District 14, Season 1

Every once in a while, I come across a work of fiction that I can't help but gush about in a shamefully fan-boyish fashion, while at the same time I also can't help but feel a bit jealous of its creator(s), simply because its exactly the kind of work I wish I had come up with myself.
The french comic District 14 (or Cité 14 in original) written by Pierre Gabus, drawn by Romuald Reutimann and published in English by Humanoids, is exactly the kind of work I'm talking about.

Dear reader, welcome to District 14; a city-state populated not just by regular human beings, but also by anthropomorphic animals, aliens and even the occasional superhero. Our introduction to this bustling community comes through a newly arrived immigrant, an elephant, who has been forced to leave his homeland due to certain circumstances. Given the new name, Michael Elizondo (due to a linguistic misunderstanding), our pachyderm friend soon finds a job as an assistant and bodyguard to the investigative reporter, Hector  McKeagh. As the duo chases after the next big scoop, they soon find themselves caught up in a mystery, one which will net them a bunch of powerful and ruthless enemies.

Gabus and Reutimann have created a very detailed, living world, populated by a rich and varied cast of characters. Gabus' writing does an excellent job at making each character seem as if he or she has their own elaborate back-story waiting to be uncovered. The plot is also well-told and grows more intricate, with many twists and turns, as it evolves. As for Reutimann's art, I can't think of much to say about it (you may notice that I don't talk a lot about the artwork when I review comics for some reason; mostly because I prefer to let the panels I post speak for themselves), except that I found it very enjoyable to look at and that it fit the story perfectly.

I should point out that by the end of the first volume/season a lot of questions regarding the plot remain unanswered. Without spoiling to much, I can however say that we get to learn why Michael had to leave his homeland, his real name and why he needs to drink that disgusting tea he's always brewing. A lot of the other plot-points will hopefully be answered in season 2, which I'm looking forward to read.

In case it hadn't been clear by now, I absolutely loved District 14 and urge everyone with an interest in quality comics to give it a try.

A Somewhat Negative Post

You may have noticed, dear reader, that this blog tend to skew more towards the positive side of things, which is exactly how I want it. You see, as fun and enjoyable it can be to watch or read a review that tears a bad work of fiction to pieces, I personally prefer to focus on the stuff I enjoy and if I happen to make other people interested in checking out said stuff, than that's an added bonus. That said, for the sake of variety I thought I'd write a bit about two things I watched recently that I did not like. Here we go:

First out we have BlazBlue Alter Memory, a twelve episode anime series. This show was my first foray into the BlazBlue universe. Prior to watching it, here's what I knew about BlazBlue as a whole:

*Its a series of fighting games that are quite popular.
*There are two characters named Hazama and Relius. They are villains and one of them belongs to the manipulative trickster school of villainy.
*There's a girl who is some sort of half-human half-squirrel hybrid. Maybe she is supposed to be a reference to Marvel's Squirrel Girl or something? I honestly don't know.

Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes, the show itself. Well, I watched the first three episodes out of twelve and I won't be watching the rest. Why? Well, to be honest, it's because I found BlazBlue Alter Memory to be utterly fucking terrible: The characters are cliched and annoying, the plot is vague and failed to capture my interest and to top it of, the fight-scenes are unexciting, which is a pretty big flaw for an anime based on a fighting game. Maybe it gets better, but there's simply nothing about the show that makes me want to stick with it and find out if that's the case. Frankly, there are plenty of other anime out there that I'd rather spend my time on.

As for the actual games. Well, I haven't played them (obviously) but they have to be better than this. At any rate, I can hardly see them be worse.

Next we have Tetsuo: Iron Man, a Japanese cult-film from the 80's. Now, this movie actually starts out promising, being grotesque and creepy in a way that really made me sit up and take notice. Unfortunately, the length of the film work against it. Had Tetsuo been a short-film, at about 20-30 minutes, my impression of it would likely have been much more positive. Unfortunately, this is a full-length film and after awhile, I found myself bored with it, wishing for a movie that offered a more substantial story and characters that were actually interesting.I'm sure there are people out there who find this brilliant, but I'm not one of them.

So, there you have it. To end things on a more positive note, I recently began watching Agent Carter and so far, its been really good. Here's hoping it doesn't get cancelled.