Maki Murakami (1)

In high school, a friend of mine insisted I read these books. She described her own reaction as, "Why have I waited so long?" and how much she had liked them. I finally said okay, borrowed the first three? books from her...and read through them all in one night. I couldn't put them down. I stopped at the fourth book, though. I didn't have the attention span to continue the series. That's common with me as an adult; I rarely read series past the first book. So, back then, I read those first three manga and my reaction, too, was, "Why have I waited so long?" I freakin' -adored- the series, and identified so much with Yuki. I was trying to become a professional novelist. Eighteen years later, I became an amateur playwright and I'm so pleased. But back as a teen, I was arrogant as shit. I saw myself in Yuki a lot. As an adult...I am realizing over and over how much I have changed as a person now that I have more life experience and am a more critical reader. This is the definition of melodrama, and it's fucking stupid. This is Enemies to Lovers on complete fast-forward. Shuichi is eighteen and in high school, but he acts like he's twelve or even younger. Yuki is twenty-two, and high schoolers dating people older than them squicks me out. Nineteen dating eighteen or something, fine. Other than that--you're dating someone who still has homework and is still surrounded by children. Teenagers are slightly older children. Yuki is engaging sexually with someone who is mentally, and maybe even physically, still a child. I know people who didn't finish puberty until they were nearly nineteen. Squick squick squick.

So nothing happens in this first volume, to the extent that...I wonder if I somehow read the scans wrong, or they were cut off at an odd point. Yes, the wind blows his lyrics out of his hands, and yes, he jumps in front of Yuki's car FUCKING MORON YOU COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED. It's a desperate, desperate bid for his attention and UGH. I totally bought it as a teenager, too, given that the melodrama was so high! I questioned NOTHING. Not Shuichi's stalking of Yuki, not his harrassment of Yuki, not Hiro's arguable sexualization of Shuichi. Shuichi seemed not to notice this, though. He's willfully ignorant of a bunch of stuff and comes across as stupid plus naive. Yuki and Shuichi met ONCE for less than five minutes when the lyrics blew away, and Shuichi unleashed his considerable stalker powers and unhinged emotions. This is marketed as EROTICA. Nothing happens sexually in the first volume I read, and I remember even sixteen years ago, consent was blurred when it DID happen.

I had no idea I would wind up hating the first volume so much. Friendships are not shown. We, the audience, are just supposed to accept it. Yuki's a bestselling romance author at twenty-two? Sounds like plagiarism to me. I've--it--it's just so unlikely. There's no romance or chemistry between Shuichi or Yuki. Yuki hates him and Shuichi won't leave him alone. Tohma is just tossed in there for no reason. Yuki's sister is there to--what? Shuichi jumps to conclusions so much that I'm wondering if he doesn't have back injuries yet. Shut up and slow down, little boy. To the adults in this: stop laughing at him, sit him down, and explain his behavior is wrong. You irresponsible jerks are just encouraging him.

This is a terrible introduction to yaoi manga, dated and melodramatic even for its time, and I wouldn't recommend it for anyone. It's boring, repetitive, and stupid. I'd say go read "Kizuna" or "Loveless," but those books can be acquired tastes. I remember being shocked by how blunt ""Kizuna" was compared to "Gravitation," which is shonen-ai in comparison. "Loveless" had an actual plot, which I couldn't get into at the time so I put it down. Shrug.… (meer)

I saw the anime before attempting to read the manga. Just to let you know, they're very different.

The manga has some definite non-con that the anime glosses over. Shuichi and Eiri meet at a different point in their life--Shuichi is still in high school for one thing and is living at home with his mother and sister.

Basically, I went into this manga with some preconceived notions of what was going to happen that I immediately had shattered. Your first sign that the manga and anime have diverged? The drawing style is very different--where did my pink haired cutie go???

This was a very average shounen-ai manga that has sentimental value at least as one of the very first of the genre to cross the Japanese-English language barrier.… (meer)

I saw this at a used bookstore and picked it up because sometimes I need a little crazy in my reading, and Maki Murakami is good for that. It wasn't until later that I learned that Gamerz Heaven is a 4-volume series, and ADV only put out 2 volumes in English. Which means, unless I hunt down scanlations, I'll never get to finish the series. So annoying...

Anyway, at least this volume delivered on the craziness. No, there wasn't a giant robotic panda (read Gravitation if you don't know what I'm talking about), but there was Murakami's usual over-the-top male protagonist (wearing a t-shirt with a logo that changed every few pages, or even from one panel to the next) and a virtual reality world that was a mix of destructive monster battles and mundane reality. For example, the first time the area boss appears, he's buying a pack of cigarettes at a convenience store. Everyone at the store kneels before him because he's the boss, but that doesn't stop the store manager from calling the cops on him after he turns the place into a pile of rubble.

