Phoenix Vol. 2 + Bakuman Vol. 1

This week I read Phoenix Vol. 2, or "Future", and also read through the first volume (or first seven chapters) of Bakuman.

I was a little wary of going out of order with Phoenix, but since the first volume is out of print and hard to find/expensive, I went with the 2nd volume. Thankfully I found afterward that the stories all are separate but intertwined by the universal theme of the godlike Phoenix which appears throughout the entire series. I have to say I was really entertained by this particular story. The themes of the story that I saw were mostly dealing with the idea of technology, evolution, and how those two can either help or hinder each other. In the main sequence of things the idea of idolizing technology as a holy figure and something infallible is shown to be the demise of the human race. Even going further in a level, the Moopies being idolized as perfection was something that ended up being destroyed as well because it was falsifying reality. Overall I think Tezuka is mostly playing up the idea that an over indulgence in technology will ultimately lead to our own destruction. I have to say I did not expect the complete restart of evolution over the course of billions of years. As far as format it was nice that in this particular edition of the book it still read left to right, but it threw me off because I expect to read manga the opposite way. As far as character development, I felt Tezuka handled the relationship between Masato and Tamami very well, again with some surprise twists near the end.

The other manga I read was titled Bakuman, a story about two junior-high aged boys who wanted to become Mangaka. This story obviously took a more humorous approach, very much playing up the awkwardness of adolescence. Saiko and Takagi are portrayed as two of the smartest people in their 9th grade class in the midst of midterms. Of course, along with their intelligence also comes a severe amount of over-analysis of every single situation they're in, especially with each other. It's almost as if they're trying to constantly outwit the other one but also impress them. Takagi seems to think that since Saiko has manga in his bloodline that he has to really impress him all the time. Their goals are also lofty at best, primarily Saiko's desire to get married to Azuki and make her the voice actor for his anime once their manga takes off. All in all it's pretty hilarious, considering how quickly they go from being completely unsure to actually producing a manuscript and being free of worries about getting into a good high school. The art is fairly standard, although the idea of having all the stages of a manga within the manga itsel is pretty unique; sort of a way of breaking the fourth wall. I think this is actually a good standout from a lot of the high school based manga and anime I've seen or at least heard of. Rather, the main story of following the path of a mangaka is what is keeping this story more interesting. Given enough free time I would consider reading through more of the story to see where it goes since the first volume leaves off at a crucial point in their "career path" of sorts.