POST 4: Your own choice of a a film, series, song or book (novel, play, essay, comic, graphic novel) dealing with the 'MYTHS & HEROES' notion

Hey world! Even though this is a post for work, Don't leave it right now for I think it is a good occasion to make a first presentation of a non-manga work, for today's post will be about a sci-fi book,

The Ones!

As the most clever will have noticed, it is a book wrote by Daniel Sweren Becker that was released on September the 6th of 2016 by the Imprint edition. This book isn't very well known, mostly because it is quite recent, but I think it deserves some attention for it talks about something we could have to deal with sooner than we think: Genetical Manipulation. Well, you will get to realize it after I tell you guys about the plot.

In a slightly futuristic world, the Governement decided to experience the principle of Gene selection on 1% of newborn babies each year, making them perfect individuals known as "The Ones". During their youth, the Ones are noticed as perfect individuals, pretty, good at sport, having good grades, the highest quality of the population, and our main character, Cody, is proud that her and her boyfriend James are part of this 1%, considering it as a luck. Unfortunately, this is not everyone's opinion, an the association "Equality" starts criticizing the Ones, that would be taking away normal people's chances because of their so told perfection. After a few time of campaign, Equality reaches its first purpose by making the Ones officially illegal. This is where the real story starts, for persecution against the ones is being encouraged all over the World, and in order to "equilibrate" the balance, they are given additional disadvantages to drag them down in front of the rest of the population. As some of the Ones are accepting this situation and trying to calm things down by showing a will of peace, a group of rebellious ones is created, and their leader Kye chooses the use of terrorism as a mean to get back their rights, a movement in which Cody will take part, unwillingly taking James with her. As she is going to go deeper in illegality, James is going to be torn apart between the perfect image he has to keep in front of his family, for he is a replacement of a son they lost, and his will to help his loved one.

Obviously, the main characters are both James and Cody, but others could be considered so, mainly Kai, the leader of the rebellion, Norton, who is like the leader of the forces against the neo-Weatherman, which is the group of Ones, and James's father, who is a scientist secretly working on a chemical that would take off the One's advantages, reducing their abilities.

As you can see, this is not only raising the question of gene selection, but also the legitimacy of the governement's decision and the application of justice when individuals are at stake. This could be described as the story of a generation in a world where Human kind would have globally lost its moral, its humanity.

In addition, you could come to ask yourself what is good and justified and what revendications cannot justify, mostly with the character of Cody. If both James and cody have the noble qualities and will for self- sacrifice to be qualified as heroes, and even almost superheroes as they are perfect human-beings, Cody is a bit more difficult to agree with. At first she chooses to fight against "Equality" for justice, but after what she will experience during the story, it is obstination and the will for revenge that will make her keep fighting. All along the story, she will get deeper into illegality and terrorism, and even if you think her fight is a bit justified, you can't help but tell yourself that she is going too far, and she has to be placed in both hero and anti-hero category.

Gene selection is supposed to be a cutting age advance, a concern that would have appeared a few time ago with the many advances of science, but the Idea of a perfect man, that got rid of mere human's limitations and imperfections, is not that recent. Indeed, this corresponds to the Greek myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor who wasn't interested in women or humans in general, but that once sculpted a statue of a woman so perfect and beautiful that he fell in love with it. Eventually, after winning a contest on Aphrodite's festival day, the goddess answered his wish and made his ivory woman come human, so that he could marry her. With this myth, we can see that this will of perfection of humanity is something that keeps running through the ages without a distinction of technical limitations.

Well; this is it, hope it gave you some will to read this book, for it really deserves some more attention than it has for now. As this is partly a work post, the gift won't be for that one, but if you are curious I could give you clues in the comment section, so as always don't hesitate in writing some, I'll read them all and take them into account.
Oh, also as I have no good pic to close this post, it will be an announce of the next free post, and it's not a manga again!
Bye Guys!

The Mad Hatter

Post 6: An art Exhibition Review

In 2014, from June the 10th to September the 14th, at the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, level 0, an exhibition called Pop art myths took place. Though it is of course imposible to get to see it at the center of Madrid nowaday, you can see the entire exhibition here, and you should give it a look for they did quite a great job putting it at everyone's disposition.

