| about
trismugistus.com
and digital-bondage.net
are my web sites.
trismugistus.com
is where I upload my anime, manga and tv&film reviews,
and also where I occasionally post short stories and longer
works I've written.
digital-bondage.net
is my wallpaper site and provides anime, manga and other
desktop wallpapers in a variety of resolutions. I also
have a few tutorials and some resources, such as psds
for you to download.
I also run a site called scan-city.org,
which provides scans from the latest japanese anime magazines
for you to download and use in your wallpapers.
You can also read my blog here
or check out my anime list here. |
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| real bout high school review |
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| details |
| The Genre: Action/Comedy |
| The Format: 6 volume Manga from Tokyopop |
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| The plot: In a school where martial arts are
standard curriculum, Samurai Girl Ryoko is the top
fighter and most popular student around ... or is
she? Things change when the uncouth fighter Shizuma
Kusanagi transfers in from Kansai. He may not have
the grace of Ryoko, but his amazing fighting abilities
could make him the most dominant martial artist
at Daimon High. Principal Todo encourages rivalry
between the competitors, setting up a dangerous
'K-Fighting' tournament where even the teachers
can join in and settle once-and-for-all just who
is the top dog on campus. |
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| back
to top |
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| opinion |
| I must admit to not being the biggest fan of
martial arts based anime, and even less of a fan
of martial arts based manga.
Whilst I’m a really big fan of chop-sokey
films with real people in, especially those of the
Hong Kong flavour, I find the anime tend to be more
than a little silly. Given the lack of physical
restrictions, they seem obsessed with filling them
with ridiculous combat and stupidly ott special
effects.
Also, the limited budgets of the majority of animes
means that they end up being packed full of huge
stand-off and face-down scenes where people just
sort of look moody at each other, gritting their
teeth and flexing their eyebrows. This, of course,
reduces the animation budget for these paused bits,
and allows them to spend the cash on the (relatively
short) bits where there is actual combat.
In a slight reversal, however, manga tends to almost
have the opposite problem. Because it’s effectively
a snapshot of still images, rather than continuously
flowing images, things get very confusing, very
quickly. The amount of “room” the manga
artist has to convey the action also limits things
a bit. |
If they’ve got a long run and plenty
of pages, they can flesh out everything that
needs to be seen and the action can really
flow. However, if it’s just a short
series, or they’re pressed for pages,
they have to take shortcuts. This means the
artist relies much more on the reader working
out what’s going on, which is a bit
of a contradiction when it’s supposed
to be a page flicking, high-speed bit of combat
:/.
I’m therefore not entirely sure why
I picked up Real Bout High School. The name
makes it very clear what the subject of the
manga is all about. Maybe it was just a moment
of madness, or I fancied a change, but I must
say overall I actually quite enjoyed it.
Of course, Real Bout does have a few of the
aforementioned confusing action sequences;
but the focus seems to be much more on character
development. And it’s quite a strong
cast of characters. |
 |
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The main protagonist is Ryoko, who’s a
bit of a bruiser of a girl - strong and big, and
not very feminine at all. She’s surrounded
by a small group of friends and enemies, both male
and female, but the focus is very much on her and
what is her “coming of age”.
However, that’s not to say the plot is spectacularly
brilliant or anything - it’s quite cheesy,
in fact - but it just goes at it with such gusto
you get swept along for the ride.
The 6 volumes effectively combine two separate
stories. The first is set during term time and introduces
all the main characters and ultimately giving Ryoko
a chance to come to grips with her emotionality.
The second is set during the following summer break
and is devoted to Ryoko growing as a person and
a leader. |
 |
Both parts feature the same main characters,
however the second introduces a new set of good
guys in the form of an all female team for Ryoko
to lead by the name of Shinsengumi. As mentioned,
the story is quite cheesy and most of the cheese
can be found in this latter half. There are quite
a few predictable “moments of revelation”
if you know what I mean, though towards the end
there’s quite a nice subversion of the format.
The art is generally of a very high standard throughout,
though with the obvious consideration towards slightly
confusing action as mentioned. Interestingly, there’s
not much in the way of overt fan-service in the
manga. There are lots of very short skirts, and
shots where, traditionally, panties would be on
full display, but Real Bout is actually really very
clean.
I mean, there are hints here and there, and all
of the characters are rather pretty, and some are
very pneumatic, but the proper fan service count
is kept to a ‘bare’ minimum (if you'll
pardon the pun). It should therefore be suitable
for those who get thoroughly turned off by such
things, but isn't too prim for those who like a
bit of flesh. |
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One thing I did find slightly confusing
was the layout of the pages.
There are various conventions with all media,
especially visual based media, which everybody
sticks to in order to make things understandable.
This, classically, is seen in cinema where
the term “language of cinema”
is often used. In practice this consist of
things like, when two people are talking,
if you show close ups of them, then you locate
them on opposite sides of the screen when
you cutbetween them. It also has nods to plays
where the side of the screen on which things
enter and exit must “make sense”.
Similarly, there is a convention to the flow
of action depicted on a comic book page. The
tendency is for the action in one panel to
lead the eye into the next panel or onto the
next page, as appropriate. |
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If these conventions aren’t followed, then
the narrative can simply fall over, as people can’t
follow the action.
Unfortunately, there is a great tendency in Real
Bout for this to happen. It’s most notable
with speech bubbles, where you end up reading the
second bubble after the first, because their positions
are kinda backwards to what you’re expecting.
It bears re-reading the manga then, if only to
make sure you’ve got everything straight.
As previously mentioned, the strength of the manga
is in the characters, and one of the definite advantages
of the relatively short number of volumes is that
this cast does not “expand to fill the space”.
Where a lot of manga of this ilk seems to introduce
a new hero and a new villain in every other chapter,
Real Bout's focus is kept squarely on the main players.
Similarly, it’s nicely grounded in reality
with very few nods to mystic mumbo-jumbo, or special
powers, or enchanted whojamaflips. Even the ninjas
that appear in it aren’t particularly heavy
on the acts-of-impossibility side of thing - it’s
just good old-fashioned blood, sweat and tears all
the way. |
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| back
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| summary |
| The Summary: 4/5 |
| The Score: Actually surprisingly good. |
| The Pictures:
(click for larger versions) |
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