Garon Tsuchiya (1947–2018)

Old Boy is pretty much what I'm looking for in a seinen manga. The story is straighforward: an unnamed man, having been held captive for ten years, is released onto the streets of Tokyo. Not knowing why he was a captive or who arranged his captivity, he starts to put a life together with the aim of the one thing he has left: revenge. There's not much of the 'revenge' component yet, as this first volume is mostly set-up; but this is obviously a slow build story and the revenge will surely be show more that much sweeter when it arrives.

While I hold out to see if Tsuchiya's story will pay off, I can definitely recommend the art by Minegishi. In layout and pacing it compares favorably to Goseki Ikegami; he is able to use an eleven-panel page to give a simultaneous sense of timelessness and time passing, or break out a two-page spread at the moment of maximum impact. The backgrounds are often detailed to the point of gorgeousness and the figures are expressive without veering into cartoonishness.

If future volumes can hold up the level of quality and move the story forward, Old Boy should make for a worthwhile ride over its eight volumes.

Rating: 3.5 (of 5). show less

After the death of his older sister, Masahiko takes the last CD she listened to as a keepsake. To Masahiko's surprise, listening to the cd causes his spirit to separate from his body. Roaming the astral plane and occasionally coming in to contact with other wanderers, Masahiko searches for answers as to why the CD causes this and if it may have some connection to his sister's mysterious death.

Astral Project is a well drawn and well written manga with an interesting suspense-filled premise show more and multi-dimensional characters. While in the first chapters the main character's thoughts jump around a bit too much for me and he acclimated a little too quickly and calmly to the idea of astral projection and that it might be connected to his sister's death, I can suspend disbelief for that period since after that all actions and thoughts were believable and lead to interesting revelations.

Still, I won't be reading any more of Astral Project as it's just not quite the kind of story I'm interested in personally. While I frequently find manga aimed at younger audiences to be exaggeratedly earnest and heartfelt for my tastes, I ran into a problem I frequently do with other titles aimed at older audiences: It goes (for me) too much the other way. Masahiko is difficult to penetrate and the whole manga feels emotionally distant. Every reoccurring character has a good does of cynicism to their personality, and while as a sometimes cynical person myself this can be refreshing compared to a lot of manga, after a while an emotionally distant world feels just as hard to relate to as the exaggeratedly sweet heart-on-their-sleeve worlds of younger manga.

Still, Astral Project is probably a great pick for some readers. It's got an interesting concept and is well written and mature. Enjoyment will just depend on your tastes. show less

The cover of the book features a small blurb that compares this to Pulp Fiction or Payback. So far, it seems a bit closer to the later film, but we shall see. Our protagonist was locked away in a secret prison for 10 years, then one day, out of the blue, he is drugged, packed in a large trunk, then dumped in some park. He is free. He has no idea why he was imprisoned, but he knows he wants to find out and get his revenge. This is a gritty, pretty well paced read. I think readers in large show more measure will stick with it because, like our protagonist, we want to find out why he was imprisoned. We get hints of who may have done it, but still, that lingering question remains, the motive. The volume sets up the series pretty well, and it is a series I do plan on following. This is one I do recommend. show less

Dark, violent, mysterious but with reason Old boy is a story about man exacting revenge. Fight scenes were striking and definitely PG-18 material. a good read with a good amount of visual angst.