As said in the title, this was a three month pop art exhibition regrouping a group show of several artists, some well known such as Andy Warhol or Roy lichtenstein, and some that I discovered through it, like  Peter Blake or Mimmo Rotella. In one of there digital resources, you get through the many rooms of the exhibition, each gathering art pieces corresponding to a peculiar theme: Landscapes-interiors-still lives; Portraits; Myths; Emblems; Collage-advertising-comics; Urban Eroticism; History painting, and finally art about art.


Even though this exhibition has quite a large pannel of art pieces, that conveys quite a feeling of diversity, as someone who is quite fond of graphic art, made out of pencil and paint, the ones I found the most interesting where in the History section, especially "group hug" (counter publicity), of Juan Genovés, "The living room", of  Equipo Cronica, and the famous remake of Boticelli's "Birth of Venus" by Andy Warhol. These three, as impressive as they look, are also revealing the heteroclicity of atmosphere an identical section can contain, for the color pannel they are showing is way too different to create any other link than the historical criterial, except for some similiraties in the creative process. Indeed, in addition to Wharol's remake of Botticelli's paint, the "equipo cronica"s work is based on Velazquez painting's "Las Meninas".

Despite being fond of more classical forms of art, I have to salute the amazing works that were done by pretty much every artists of the exhibition to innovate in their art works, concerning pasting as well as re used comic characters, for it makes every piece surprising in its own way, wether it is humorous, simple or a bit grotesque. Morover, it is worth mentioning that if Andy Wharhol and Lichtenstein are probably the most well known of the pop art movement, this diversity of placement isn't focusing on their art works, and this makes the other less known artists have their place in the show.
Personally, I can't deny that as a total newbie in the pop art culture, I thought that I would not be able to get right into the exhibition, for it can look a bit weird at first time, but I was quite wrong for it is a very accessible form of art, sometime more explicit than more formal ones. Besides, if some of you are not quite fond of exhibitions and are afraid of spending too much time getting through this one, don't worry for it has quite a little number of art pieces for an exhibition, and the truth is you quickly made it through, even a bit too quick as far as I am concerned. Of course, as it is an exhibition made to present the pop art myth, to give samples in order to make it discovered by more people, this is not really abnormal, but some more pieces could have served it well.

Now that we have seen a bit of the general informations about this exhibition, let's focus on one peculiar piece, of which I talked already which is "the living room" of equipo cronica. In this painting, we are placed in a living room, very bright looking, with a squared floor on which stands a little girl dressed in grey, surrounded by what seems to be servants. At her feet are a ball, a dog and a rubber ring looking as a duck.  As a third year student in Highschool, I have some insight into this remake of Diego Velazquez's famous painting, mostly because the change of colour stricked me by the major changes it brought to the atmosphere of the all painting.
Indeed, the bright and shiny feel expressed by this remake contrasts with the very sober look
La salita

• 1970
• Acrylic on linen
  200 x 200 cm
• Museo Fundación Juan March, de Palma
• 
  

of Velazquez's paint, made as if their was no light in the scene. the level of details of nthe scene is also way superior in Velazquez's paint, and this is simply the result of the different times the paintings were made. If Velazquez is representing the XVIIth century through his representation of the Royal family, the remake of Equipo cronica seem to represent the myth of the American way 

of life during the 50s, which explains the bright atmosphere and the apparent signs of prosperity, emphasized by the traditional clothes and the fact that it is a royal family represented. The dog and the child toys are adding to this feel of modern familiy, eventhough the character's placement is the same as in Velazquez's paint, with the paintor himself standing next to the familiy. On top of that, if the level of detail is lower while looking at the nuances, it is not less

 impressive by the precision of the composition.

Las Meninas

1656

oil on linen 

318 x 276 cm

Diego Velazquez

With this painting, we basically see the essence of Pop Art, which is to use the ancient to innovate, and the change of time we see in those is perfectly illustrating this aspect of the pop art myth, which purpose is in my opinion to surprise people. I would add that this is not an art that can really die, for it will innovate and create new forms of Art as long as artists will keep creating in other arts movements. Pop art might be a constant modern art.

Well, this is it, I can only advice you once again to go check this exhibition online, as I don't think it will be another time in Madrid. This said, as always don't hesitate to leave comments, and bye guys!

