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Minekura Kazuya - Wild Adapter, vol. 01-02 (Eng. trans.)
Tue, Jun. 19th, 2007 01:23 pmKubota Makoto is the leader of a youth group for the Izumo yakuza gang in Yokohama. He is supposedly a high school student (?!), though he looks and acts more like he's in his late twenties or early thirties at the very least. He likes animals but not people, and he is perfectly fine with killing people in cold blood.
Like Nana, vol. 1 of Wild Adapter is more a prologue than the actual start of the series. It covers Kubota's time with Izumo and the emergence of a mysterious drug called Wild Adapter, which ends up killing its users and leaving animalistic corpses (i.e. the people somehow grow claws and fur and look like werewolf rejects). Kubota doesn't meet up with Tokito Minoru until the very end.
Tokito has a right hand that is mysteriously clawed and furred, a la Wild Adapter corpses, except a) he's not dead and b) he has nearly no memories of his past.
It's sort of hard describing the plot of this because so far, there is no real plot. Kubota and Tokito work together and live together and have a very interesting relationship, and every so often, tidbits about Wild Adapter pop up.
When I read this for the first time, I was rather disconcerted because of the lack of plot and because Kubota and Tokito seem like reincarnations of Hakkai and Gojyo, only even more screwed up (and I didn't think that was possible!). Now they feel like themselves, odd and un-angstily dysfunctional by themselves and strangely functional when together.
I'm also happy because there's actually a female character in vol. 2 who does things! Granted, not that many things, but at least we get to see her POV. I hope she comes back -- I rather enjoy seeing Tokito and Kubota's relationship from an outside POV.
Also also, I love the art of Wild Adapter so much. It's like the best Saiyuki art, before the faces got a little too angular. And the nice thing about the Tokyopop versions is that they keep the lovely color plates in the beginning. Yay!
And finally, vol. 2 has the two introducing themselves as "the lovely Kubota and the beautiful Tokito" (I need to go home and look up the exact quote).
Like Nana, vol. 1 of Wild Adapter is more a prologue than the actual start of the series. It covers Kubota's time with Izumo and the emergence of a mysterious drug called Wild Adapter, which ends up killing its users and leaving animalistic corpses (i.e. the people somehow grow claws and fur and look like werewolf rejects). Kubota doesn't meet up with Tokito Minoru until the very end.
Tokito has a right hand that is mysteriously clawed and furred, a la Wild Adapter corpses, except a) he's not dead and b) he has nearly no memories of his past.
It's sort of hard describing the plot of this because so far, there is no real plot. Kubota and Tokito work together and live together and have a very interesting relationship, and every so often, tidbits about Wild Adapter pop up.
When I read this for the first time, I was rather disconcerted because of the lack of plot and because Kubota and Tokito seem like reincarnations of Hakkai and Gojyo, only even more screwed up (and I didn't think that was possible!). Now they feel like themselves, odd and un-angstily dysfunctional by themselves and strangely functional when together.
I'm also happy because there's actually a female character in vol. 2 who does things! Granted, not that many things, but at least we get to see her POV. I hope she comes back -- I rather enjoy seeing Tokito and Kubota's relationship from an outside POV.
Also also, I love the art of Wild Adapter so much. It's like the best Saiyuki art, before the faces got a little too angular. And the nice thing about the Tokyopop versions is that they keep the lovely color plates in the beginning. Yay!
And finally, vol. 2 has the two introducing themselves as "the lovely Kubota and the beautiful Tokito" (I need to go home and look up the exact quote).