"Thailand: 1 - Japan: 0"
As a kid I grew up watching Japanese cartoons on TV, from Saint Seyia to Dragonball. Japan has always been a little fascinating to me, and I hope I will go there one day. As an adult, I had the chance to spend some time in Thailand, involving a couple of epic nights out in Bangkok. So when I saw this book published by Vertigo, I thought it might be worth a shot reading a comic from an american writer on two mystic Asian cities, such as Tokyo and Bangkok. The book contains 2 separate stories, one called "Tokyo Days", the other "Bangkok Nights". I expected to have much more interest in the Tokyo story than in the Bangkok story, mostly because Tokyo sounds like a different world to me, and I was afraid that the Bangkok story would be full of clichets. Boy, I was surprised as I closed the book, things did not turn out as expected...
Here I'll write a quick review on Tokyo Days (TD) before touching upon Bangkok Nights (BN).
Tokyo Days - The Story:
As a legit gadget and technology geek, Steve decides to move from his native Boston to Tokyo, so he can get his hands on the newest and coolest, cams, phones, hdtvs etc... The thought of hanging out in the district of Akihabara is the main reason that brought him to Japan. The first few pages are instructively fun, as they touch upon how foreigners perceive Tokyo or Japanese society, from both outside and inside Japan. Unfortunately, Steve quickly meets the character of Mikaku, and it's all downhill from there...for both Steve and the reader. Mikaku is a high school girl, typical Japanese manga style: she wears mini skirts, has pink or blue hair depending on the situation, she dresses and acts very sexy (e.g. she asks a singer to please "autograph my honorable ass") though she is still in high school. The balance between high school innocence and adult sexy babeness is relatively well done. Steve has the bad idea to fancy Mikaku and follows her in the craziest adventures: from crashing a gothic rock concert, to car-jacking a minivan or fighting yakuzas in a fast food.
The main problem is that Mikaku behaves like an epileptic over-enthusiastic kid with 1,000 ideas per minute and absolutely no consistency between these. Not only is it impossible to follow her chain of thoughts, but it is also very tiring to deal with an over enthusiastic character who constantly shouts stupid things out of the blue like " I want a backstage pass... but now let's go eating crispy burger!!!!". The story lacks a real plot, it feels more like a chronologic series of whacky frivolous adventures, rather than a well constructed story.
Not everything is bad in this story, one detail I quite enjoyed is how the hero, Steve, is the only character to speak proper English. Indeed, all the other Japanese characters speak with an accent that is translated in the dialogues. For example, many Japanese characters add "san" after someone's name and use Japanese expressions, or just American words with an oriental twist, such as "sonobeechi".
One last thing, in the story Steve constantly videotapes his tribulations throughout Tokyo. So at the end of the story, when Steve flies back to the US, he has recorded on his camera hours and hours of crazy events. He could choose to make an awesome documentary on his experience in Japan...seriously how cool would that be? Isn't that a dream to be able to realize one hell of a documentary on a mystic city like Tokyo? To be determined...
Tokyo Days - The Art:
Fisher's work on this story is very interesting as he draws all the faces without a nose. Though it seems weird, the absence of nose fits the story, and gives it a less human more manga style. The faces are not very expressive and relatively simple, most of the feelings are translated via eyes, hair, mouth and colors. The very pure faces combined with the wide array of bright colors used in each panel, result in a very Japanese cartoon feel.
Another great feature of the art, is the quality of the details drawn in the background, it contributes to give a real Japanese feel to the story. For example, in a few pictures, the reader will notice that yakuzas have a tattoo on their back, or that a scene will take place in one of these adult game centers where people play either arcades or all types of other machines. My favorite detail is probably the mob protest against anti-gang laws. Indeed, a bunch of suit-wearing gangsters protest by hanging out in the streets while wearing a sign around their neck that says "gangsters are people too". Even the French who are probably world champion at protests, strikes and demonstrations would not pull that one out.
Bangkok Nights - The Story:
Tuesday and Marz are an American couple whose relationship has been consistently degrading since Marz cheated on his girfriend. In order to kind of try to fix things, or just because Tuesday wanted to go to Thailand, the couple decides to fly to Bangkok for vacation. Everything goes well or so for a few days, until Tuesday, aka "Tuze", decides to purchase an elephant, to save it from getting its tusks chopped, and also just to piss off Marz. After this first misstep, things only get worse when they hang out in Khao San Road - tourist rip off central, where all the thieves gather to make money off clueless tourists. The couple meets two expats, Julien and Benny, who have been in Bangkok for a while, taking advantage of a darker aspects of what the city offers. After a messed up night with the two perv expats, the couple finds itself in a crazy spiral, trying to free two young Thai sisters from a prostitution network, while running around the city to give back to the police a stolen elephant.