The Mad Hatter

Post 2: Chris/Alexander and the myth of the noble/good savage in Sean Penn's into the wild movie

Chris/Alexander in Sean Penn's Into the Wild movie

                                                                                     The good/noble savage illustration

CONTAIN SPOILERS
A noble savage is a stock character, a stereotypical character who embodies the concept of an outsider who's mind has not been corrupted by civilization and symbolises therefore humanity's innate goodness. This was first used by John Dryden, in his play The conquest of Granada, used in reference to thenewly created man, but then became identified with the idealized image of "nature's gentleman", an aspect of 18th century's sentimentalism, which is the belief that the difference between moral and immoral are discovered by emotional responses to sexperiences. It represents the idea that in a state of nature, men are filled with natural kindness and innocence, lost with the apparition of society and commercial relations, for example. This state has been defined wrong by civilization, who attributed the word "savage" to this way of life, with the negative connotation of the absence of manners society is supposed to have brought, as it was done to native Americains.

Chris seems to believe nature is the realm of peace and calm, pure and filled with world's basic beauty, that he is willing to find. He thinks it is a place free from societie's binds, responsabilities and material binds. As he is convinced of societie's rotteness and corruptions, he believes that living on its own will drive him to be free from the poison individuals are being inocculated by civilization. This is shown several times in the movie, as when he burns all his money off after losing his car on a beach, or when he speaks with Wayne about Society, screaming out loud while being half drunk how unlogical and uncomprehensible people's greed and unkindness was. In addition, these many defaults that he sees in society are giving him even more reasons to get away from his parents, and he runs away from both societi's greed and will of domination and his parents lies, knowing there is few that share the same opinion he does. He does not really embodies the myth of the noble savage, as he has grown up in society, but he tends to embodies the noble savage. He has the will to reach this ideal of pureness, he is craving from to live societie's influence, and this is why he came into the wild; he has set his heart on achieving ultimate freedom, he is longing to for making his own decisions and chioices, whithout having to make any compromise, whithout having to let society absorb a part of him. Most of all, he is willing to kill the false Chris he created during his growth, and to become the one he thinks he could and should have become if he had lived into the wild since his birth: the pure Chris, who would be a real noble savage.

Unfortunately, in his will to achieve his lofety ideals, he fails to grasp some basic truths about living in the wild. Indeed, seeking nature's beauty, he forgot that the most important in nature is how to answer human's basic need, in other words: to survive. As he enters the wild, the guy who gave him a drive to this point sees he is not prepared enough and has to give him boots to keep his feet dry, as he didn't think about it. Also, while living in the wildness, he had not decided if he would stay a long time or not but still, it is a well known fact that to have enough food it is necessary to stock it, especially when you think that if there is a lot of game during a season, it will leave afterwards. By not being providing enough, he ended up starving in the wild lacking food, which leads us to the last example, his self-poisoning. Of course, it is comprehensible that starving and barely stable mentally because of it, he made a mistake identifying the plants he could eat with an inedible one. Though, coming into the wild, if he had prepared his stay well enough, he should have learned long before what he could eat and what he could not, knowing the unstability of the game's presence, it would have been normal to learn the utility of plants. So, what it failed to grasp was in fact simply the dangers of nature, that he underestimated, blinded by his expectations.

As I said before, i don't think Chris can be qualified a noble savage. Though his ideals are in accordance with the caracteristics of the good savage, his propension to only search for beauty in life, through books as well as through his life in the wild would place him more in the romantic category, which besides side up with the myth of the noble savage about the consideration of nature, the will to return to the forgotten sources of life. The thing is that Chris's convictions appeared because of his previous life in society, and his feels for his parents, which is in contradiction with the idea of the good savage and reveals more of an idealistic way of thinking. The influence civilization exerced on him can be seen as he finds the magic bus: he wanted to get away from material binds, but finding this sign of civilization with usable ustensils made him happy and he decided to use it, for he was accoustumed and in need for some confort.

Going back to a State of nature once one has lived in society is, in my opinion, difficult but possible.

