Manga came this morning

[petronia]

(You have no idea how much I've been waiting for this amazon.co.jp shipment.) Plowed through the new Petshop of Horrors on the metro and during lunch break. Matsuri Akino is in fine fettle, I'd write a thoughtful review of the stories but I think the bit with, uh, Eva Braun's kirin** broke me. X_X;;;

...Well. The first three stories are from '04, and are in the Usual Manner except D's shop is now on the something-th floor of a Chinatown-themed shopping mall in Shinjuku Kabukichou, with a view out the windows and everything. ^^; It's still bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. The last story is from '99 (the original series having ended in '98), Matsuri sez it was one of three she wrote dealing with D's grandfather's past but something unclear happened to the other two. Sounds like fallout from the original magazine folding. Leon is briefly mentioned in that one, in the sense that D has to skip town (Berlin) in a hurry to stay a step ahead of him. XD;;



** The truth of the matter being that Blondi the German shepherd did not die of cyanide in Hitler's bunker. That is it looks like a German shepherd in the pitchurs but the camera plays tricks as well as the human eye as is v. well known.

Comments

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

Eva Braun's....kirin. Oh dear. Now, this I want to see. The strange thing about Pet Shop of horrors is that usually I don't like the episodic plots of series and focus on the uberplot, but there I am the opposite.

[akatonbo.livejournal.com]

...new PSoH? Oh dear. Wonder if TokyoPop will pick that up.

[starlighter.livejournal.com]

[petronia.livejournal.com]

By the third story or so a character-with-suspicions does turn up (the usual rumours re D's shop being a front for an escort service and/or white slavery having spread), though not a cop - the young businessman heir of the Shanghai family that owns the mall in which D is operating. He started off wanting a clear account and a cut of the profits, and ended in a rage trying to dig up any evidence that would allow him to turf D from his rental space after D stonewalled him and uhh as good as called him a nouveau-riche rustic in a bland aside regarding his accent in Mandarin. XD;; There's actually the odd novel character here and there - a dude with little round sunglasses who watches the counter while D is off on business trips, for instance. Q is of course gone.

Going by the Berlin story Leon is chasing after D doggedly, and D is avoiding Leon assiduously. ^^; I have no idea if he'll catch up. It depends on if and when Matsuri-sensei feels like dealing with it, I suppose.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Mmm, actually I'm the same. (Although there is only so much uberplot in PSoH; it's more like a building up through example of a multi-faceted metaphor regarding humanity and nature. Some elements of the original ending verged on incomprehensible, but somehow I don't feel Matsuri Akino will clarify them in the sequel. XD;;)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I hope they do, though I suspect it's an entirely different set of people they'd have to negotiate with. ^^;

[starlighter.livejournal.com]

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

Mostly volume ten, but I truly did not get what was going on with D and his family; of course there's some quasi-Buddhist (or is it Taoist?) message about arrogant humans and nature, but this doesn't resonate with me, for some reason. I can't say it's because I've heard it before because the same can be said for nearly all manga, but it just doesn't click.