Tuesday, December 7, 2004

Busou Renkin
I am a Nobuhiro Watsuki fangirl.

This is evident in my long love-affair with the manga for Rurouni Kenshin. Make no mistake, the anime is nice and shiny and all, but the MANGA is where it's at. The Kyoto Arc is just as, if not more effective in black and white, and Jinchuu ... goodness, that still sends shivers down my spine.

Sadly, the manga had to come to an end but it ended nicely. Seisouhen? As far as I'm concerned the last OAV never happened, since it totally contridicts the ending of the manga. (I still say the only thing that OAV had going for it was adult!Yahiko and bratty!Kenji fighting.)

Hell, the ending of the manga almost upset Kenshin as my favorite character in that show, because damn, Yahiko turned out cool.

But, it ended. And then there was no more new Kenshin stuff for me to read, and I was sad. I moved on to other things. I heard of Gun Blaze West, Watsuki's newer series, but the reviews for it were... not so good. Now, I've read the first volume and it's... decent, but it acts like it's gunning (no pun intended) for a long-running series, yet it wraps in three tankobons.

So, I went about my life, got interested in other manga, still made fun of 'niisan (Kenshin) on a regular basis, and time passed. Viz released the first translated manga, and I picked it up, curious as to how they would or wouldn't butcher the series. Needless to say I was nicely surprised by their translation, and they left the 'oro's' in. POINTS FOR VIZ. Erm. But, on the 'flap' where they talked about the mangaka, it mentioned his newest series, Busou Renkin.

Now, about this time I was getting head-over-heels into ANOTHER series with 'renkin' in the title, and if you can't figure that one out NO COOKIES FOR YOU.

Okay, to be totally honest it didn't say 'Busou Renkin', they translated that title out into "Armored Alchemist." Which, actually caused a furor on one of the FMA boards I was on at the time because people were like "waitaminnit WHAT?"

So, I decided to check the series out. BUT I COULDN'T FIND IT. Anywhere. I gradually forgot about it until I came across the scans of the first handful of chapters and fell in LOVE with it.

Basically, it's a fighting manga, which I love. 'Busou Renkin' is the name of the weapons the fighters use, and can take many shapes depending on the user. The manga only uses alchemy in the loosest sense of the term, and the 'baddies' are called homunculus. That's about it for the alchemy bent, at least that I understand. My comprehension of raw Japanese manga wavers specactularly sometimes.

Something nifty I noticed, though, is the symbol of the school the main characters go to is a variant of the Rod of Aesculapius. *amused*

I love the characters, Kazuki is awesome. And he has this... pose... he does that cracks me the hell up. Tokiko is... hell, Watsuki himself said in the story notes that he wondered why she was so easy to draw, and it took him a while to realize that she has the same facial structure as the Battousai. She even has a scar, a nose cut that looks very much like the scar I gave Shrike. She's very cool, and despite wearing a skirt never looks feminine. If you get just the headshot, you catch yourself going 'wait... what's Kenshin doing in this manga?!' Which amuses me more than it should.

The Shishio joke amused me way more than it should. I think I laughed for ten minutes at that.

Oh, and the last fight in the fifth volume smacks of the Kenshin/Shishio fight, but more in a 'homage' way. And of course they had to leave it on a bloody cliffhanger, despite volume five being the most recent volume released (November 11th says the publication date). *cries quietly* I need to know what happens.

But, yeah. Busou Renkin is a lot of fun. I hope it makes it to be animated, because... I would combust with glee. GLEE. It took fourteen volumes before Bleach got the animated treatment though, so... ah, well, here's to hoping.

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Random thought... by studying alchemy does that make me an alchemist? I haven't attempted anything yet because I need access to a hearth and a tub of water for 30-32 weeks, but rest assured I'm considering it.

Heh. It's not like the process is HARD, just specactularly time-consuming. Which is why I want to try it. I mean, how's that for a conversation starter? Hi, my name is Catie, I've created the Philospher's Stone. XD

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