Indeed, for a lot of people it would be impossible to deal whithout basic material comfort and to survive outside of societie's barriers. Though, there is also quite a lot of individuals who cannot bear civilization and it's restrictions, and that would like to run out from the rotten world they see growing around them, as Chris does. For these people, it would be possible, but they would need to be way more prepared than Chris was, to be aware of the price of leaving society. Also, as Chris dicovered too late, they should not leave alone, for "Hapiness is only real when shared". There are people who like peace and loneliness, but eventhough to live in the wildness, far from societie's surveillance, it would be indispensable to live at least close enough from each other to receive help in need. If society as they see it is today wicked and twisted, the basis of it were to unite humans in order to survive by helping and supporting each other, without any consideration of power or wealth.
To conclude, I can't say if it is advisable, for it depends on people's thoughts, but as it is possible, I would say it is advisable to follow your convictions, and that if someone think going back to a state of nature would be a good thing for him, as long as he is aware of the dangers and takes them in consideration, it would be advisable for this person to try this life style.

So, if I had to prononce myself about Chris McCandless's decision, I would say that despite his few mistakes, Alexander Supertramp was Rigth.

The Mad Hatter

New Manga presentation, Code: Breaker!

Hey there everyone! For this new presentation, I'll be talking about an awesome
 action manga:

Code: breaker

So, this time, a single man works above, Akimine Kamijo, or  Akimine Kamijyô.This manga is his third one, and before he wrote two quite famous mangas, Samouraï Deeper Kyo, on which I will make a post later, and Shirogane no Karasu, which looks pretty awesome, but was not released outside Japan, unfortunately. Both of them are battle mangas, and Code: breaker is not making an exception, but if the two first were taking place in an ancient Japan, this one is taking place in today world.

 Before I talk to you guys about the story, lets present you the concept:

The actual Japan, a peacefull country as any other. Happy citizens, appreciated rulers, and, as in any other part of the world, a bunch of criminals, running in the street as well as in the high sphere of gouvernement. In fact, the only difference that could be spotted is hidden in the shadow: under the prime minister's orders, a group of people are using their special abilities in the name of justice, hunting criminals around the country. Their motto? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, evil for evil.

 Those peoples above the laws are named

 The Code Breakers! 

Can you honestly say you don't want to give it a try now? However, lets get to the story!
In this story, we're following a young girl named Sakurakoji sakura, very skilled at Aïkido, karate and judo, and that is going to find out that her new classmate, Ogami Rei, is actually a killer used by the gouvernement to eliminate criminals, The Code Breaker 06, using his power, a strange blue flame, to executate the prime minister's orders. In addition, we learn in the first book that Sakurakoji is a "special specimen", and even if we don't know what this means for a quite long time, it's adding an interest to this character, that could at first sight look uninteresting if you're not fond of what I call the unactive Heros. Indeed this is what she looks like at the beginnig of the story.


 The point is that Sakurakoji is a fervent protector of Humans life, and during a good part of the story, she will try to convince Ogami to stop killing people, whithout any results. In fact, the way of thinking of Ogami, even if it is horrible, seem more logical, because during the story all the situations are going in his direction, showing that for a lot of people, speaking is useless, and that the basic laws of the country are not working on everyone.


To tell you the truth, I first thought that Sakurakoji was going to be the greatest weakness of this manga, because of her first role in the story which is almost to be a burden for Ogami. Even though her first interventions to prevent Ogami from killing are comprehensible, it can often be really annoying. In addition, in the first part of the manga, a lot of elements  are showing the rightness, if we can say so, of Ogami's point of view, by showing the cruallity of reality, corruptions, unhuman acts... But this is on purpous: that's the true and deep nature of this main character, a real humanity lover that cannot stand murder in any case and for any reason, which is probably why the code breakers, who almost gave their humanity to the gouvernement, seem to quite like her. 

Yeah, I did say the Code Breakers, because as some of you might have guess by watching the first-or the second-picture there is quite a lot of them.
Well done Sherlock!
Indeed, this manga gets its real interests when the other code breakers are starting to get in the dance. With them, we slowly come to learn more about Sakurakoji and, first, about Ogami. Indeed, you quickly learn that his intention is not to stay the gouvernements puppet, but to kill someone known as Sagashimono, the one you search, who is the guy who rose Ogami and learned him to control his powers. Each and every code:breaker as it's single interesting-and often funny-personnality, and trust me when I tell you that between them, the ancient code:breakers seeking for revenge and the Re:code, working for Sagashimono, you will not get bored. 

As you probably notice, this manga seem to question a lot the use and the conception of justice, revenge and criminality. I wouldn't say that it is done in an original way, but it is definitely very well done and shown.