Let's face it, the plot is clearly not the strength of this story. To be totally honest, it is quite lame and fits on a post-it. The real edge in this story, what makes it really interesting to read, is the complexity of the characters. The various adventures all the characters go through, consequently reveal good and evil in each of them, so that in the end, nothing is black or white, no character is good or bad, no one is the victim or the aggressor. Each character is full of internal oppositions, thus making it hard for the reader to have clear feelings about one or the other. However, this non manichean view of people, is probably a more accurate representation of real life, and makes the book much more interesting. It would have been so easy to fall into cliches about evil sex-tourists exploiting poor locals, while some NGO tree-hugger American white knight comes to save the day. Thankfully Vankin made a much more subtle portray of his characters in this fiction.
For example, the character of Benny is at the same time disgusting and pitty-inspiring. He's been paying Taeng, a young Thai woman, for sex for a long time, yet eventually he developed real feelings for her. So, as disgusting as he may be, he finds himself in a situation where he loves someone and is not sure whether he is loved back...will he fight to earn the love of Taeng? And if so, will he do it using legit means? The same thing applies to the even more disgusting character of Julien. The Brit expat is 100% ultra-disgusting and acknowledges his aweful sex habits.
The reader can only dismiss him and hate him, until the point where he turns out to be a loyal friend. Not only does he take a bullet for his friends, but he also accepts to go to jail and take a beating so that Tuze and Marz are not arrested by the police. Therefore, the reader is kind of forced to reckon this one good side of this albeit evil and very very wrong man.
One last word on the funny and awesome character of Pinya. Pinya is tough, very tough. So tough that Pinya is a kickboxing champion, the absolute Muay Thai champion of Bangkok. However, Pynia had an operation to become a woman. Yes, a transsexual, coming in the ring with a dress and lipstick, then fighting in shorts and bra, is the idol of all boxing fans. So as tough as she may appear, she still gets annoyed when someone spills their drink on her new dress! This rather unusual fighter eventually accepts to help Tuze and Marz in exchange for money to finance her breast implants and become Miss Pinya... Genius!
Bangkok Nights - The Art:
The main feature about the art in this story is that it is rough. Not badly done, but rough. It adds to the roughness of the lives of the characters, and the roughness of the adventures they go through. Most of the angles are sharp, including those of faces and body. Also there is no shading of colors, it's either color or dark. This absence of progressive shading also adds to the roughness and blunt feeling transmitted via the art. The only drawings with shading are for the scenes that take place at sunset. Indeed at sunset the color of sky changes from red to orange to purple. As Marz says it himself "I think Bangkok has an awesome sunset". Fact.
Stories: Jonathan Vankin
Art: Seth Fisher (Tokyo Days), Giuseppe Camuncoli & Shawn Martinbrough (Bangkok Nights)
 |
| Cover |
As a kid I grew up watching Japanese cartoons on TV, from Saint Seyia to Dragonball. Japan has always been a little fascinating to me, and I hope I will go there one day. As an adult, I had the chance to spend some time in Thailand, involving a couple of epic nights out in Bangkok. So when I saw this book published by Vertigo, I thought it might be worth a shot reading a comic from an american writer on two mystic Asian cities, such as Tokyo and Bangkok. The book contains 2 separate stories, one called "Tokyo Days", the other "Bangkok Nights". I expected to have much more interest in the Tokyo story than in the Bangkok story, mostly because Tokyo sounds like a different world to me, and I was afraid that the Bangkok story would be full of clichets. Boy, I was surprised as I closed the book, things did not turn out as expected...
Here I'll write a quick review on Tokyo Days (TD) before touching upon Bangkok Nights (BN).
Tokyo Days - The Story:
 |
| TD - Steve in Akihabara |
The main problem is that Mikaku behaves like an epileptic over-enthusiastic kid with 1,000 ideas per minute and absolutely no consistency between these. Not only is it impossible to follow her chain of thoughts, but it is also very tiring to deal with an over enthusiastic character who constantly shouts stupid things out of the blue like " I want a backstage pass... but now let's go eating crispy burger!!!!". The story lacks a real plot, it feels more like a chronologic series of whacky frivolous adventures, rather than a well constructed story.
 |
| TD - Mikaku asking for an autograph |
Not everything is bad in this story, one detail I quite enjoyed is how the hero, Steve, is the only character to speak proper English. Indeed, all the other Japanese characters speak with an accent that is translated in the dialogues. For example, many Japanese characters add "san" after someone's name and use Japanese expressions, or just American words with an oriental twist, such as "sonobeechi".
