Gelade has really taken a turn for the worst. The story is steadily degrading into the villain-of-the-week format with no signs of improvement. A couple more volumes like this and I would seriously contemplate quitting the series. Elemental Gelade without its humour is bad enough, but to deprive the characters of their trademark nuances could prove to be a real show-stopper for me.

Today was an unexpectedly hectic day. I’m done with the summary outline for volume fourteen but I’m afraid that’s all I’m going to be able to get done today. The fully fleshed out summary will be finished and posted tomorrow afternoon.

I mentioned that I’ll be writing summaries for Black Lagoon very soon, but looks like I’ll have to put that on hold for a bit. Volume fourteen of Elemental Gelade came out so I’m going to be doing a summary for that first, probably tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll finish it on the same day, as well. If it isn’t post by the end of the day tomorrow, then it’ll be up sometime Monday.

I find it fascinating how I’m suppose to be on vacation right now yet I still have tonnes of unwanted shit to do. Complaints aside, though, I’m going to start working on volume summaries for Black Lagoon volumes six and seven pretty soon. I’ve only got about one and a half months left before having to haul my ass back to university for another eight months of studying. At least I’ve managed to secure my preferred courses for the coming semester. Last year was practically hell for me since I had to wade through all those unnecessary and painful courses.

I’ve decided to drop my Del Rey Air Gear adaptation reviews. The number one reason for this is pure laziness, really. I have no excuses. The other reason is because the books look so nice and new in their shrink wraps I just don’t want to “ruin” them by removing their covers and bending their pages. Before anyone suggest buying two copies, let me squash that idea for you. I’m not going to purchase two copies of the same material just for the sake of writing reviews. I’m not that financially capable, and believe it or not manga in North America is, compared to the rest of the world, pretty damn expensive. I will be, however, continuing with the Elemental Gelade reviews when I feel like it. Summaries for EG will unquestionably continue whenever I get my hands on a new volume.

The blog update ends here. My rant begins here. If you’re not interested, stop now.

I honestly haven’t written anything in a while and my mind and fingers feel surprisingly numb as I am typing out this entry. Maybe it’s time for me to pick up that pen and start writing again.

Looking back on some of my previous works (if one can even call them that), it’s not difficult to see a certain degree of immaturity in them. I admit I’ve done stupid things and written stupid articles. At the time they seemed all nice and kosher, but after you leave it for a while then come back to read it again all the faults begins to float to the surface. I often ask myself why that happens. The easiest answer is “people change.” I’ve changed, and what seemed so “right” at the time no longer applies to the me that I’ve become. Yet at the same time this reason reeks of the stench of an excuse. It feels all too convenient to be able to dismiss one’s mistakes as the works of change. It’s like saying after one has written something he or she is no longer responsible for it anymore. In a sense, this is like the internet message boards, but I suppose anonymity plays a bigger role there. Still, the fundamental aspect of irresponsibility is the same, and I have huge beef with acts of irresponsibility. Thus, I cannot accept the excuse of change as a way to justify literary atrocities that both I and others have committed.

I talked to some friends about this and they tell me I’m just being too hard on myself. “We all make mistakes,” they say, “after all, we’re only human, right?” Well, yes, we are all human. Being human, we are all inherently imperfect. There isn’t much I can argue about when people play the “we’re only human” card. I mean, they are right. But doesn’t this seem just as avoidant as attributing our inconsideration to change? In my book it certainly is, so out with this explanation, as well.

After a whole afternoon of pondering and searching, I still can’t find a suitable reason to explain my misses. I had to stop eventually since my mother was getting nervous about me staring listlessly out the window. For the hell of it, I asked her about her views on this whole thing, but she played the “we’re only human” card and drained away all my life points in one hit. Darn, I should have knew better….