Well, this is it folks, I know I took a veeerry long time to post this new short article, I've been really busy during holydays, working on some projects I might share with you someday soon. Until then, just know that I have a little gift for you guys, which I'm going to show you in the next post  and that also took me quite a lot of time during hollidays. 

As usual, leave a comment if you have any request or suggestions, or if you just want to talk a little, it would really please me, and of course I'll read them all and take them into account.

Bye guys!

The Mad Hatter

I'll show you a perfect world...

Hey there guys! Even tough I don't know if this revue will be of any use, I really wanted to make a post about today's manga, and it's quite the logical sequel for the post on Bakuman. 

Today, we are going to talk about the king of psychological thrillers,

Death Note!

I already mentionned it in my last post about Bakuman, for it has been made by the same duo of authors, Takeshi Obata and Tsugumi Ohba, my actuels models in manga writing, but I'll tell you more about this another time. This manga is the first of the three this duo made, it was first released in 2003 and has thirteen volumes in all, and an anime adaptation came out in 2006, counting 37 episodes perfectly accurated to the manga. As I said it in my former post, this manga is not what you could call a light one. Here, you will be brought to think about  the rightness of the actual justice and the limitation between good and evil, while being absorbed in a dark and unfair world.

So, the story is about Light Yagami, a gifted teenager who's life looks perfect from outside, but who is actually bored of the world around him. As the son of a police chief, he knows that a lot of criminals are running around the world, and even just around him he often thinks that a lot of people would deserve a punishement for their actions. One day, after school, he finds a strange book on the ground, titled "Death Note". In the "How to Use it" section, the first rule that is written is that if you write the name of a person in this book while having this person's face in mind, this person will die in 40 seconds. Also, it is written that if you write the cause of death during these 40 seconds, you have an extra six minute and fourtee seconds to describe it, and it will happen. After experimenting it, he will meet Ryuk, the god of death that made the death note fall into the human world out of boredom, and the basic owner of the death note. Light, who is also bored of his own unperfect world, choose to use the death note to purify the world by eliminating every criminal or person that he judges guilty of a crime. After that, he plans on becoming the god of this perfect new world. But the death of

numerous criminals will soon catch the attention of L, a mysterious detective who is known to solve every case he works on. After provocating Light, who is at this point known all over the world as Kira, the battle between the two begins, and the all story will talk about the strategies that both are going to build in order to get closer of the other, and eliminate him. I can't convey you the feelings you have while following the two of them during their fight, and also while getting to know a bit more about Light's way of thinking, for even if you can't say it in front of

everyone, for what he defends is clearly immoral, it's easy to get identify to Light and to think that Kira would be good for the world. In fact, a lot of people are arguing about the fact that Kira might be, in a way, of better influence for the world than L is, but I will talk about this precisely in another post, because yes, death note is one of the special manga I am going to talk about.

So, later in the story, we will meet another key character, who is Misa, a girl that found a death note too, but who is more powerfull than Light, for she did with her god of death, Remu, a deal that Light refused: By giving half of her life time, she obtained the eye of the god of death, that allows her to know the name of someone just by looking at this person's face. She immediately falls in love with Light, who judged the killer of Misa's parents, and he will use her at will during the all serie. The manga has a second part, but just telling a few word about it would be an horrible spoil about the first part, so I will not talk about it in this post, but in a next one.

As you might have guessed, this manga is going to talk about really dark themes, such as death, the reliability of human's justice an manipulation, with the relation between Misa and Light, which is not reciprocal at ALL. If you are looking for a light manga just to laugh a bit and get relax, this is not the good one, but if you are just looking for an excellent manga, or anime, you have to give it a try, even if it might awake the madness inside your heart...well, this was really depressive, so...hey!

Anyway, just to let you know that this manga will give some serious work to your brain, and might also make you think differently about the reliability of everyone around you, higher up or...friends, for finally, Light is only a student that thinks about making the world better, but who has a blazed notion about good and evil. That's what you may think, but is your version of evil the same as mine? What if the notion of good and evil was just something artificial, if you had the power of applying your vision of it, wouldn't you do it too? The evil is not something that is basically in some people and not in others, every single person is capable of the better as the worst. Even though you probably heard that douzains of time, it's always good to remind it sometimes.

So, Death Note is a real master piece, and one of the must read of the manga world, so if you have not seen or red it already, just hurry up, you really have to. In fact I almost envy you, for you are going to discover a freaking awesome manga...and authors duo, if you didn't knew them. 