One last thing, in the story Steve constantly videotapes his tribulations throughout Tokyo. So at the end of the story, when Steve flies back to the US, he has recorded on his camera hours and hours of crazy events. He could choose to make an awesome documentary on his experience in Japan...seriously how cool would that be? Isn't that a dream to be able to realize one hell of a documentary on a mystic city like Tokyo? To be determined...
Tokyo Days - The Art:
 |
| TD - Steve & Mikaku at a concert |
Fisher's work on this story is very interesting as he draws all the faces without a nose. Though it seems weird, the absence of nose fits the story, and gives it a less human more manga style. The faces are not very expressive and relatively simple, most of the feelings are translated via eyes, hair, mouth and colors. The very pure faces combined with the wide array of bright colors used in each panel, result in a very Japanese cartoon feel.
Another great feature of the art, is the quality of the details drawn in the background, it contributes to give a real Japanese feel to the story. For example, in a few pictures, the reader will notice that yakuzas have a tattoo on their back, or that a scene will take place in one of these adult game centers where people play either arcades or all types of other machines. My favorite detail is probably the mob protest against anti-gang laws. Indeed, a bunch of suit-wearing gangsters protest by hanging out in the streets while wearing a sign around their neck that says "gangsters are people too". Even the French who are probably world champion at protests, strikes and demonstrations would not pull that one out.
Bangkok Nights - The Story:
Tuesday and Marz are an American couple whose relationship has been consistently degrading since Marz cheated on his girfriend. In order to kind of try to fix things, or just because Tuesday wanted to go to Thailand, the couple decides to fly to Bangkok for vacation. Everything goes well or so for a few days, until Tuesday, aka "Tuze", decides to purchase an elephant, to save it from getting its tusks chopped, and also just to piss off Marz. After this first misstep, things only get worse when they hang out in Khao San Road - tourist rip off central, where all the thieves gather to make money off clueless tourists. The couple meets two expats, Julien and Benny, who have been in Bangkok for a while, taking advantage of a darker aspects of what the city offers. After a messed up night with the two perv expats, the couple finds itself in a crazy spiral, trying to free two young Thai sisters from a prostitution network, while running around the city to give back to the police a stolen elephant.
 |
| BN - Marz dealing with an elephant's feelings |
Let's face it, the plot is clearly not the strength of this story. To be totally honest, it is quite lame and fits on a post-it. The real edge in this story, what makes it really interesting to read, is the complexity of the characters. The various adventures all the characters go through, consequently reveal good and evil in each of them, so that in the end, nothing is black or white, no character is good or bad, no one is the victim or the aggressor. Each character is full of internal oppositions, thus making it hard for the reader to have clear feelings about one or the other. However, this non manichean view of people, is probably a more accurate representation of real life, and makes the book much more interesting. It would have been so easy to fall into cliches about evil sex-tourists exploiting poor locals, while some NGO tree-hugger American white knight comes to save the day. Thankfully Vankin made a much more subtle portray of his characters in this fiction.
 |
| BN - Two sisters in troubles in Patpong |
The reader can only dismiss him and hate him, until the point where he turns out to be a loyal friend. Not only does he take a bullet for his friends, but he also accepts to go to jail and take a beating so that Tuze and Marz are not arrested by the police. Therefore, the reader is kind of forced to reckon this one good side of this albeit evil and very very wrong man.
One last word on the funny and awesome character of Pinya. Pinya is tough, very tough. So tough that Pinya is a kickboxing champion, the absolute Muay Thai champion of Bangkok. However, Pynia had an operation to become a woman. Yes, a transsexual, coming in the ring with a dress and lipstick, then fighting in shorts and bra, is the idol of all boxing fans. So as tough as she may appear, she still gets annoyed when someone spills their drink on her new dress! This rather unusual fighter eventually accepts to help Tuze and Marz in exchange for money to finance her breast implants and become Miss Pinya... Genius!
Bangkok Nights - The Art:
 |
| BN - Tuze & Marz |
- Overall: 5/10
- Tokyo Days: 5/10
- Bangkok Nights: 6/10
- Material to shoot a rocking documentary on Tokyo: 8/10
- Bangkok cliche crusher: 8/10
- For TD... Pop-a-pill-and-read-a-book factor: pretty high
- For BN... I-thought-in-a-story-there-were-always-good-guys-and-bad-guys-what-the-hell-happened-to-that? factor: pretty high as well
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