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indigozealMy apologies for being away for a bit here. I'm trying out a new translation job that requires me to stay inside (yet otherwise occupied) a lot, and I'm going nuts. I mean, I'm in winter in Maine, so it's not like I'm going to be going much of anywhere anyway, but I'm not sure yet if spending this much time in front of a computer is right for me.
Anyhow, it occurs to me that I never provided that synopsis of the Mystic Ark manga I was talking about.
Most of the game's memorable positive aspects are gone - the Myst-like hub world; the transdimensional hopping; the unique themes for each realm; World 6. Only Stupid Cat World, Fruit World, and Kids' World remain, and they're not separate dimensions; everything's part of one big fantasyland. The shrine isn't in a silent void but just at the end of the world map, staffed with a bustling complement of attendants and housing a live goddess instead of a fossilized one. The goddess in the manga is actually chosen from the females of Lemele's line; the male and female protagonist choices from the game are brother and sister here, and the goddess during the story is Lemele's aunt-really-his-mother (his mother-really-his-aunt having been murdered by the bad guys several years ago). Lemele is descended from the People of Light, who stand opposed to a People of Darkness, and it's all very predictable and generic. I wasn't that fond of Mystic Ark, but it had elements with great potential that were rather unique in the genre, and it's disappointing to see all those elements gone.
Remarkable in both good and bad ways is the handling of the game's grappler/martial artist, Reeshine. She, like all the other playable characters, doesn't have much of a character in-game (in one of the couple cutscenes she has, though, you see her pushing kids around, so I opt to believe she's kind of a jerk). In the manga, though, she's not only the comic-relief partner of the main hero but the love interest, which is a refreshing change of pace for a female Asian (well, "NotAsian," I suppose) character in a European-type fantasy setting.
The problem comes in where she's not allowed to do anything of consequence for pretty much the entire manga. She pretty much hangs up her fists after the first volume, save for one or two stray panels; she's otherwise treated as either an annoyance for the menfolk to shush and cow or a helpless bystander who can only fret about her man. (The number of times that she falls to her knees and breaks down crying in the third volume must be in the double digits.)
There's a long scene (a very...very long scene - fifty damn pages; I think Ghaleon built an entire airship in that time) where Lemele is fighting the creatively-named Darkness, the kind of proto-boss of the story. For some damn reason, despite being a swordsman with no martial-arts training, Lemele opts to use the Ark of Power to take on Darkness with his bare hands - nevermind that the monster just physically dismembered a fourteen-foot-tall steel robot with its bare hands moments ago. At length, Lemele wins the fight with critical use of the spell Holy Emblem.
Sitting and watching this encounter like bumps on a log are Reeshine, the martial artist, and Meisia, who in the game is noted for her white-magic spells, among them her ultimate attack spell Holy Emblem. I mean, it's utterly stupid for any character to attempt to take this creature on hand-to-hand, and Meisia's not a priestess in this telling, but Jesus Christ - the male main character is appropriating the trademark abilities of female characters who are right there - abilities that do not fit within his skill set. The artist is going out of his way to make the females useless. The only physical contribution to the battle Reeshine makes is to slap Meisia across the face for having the audacity to cry at her friend Lux's death. I mean, come on.
What about Felys? Well, she was kidnapped several years before the main story's time frame during the same incident that killed Lemele's mother-really-his-aunt. It eventually turns out that she's actually Darkness, her human form ensconced Zeiram the Animation-style within the creature's hulking monster body. Lemele saves her through the Power of Love, and the two go off to fight the main bad guy, so she gets her paladin outfit that everybody likes so much. To the artist's credit here, she's actually an equal partner in this operation, even though the frame's centered on Lemele most of the time.
Speaking of bad guys: In the game, there isn't really a head bad guy per se. There's an end boss battle, but it's kind of a metaphysical conflict. Here, in the manga, the artist settles on making the head of the People of Darkness the end boss, having him take on the form of Malice for the final conflict. Normally, though, he takes on the appearance of...Clavis from the dating game Angelique. It's the same character with the same haircut and the same wardrobe (save for an occasionaly predilection for eyeballs on Mystic Ark guy's part) and even the same predilection for tarot or tarot-like cards. ::effort::, as they say on Something Awful, though it is a bit hilarious if you're familiar with Angelique.
For how the manga interprets the game's support PCs: Meisia takes care of the kids in Kids' World and likes books. One of her books is an Ark - the Ark of Wisdom or Knowledge or whatever - by whose power she survived being NRFBed when all the adults in her land were turned into Figurines (in the only appearance in the manga of this concept). She's a descendant of holy priests but not a priest herself. Lux is her childhood friend, and, aside from the aforementioned dismemberment, that's pretty much it for him.