Of course, because this manga is really extremely famous, I don't think this post is going to be useful for a lot of people, but I hope some people will find it interesting, and I really had to write at least once about this one...even if it is not the last time, but well...

As I said it at the beginning, this post is the logical sequel to the Bakuman post, and I hope you enjoyed it, for I did enjoy writing it. As always, react to it in the comments, and tell me if you want me to talk about something special or either something else than manga, I will read all of them and take them into account, and of course if I made any mistake or that you want to discuss of something I wrote, tell it and I will answer you,

Bye guys!

The Mad Hatter

POST 10 BIS: Your Choice of 'THRILLERS'!

Hi There!

Today, We are going to talk about a series that have been quite famous a few time ago, 

Fargo.

Produced by Kim Todd, Chad Oaks and Michael Frislev, this series based on a true story was released in 2014, and a second season came out in 2015, but this post will only be about the first season, for it is the only one I saw.

Basically, the plot is about a man, Lester Nygaard, who has quite a bad life. His wife and he are not going along well together, his brother thinks he is a weirdo and a former classmate keeps bullying him even though years passed. But one day, he meets a guy, Lorne Malvo, who will soon influence him and drive him to kill his wife, while Malvo takes care of the bully that he murders while the man was having sex with a prostitute. He even makes this guy's elder son try to kill the younger brother. After that, the all story will be on the one hand about Lester trying to avoid being arrested by the cops, for a quite smart agent, Molly Solverson, is suspecting him for the murder of his wife and of the bully, and she will try during the all season to find links between him and Malvo, while Malvo is going on doing his business of assassin around the region.

For the cast of the main characters, we have:

Martin Freeman as Lester Nygaard,

Billy Bob Thornton as Lorne Malvo,

Allison Tolman as Molly Solverson

This series is to be classified in the thriller category, for it fits into this genre standard. The first of these is about the main character facing death, either his own or someone else's. This is one of the easiest criteria to fit, for their are numerous deaths in this series. In fact, either for Malvo or lester, the story begins with a death: for Lester, his wife's death, and for Malvo the murder of Lester's bully. To illustrate the presence of death facing into it, let's just watch this short video until 1.23 :

The third main Character, Molly, also faces at the beginning of the series the death of her cop partner, Verns Thurman.

The second thing that characterizes a thriller is the forces of antagonism, that have to be at the beginning stronger or smarter than the main character. For Lester,this is easily illustrated, for either Malvo, that made is life a hell, or the police, that tries to arrest him, are clearly stronger than him. Malvo keeps manipulating him during the all season, and always has the up on him, and the police have way more means than him. Both aspects are present. For Malvo, it is a bit different, for he will always have an advantage on the cops, who are his enemies, and he is clearly smarter and better prepared than they are, even though they basically have more means than him.

Third: The main storyline has to be about a quest or the character that cannot be put down. This aspect is the less illustrated in the series, even if we could say that Molly's quest is about avenging her friend and making justice win. Even though Malvo is for long someone who looks like he cannot be put down, he will in the last episode face danger and even his own death, which makes this aspect not illustrated.

Beside this, the fourth aspect, which is about the main plot line that has to focus on a mystery, is very well shown by Molly, who is trying during the all series to find out what really happened  on the evening Lester's wife died, for she only have suspicions. 

Also, something very common is that the film's narrative construction has to be dominated by the character's point of view, which is obviously the case with every single of the three main characters, with whom we discover one by one the elements they discover at the same time. For example, we discover the way a big supermarket's director had his first amount of money at the same time Lorne Malvo does, when this guy's wife tells him that her husband found a bag of money on the downside of the road. Of course, with this aspect come the next, which is that every character have to play in a realistic way, and indeed, we have no doubts during the series that this story is based on true facts, for every single situation is perfectly played, like the fear of Lester when he thinks he is going to be arrested.

The next criteria is about the major themes, that are always the desire of justice and the morality of individuals. The desire of justice is the easiest to illustrate, obviously with the police officer Molly Solverson, whose first motivation is to place under arrest the authors of the first episode's crimes, either by a desire of revenge and because it's her own morality that makes her want to act for justice.