Those with at least a little gaming knowledge will probably appreciate this volume the most. Gamerz Heaven (the game) laughs in the face of learning curves. Within seconds of entering the game, Kaito has to figure out how to equip a weapon and battle a monster. The next time he logs on, without even getting a chance to level up, he runs into Rush, the area boss. The third time he logs on, he finds himself face-to-face with the final boss. Since all Kaito has been able to do so far is beat low-level monsters, run away, and spit blood, I'm curious to see how he'll manage to survive in the next volume. His friend Kawashima seems to be a more able fighter in the game than him, but I doubt even she would be able to fight the final boss so soon after beginning to play the game.

This volume introduced some mysteries I'd like to find out more about. Who created Gamerz Heaven, and why did that person send the disc specifically to Kaito? Ren, Kaito's game creator friend, seemed particularly interested when Kaito mentioned Rush, so I wonder if there's a real-world Rush and if Ren knows him. Also, why does Itsuki hate Kaito so much? She actively encourages bullies to go after him, and she arranges things so he'll probably be expelled. So far, my guess is that she's also linked to Gamerz Heaven. Her hairstyle is somewhat similar to that of the final boss, so maybe her game avatar is the final boss?

It's a little frustrating, knowing that I might never find out the answers to all my questions, and volume 2 might bring up even more. What I've read so far has definitely piqued my interest, and it would be nice to see how things turn out.

I should note that, as is usually the case with Murakami's works, the characters are so-so. Kaito's a game-obsessed maniac (although thankfully not as whiny as Gravitation's Shuichi). Kawashima playfully uses him as a punching bag while also maybe nursing a slight crush on him. Ren and Rush are both badass, which we mostly know because that's what we're told and because they both bear a strong resemblance to Gravitation's Yuki. Itsuki is mysterious, a little menacing, and not much else. Nata is supposedly adorable (Kaito squee'd over him a lot, but I wasn't particularly impressed). And the volume's other characters are barely worth mentioning. This is the sort of series you read for the premise and the craziness, not the characters.

All in all, I like the series so far and, if all 4 volumes were available, my guess is that I'd probably be reading them. I've submitted an ILL request for the second volume, because, what the heck, I might as well. Bring on the never-going-to-finish-this-series pain!

Extras:

One page of translator's notes, which was somewhat helpful.

(Original review, with read-alikes and watch-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)… (meer)

I had a lot of fun with the first volume of this series. This volume wasn't as good.

There were quite a few characters I didn't care about. Only one of the three bullies was at all memorable, although I suppose all three were necessary for the “ultimate form” joke. The second girl in Kaito's group (I can't remember her name, but it wasn't his friend Kawashima) seemed like a combination of Ren (dry sense of humor) and Kawashima (fanboy bait; ability to fight enemies better than Kaito) in terms of the purpose she served, but both those characters were more interesting than her.

In the previous volume, Itsuki was shown quietly orchestrating Kaito's bullying and eventual expulsion, so I thought her motives in the real world might turn out to have some link to world in Gamerz Heaven. The whole “she torments Kaito because she has an unrecognized crush on him” thing was kind of...lame. Although I did laugh when Kaito said that anyone he talks to is his friend. Kaito's definition of “friend” is extremely broad. I wasn't attached enough to Itsuki to feel sad about her death. All I really felt was frustration that a potentially interesting storyline was fumbled so badly.

Rush's reappearance was also less-than-satisfying. He seemed to pop in and out of the story entirely according to Murakami's whims, disappearing after getting his butt kicked in the beginning of the volume (to be fair, he hadn't expected Kaito's friends to drop in like that) and then suddenly reappearing with Lost Soul in tow before disappearing again after revealing that (maybe) he wasn't really one of the game's big villains. Although Ren seemed to perk up at the mention of Rush's name in the previous volume, I don't remember there being any sign that he knew him or recognized him in this one.

My favorite parts of the volume were probably the cosplay/item shop and Lost Soul's appearance. The cosplay shop bit played on what I consider to be one of this series' strengths, the RPG/gaming humor. It was better and funnier than Murakami's brief trip into tentacle rape humor, which I could have done without. Lost Soul got the mystery aspect of Gamerz Heaven back on track. Nata had no data on him, so I'd love to know who he is (underneath all his gear, he looks an awful lot like an evil Nata). I was also intrigued by the brief, shadowy revelation, at the end of the volume, of yet another villain. Whoever that guy is, he's strong enough to have Rush in chains. I'm going to bet that he's the guy who designed Gamerz Heaven in the first place.

All in all, I was a little disappointed with this volume. I'd still read the next one, if it were possible for me to do so – I don't know if it was ever released in English, but it doesn't look like it's available from any libraries, and the only copies of volume 3 that I can find for sale are either in Japanese or incredibly expensive. I suppose this is where my Gamerz Heaven reading will have to end. The one good thing about this volume being so disappointing is that I'm less upset about not getting to read further than I might otherwise have been.

Extras:

Again, there are a couple pages of translator's notes. There's also a page in which Murakami adds censorship pixels to random panels from Gamerz Heaven, completely changing how those scenes could be interpreted. The result is...dirty.

(Original review, with read-alikes and watch-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)… (meer)