| Nov. 15th, 2009 @ 12:19 am Anime/manga rec: Loveless |
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MANGA: Loveless (since 2002) [] Mangaka: Kouga Yun Groups Scanlating: Kamibana Scanlations, Obsession, Shoku-dan, Raburesu lj Status: 9 Volumes (ongoing), licensed; scanlation ongoing Genre: Drama Fantasy Mystery School Life Shounen Ai Supernatural Found: was recced by lots of people and has been languishing on my HD for about a year. Summary: From Tokyopop: Aoyagi Ritsuka is one troubled 6th grader. Two years ago, he mysteriously lost his memory and developed an alternate personality. His mother constantly berates (and occasionally beats) him, asking what happened to the "real" Ritsuka, and his only defender and friend, his older brother Seimei, was recently killed. Suddenly, Seimei's apparent "friend," Soubi, appears. Soubi tells him that Ritsuka's true name is "Loveless," and that Soubi was assigned by Seimei to take care of Ritsuka and protect him. Ritsuka soon gets sucked into a bizarre underground society where teams of people, a "Fighter" and a "Sacrifice," battle using elaborate and beautifully-phrased spells. He seeks both acceptance of himself and the answer to the mystery of who killed his brother and why. Download: at the groups' sites.
ANIME (2005) Starts at Vol 1, Ch 1. Ends at Vol 4, Ch 9. Director: Yuu Kou *summary at Animenews is rather misleading. Status: Prologue + 12 ep x 23 min. |
My notes: now this is some seriously weird stuff! I mean seriously weird. Weird main characters, not to say fucked-up, very strange relationships between them, things being turned upside down again and again as the story goes on, elements of various genres used, - this all creates a very strange whole.
I fell into a complex love/hate with this universe from the very first look. You see, kids have cat's ears and tails there. On the one hand, the worst kind of Yaoi I ever read was one with cat's ears in it: pointless, cliched, drawn so-so, and catering to readers' kinks at the expense of everything else. On the other, if I ever see it done well, I'll fall in love with it because I love cats and their ears, when they ever allow you to pet them, are awesome. I don't mind Furries. So I was prepared to hate it but hoping to love it, but in the end, it turned out to be neither. Because cat's ears in this universe ( Read more... )
I think I will continue following this manga when more chapters get published and scanlated. Hope it doesn't disappoint.
I don't have any advise on what to begin with if you want to try it, anime or manga. I started with the anime, following on to the manga in hope that it would clear some confusion. It did but confused me in other things all the more :) I don't really think the order of getting acquainted with the two media matters. Pick the one you like better and give it a try. At the very least it will entertain you.
And a request, for the ending: most amazing, fantastic, wonderful, really well-written Ritsuka/Soubi fics. Those that don't reproduce yaoi cliches. Know them? Bring them on!
PS: While I tried to avoid big spoilers, I can't guarantee that there will be no spoilers in comments. Tread with caution :)
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