Finally, a small but significant aspect of thrillers is the presence of innocence in what is seen as a corrupted world. There is one character that illustrates this aspect perfectly, and it is Greta Grimly, played by Joey King, who is the daughter of a cop helping Molly to catch Malvo. This girl is absolutely convinced of the necessity of applying justice in every case, and is a naive teenager who seem to dream of a peaceful and just world, while her father is afraid of putting her in danger by trying to catch the manipulator Malvo.

 

I chosed this thriller for a few reasons: the first is that when we watched the first episode in class, I really wanted to see what was happening after, and this work gave me a perfect occasion. Also, when I told my brother, that i had seen the first episode, he told me that it was a really good series. This with the fact that the media were talking a lot about it, and only in good, so I was really thinking a lot about watching it, which make that I had no hesitation when, I saw it in the list of the thrillers we could choose to talk about.

Well, this is it, hope you enjoyed this post, even if it was something for my work, i think it was quite interesting, and I hope that it made you want to give Fargo a try, for it really worth it. I will give you another free post in a few time guys, and as always, feel free to ask anything you want in the comments section, I will read them all and take them into account,

Bye guys!

The Mad Hatter

I hold my promise!

Hey guys, hope you are fine, as always, and today I am going to present you a light manga, and one of the most uncommon that I have read,

Bakuman!

So, let's get to the point! Bakuman is a manga thought by Tsugumi Ohba and drawn by Takeshi Obata, the creators of the famous manga Death Note, known all over the world as one of the best psychological thriller manga of all time. Most of the death note's fans must have been quite surprised to see that they did not continued with this style , for in this one, no unnatural powers, nor dark thoughts about the world's way of running or fantastics creatures, but an interesting demonstration of determination to reach a dream. This manga is an ended one, it has 20 volumes, and an anime adaptation was released in 2010, ended too in three seasons. First released in the "Weekly Shonen Jump", the french version of the volumes was edited by Kana. The first thing I saw when I first had this manga in my hands was the specific lines of drawing it has. It really looks different from the other manga I read, and in fact this style is very useful when it comes to show feelings or expressions in a very exaggerated, caricatural way, and this is one of the reason for which this manga is as serious as funny. To explain you the serious side of it, let's get to the story.

Mashiro Moritaka is a young 14 year old boy who has no dream nor plans for life. He thinks about living a boring life, under the command of those who are above him at school, doing a job he does not like. In fact, the only thing he is still dreaming of is a girl, Azuki Miho, that he loves from the elementary school, even though he never had the guts to speak to her. However, he will once be taken apart by Akito Takagi, the best student of his class, who has for dream to write mangas, and because he quite sucks at drawing, he will ask Mashiro to make a team with him in order to become the best mangakas of the all world.

First, Mashiro refuses, because of his uncle, a mangaka who died of overworking, but Mashiro thinks he killed himself. But everything changes when, thanks to Takagi, he discovers that Miho, who loves him too, wants to become a Seiyu, someone making anime voices. At this point, they make a promise: when a Mashiro's manga will be adapted into anime, and when Miho will play the voice of this anime main female character, they will marry. With this goal in mind, Mashiro and Takagi, under the nickname ''Muto Ashirogi'', are going to make all they can in order to become the first rated mangakas of a mangas editor, the weekly Shonen jump, fighting against their rivals with their own weapons: pen and feather.

Reading this manga is a bit like watching the manga's "behind the scene", in way more exciting, because the story is far from being boring. Basically, the story is similar to a battle manga, with enemies, rivals appearing gradually in the story, and  a progression of the characters, in their skills as in their life, with the evolution of the relation between Mashiro and Miho, that is as pure as the first day all along the story. 

Do I really need to explain why this manga is so interesting? I don't think, but wathever: this manga is interesting because it's telling the truth, the difficulties of being a mangaka are not hidden, Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata are talking about a situation they very well know, and you will learn a lot about the world of mangas writing and editing. Even though it shows you all the hard work and time taking it deserves to become a mangaka, you can be sure that after reading it, you will spend at least a month thinking about drawing some, and you may begin to write stories. Who knows, it may lead you on the work you need? If it does not, give this a try: click on me!

All right guys, this is it for today, hope you enjoyed this revue, where I finally hold my promise, which also means that you can have no idea of what will be the next review ;)
So; as always, if you want me to talk about something else or something special, say it in the comments, I will read all of them and take them into account.
Bye guys!

The Mad Hatter