Kamiwoo's still an ogre, but instead of actively brooding about the townsfolk's rejection of his monstrous appearance, he spends a good deal of time making friendly overtures in an attempt to bridge the gap. Kamiwoo can't talk, only gesticulate, but his attempts to communicate his friendliness through overtures incongruous with his hulking appearance - pulling rabbits out of hats; serving up fine pastries with a serving knife, apron and all - make for good silent comedy.
Tokio is type of manga antihero Cool Guy who wears all black leather and dramatically flaps his cloak/long coat when he leaves and says "~SARABA~" all the time. Tokio hates everyone, Peoples of both Darkness and Light, as the factions torched his village (Duplo or however the hell they romanized it so it didn't violate trademarks) when they used it as a backdrop for one of their skirmishes. His hatred is currently focused on Miriene - one of the bad guys in the manga - because she, as a child, was part of the cadre of People of Darkness who did the core torching. Tokio and Miriene end up killing each other, as a big dramatic statement on the futility of hatred and war and whatnot. Miriene is consistently drawn as if meant to be his love interest, even though they only caught a glimpse of each other while her tribe was toasting his village. The artist tries to draw her all sexy and almost succeeds, but her lips are consistently weird. Also, her dramatic death scene is somewhat undercut by the way Tokio's sword is rather awkwardly lodged in one of her breasts, which is an understandable hazard when trying to depict a female who's been stabbed in the heart but a distraction anyhow.
Two points about these two: a) Instead of Cat World's witch Matoya being a unique character, "Matoya" is merely the alias under which Miriene is operating in Cat World. Which means one less Stupid Cat, with which I am totally OK. b) The Water Ark, who lives in a shrine in the ruins of Tokio's village, is so impressed by Tokio's resolve in his battle against Miriene that she offers her help to him instead, not Lemele the Child Wunderkind. Tokio, though, angrily refuses, not wanting to be involved with anything to do with the Dark/Light power struggle. (Then, of course, Lemele wins her over with his JRPG Hero "I don't want anybody to be killed!" Naivete, and everything continues depressingly back to the status quo.)
Anyhow, that's pretty much it. The plot never deviates from autopilot: Lemele collects the seven Arks, meets his absent parent, rescues his sister, discovers that his father was of the People of Darkness and that Prejudice is the Real Enemy, defeats the end boss with his Kamehameha powers, and is shown ten years after the ending married to Reeshine with two kids. Aunt-Really-His-Mother goddess is retired from the divinity biz and living either with or close to his household, as we can't have Reeshine go without being browbeaten. Felys, meanwhile, is the new goddess (with Meisia as her assistant), and she keeps the main bad guy under glass in eternal sleep like Snow White in the hopes that he'll be able to reform one day, presumably while he's unconscious - which is fine, because a good, long nap is what Clavis would have really wanted anyhow.
.
Anyhow, it occurs to me that I never provided that synopsis of the Mystic Ark manga I was talking about.
Most of the game's memorable positive aspects are gone - the Myst-like hub world; the transdimensional hopping; the unique themes for each realm; World 6. Only Stupid Cat World, Fruit World, and Kids' World remain, and they're not separate dimensions; everything's part of one big fantasyland. The shrine isn't in a silent void but just at the end of the world map, staffed with a bustling complement of attendants and housing a live goddess instead of a fossilized one. The goddess in the manga is actually chosen from the females of Lemele's line; the male and female protagonist choices from the game are brother and sister here, and the goddess during the story is Lemele's aunt-really-his-mother (his mother-really-his-aunt having been murdered by the bad guys several years ago). Lemele is descended from the People of Light, who stand opposed to a People of Darkness, and it's all very predictable and generic. I wasn't that fond of Mystic Ark, but it had elements with great potential that were rather unique in the genre, and it's disappointing to see all those elements gone.
Remarkable in both good and bad ways is the handling of the game's grappler/martial artist, Reeshine. She, like all the other playable characters, doesn't have much of a character in-game (in one of the couple cutscenes she has, though, you see her pushing kids around, so I opt to believe she's kind of a jerk). In the manga, though, she's not only the comic-relief partner of the main hero but the love interest, which is a refreshing change of pace for a female Asian (well, "NotAsian," I suppose) character in a European-type fantasy setting.
The problem comes in where she's not allowed to do anything of consequence for pretty much the entire manga. She pretty much hangs up her fists after the first volume, save for one or two stray panels; she's otherwise treated as either an annoyance for the menfolk to shush and cow or a helpless bystander who can only fret about her man. (The number of times that she falls to her knees and breaks down crying in the third volume must be in the double digits.)
There's a long scene (a very...very long scene - fifty damn pages; I think Ghaleon built an entire airship in that time) where Lemele is fighting the creatively-named Darkness, the kind of proto-boss of the story. For some damn reason, despite being a swordsman with no martial-arts training, Lemele opts to use the Ark of Power to take on Darkness with his bare hands - nevermind that the monster just physically dismembered a fourteen-foot-tall steel robot with its bare hands moments ago. At length, Lemele wins the fight with critical use of the spell Holy Emblem.
Sitting and watching this encounter like bumps on a log are Reeshine, the martial artist, and Meisia, who in the game is noted for her white-magic spells, among them her ultimate attack spell Holy Emblem. I mean, it's utterly stupid for any character to attempt to take this creature on hand-to-hand, and Meisia's not a priestess in this telling, but Jesus Christ - the male main character is appropriating the trademark abilities of female characters who are right there - abilities that do not fit within his skill set. The artist is going out of his way to make the females useless. The only physical contribution to the battle Reeshine makes is to slap Meisia across the face for having the audacity to cry at her friend Lux's death. I mean, come on.
What about Felys? Well, she was kidnapped several years before the main story's time frame during the same incident that killed Lemele's mother-really-his-aunt. It eventually turns out that she's actually Darkness, her human form ensconced Zeiram the Animation-style within the creature's hulking monster body. Lemele saves her through the Power of Love, and the two go off to fight the main bad guy, so she gets her paladin outfit that everybody likes so much. To the artist's credit here, she's actually an equal partner in this operation, even though the frame's centered on Lemele most of the time.
Speaking of bad guys: In the game, there isn't really a head bad guy per se. There's an end boss battle, but it's kind of a metaphysical conflict. Here, in the manga, the artist settles on making the head of the People of Darkness the end boss, having him take on the form of Malice for the final conflict. Normally, though, he takes on the appearance of...Clavis from the dating game Angelique. It's the same character with the same haircut and the same wardrobe (save for an occasionaly predilection for eyeballs on Mystic Ark guy's part) and even the same predilection for tarot or tarot-like cards. ::effort::, as they say on Something Awful, though it is a bit hilarious if you're familiar with Angelique.
For how the manga interprets the game's support PCs: Meisia takes care of the kids in Kids' World and likes books. One of her books is an Ark - the Ark of Wisdom or Knowledge or whatever - by whose power she survived being NRFBed when all the adults in her land were turned into Figurines (in the only appearance in the manga of this concept). She's a descendant of holy priests but not a priest herself. Lux is her childhood friend, and, aside from the aforementioned dismemberment, that's pretty much it for him.
Kamiwoo's still an ogre, but instead of actively brooding about the townsfolk's rejection of his monstrous appearance, he spends a good deal of time making friendly overtures in an attempt to bridge the gap. Kamiwoo can't talk, only gesticulate, but his attempts to communicate his friendliness through overtures incongruous with his hulking appearance - pulling rabbits out of hats; serving up fine pastries with a serving knife, apron and all - make for good silent comedy.
Tokio is type of manga antihero Cool Guy who wears all black leather and dramatically flaps his cloak/long coat when he leaves and says "~SARABA~" all the time. Tokio hates everyone, Peoples of both Darkness and Light, as the factions torched his village (Duplo or however the hell they romanized it so it didn't violate trademarks) when they used it as a backdrop for one of their skirmishes. His hatred is currently focused on Miriene - one of the bad guys in the manga - because she, as a child, was part of the cadre of People of Darkness who did the core torching. Tokio and Miriene end up killing each other, as a big dramatic statement on the futility of hatred and war and whatnot. Miriene is consistently drawn as if meant to be his love interest, even though they only caught a glimpse of each other while her tribe was toasting his village. The artist tries to draw her all sexy and almost succeeds, but her lips are consistently weird. Also, her dramatic death scene is somewhat undercut by the way Tokio's sword is rather awkwardly lodged in one of her breasts, which is an understandable hazard when trying to depict a female who's been stabbed in the heart but a distraction anyhow.
Two points about these two: a) Instead of Cat World's witch Matoya being a unique character, "Matoya" is merely the alias under which Miriene is operating in Cat World. Which means one less Stupid Cat, with which I am totally OK. b) The Water Ark, who lives in a shrine in the ruins of Tokio's village, is so impressed by Tokio's resolve in his battle against Miriene that she offers her help to him instead, not Lemele the Child Wunderkind. Tokio, though, angrily refuses, not wanting to be involved with anything to do with the Dark/Light power struggle. (Then, of course, Lemele wins her over with his JRPG Hero "I don't want anybody to be killed!" Naivete, and everything continues depressingly back to the status quo.)
Anyhow, that's pretty much it. The plot never deviates from autopilot: Lemele collects the seven Arks, meets his absent parent, rescues his sister, discovers that his father was of the People of Darkness and that Prejudice is the Real Enemy, defeats the end boss with his Kamehameha powers, and is shown ten years after the ending married to Reeshine with two kids. Aunt-Really-His-Mother goddess is retired from the divinity biz and living either with or close to his household, as we can't have Reeshine go without being browbeaten. Felys, meanwhile, is the new goddess (with Meisia as her assistant), and she keeps the main bad guy under glass in eternal sleep like Snow White in the hopes that he'll be able to reform one day, presumably while he's unconscious - which is fine, because a good, long nap is what Clavis would have really wanted anyhow.
.
