Customer Reviews

Detroit Metal City, Vol. 1

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Trust the Japanese to do a comedy metal series better than anyone else. This is funny stuff. Conflicts arise between the EXTREME personality swings between the main character's two roles: demonic Krauser and the sweet faced Nigishi. Would would imagine that the meek kid is indeed the god of evil in metal music? This comic speaks to the duality in us all. Jekyll and Hyde, and Superman - Clark Kent have NOTHING on this guy. Full of profanity that wouldn't make it in any regular comic book - this is really for adults...

There's no easy way to describe this manga series. The closest thing it can compare to is the Adult Swim animated series "Metalocalypse". Yes it's raunchy in its humor and language and is defenitely not for the kiddies. That "M for Mature/Explicit Content" rating on the back of the book is there for a reason. The manga earns it well. XD

The art is not your typical cutesy shojo style, and that's what makes Kiminori Wakasugi's Detroit Metal City work. I can't wait to read further volumes to see what else happens. Also, the first volume includes a fun extra. At the end of the book there's a page of Detroit Metal City-themed temporary tattoos.

I was pointed to this manga due to my interest in Japanese music, about which I had written a regular column in Protoculture Addicts magazine for many years. Essentially, DMC is a satirical look at the Death Metal culture in Japan. We are introduced to the titular band at an early concert where they are just starting their climb to metal dominance. The long blond haired, buff, Johanes Krauser the Second, in an armor outfit and kabuki makeup, screams out lyrics about raping and killing his parents, while the audience takes everything he says with dead pan seriousness. However, the catch is that His Infernal Majesty is actually Negishi Souichi, a shy, skinny Japanese twenty-something with short black hair who spends his real life dreaming about romance, tea, fashion, and would rather be singing Swedish pop songs.

This dichotomy forms the comedic base of DMC. Jokes revolve around the tension between the two sides of his life, attempts to keep people from finding out he is Krauser, opportunities to be mean to people who don't know he is Krauser, other bands and his own fans causing him trouble because they don't know he is Krauser, and his turning into Krauser at both inopportune times and where it is really needed. The other main source of comedy is the straight skewering of Heavy Metal and Death Metal culture.

I recognized the taproot of all of this from my magazine days: Seikima-2. Go to You Tube, look up this Japanese metal band, and you will see Krauser in the flesh as Demon Kogure, their lead singer. They have quite a few video postings, so try "Fire After Fire" or "1999 Secret Object" if you want to see something fairly representative. Prefer a live version if given the choice, so that you can see them in all of their amazing, silly glory. Go ahead; I'll wait.

Now, wasn't that just begging to have someone come along and make fun of it? And that's exactly what Kiminori Wakasugi has done.

Seikima-2 is not Death Metal, but it seems rather obvious that Kogure has been given rebirth in Krauser to act as a foil between his generation of metal and their Japanese descendants. You see the same grand gestures, overblown lyrics, make-up, and outlandish statements about being demons ascended from Hell to bring destruction to human society. However, the members of Seikima-2 knew that this was all theater. Sometimes Kogure would break into a big smile at the ridiculous statements coming out of his own mouth during an interview or even start laughing and fall completely out of character due to the reactions of others to what he was saying. When caught without make-up by paparazzi he brushed it off as his human disguise, which he used to better infiltrate human society in order to study it for weaknesses that could be exploited to speed the coming fall of the world into demonic hands.

What followed in their wake, though, were Death Metal bands, some imitating Seikima's visual style, that took it all with complete seriousness, as did their fans. Wakasugi is using Kogure/Krauser to stick a big finger in their eye. While Negishi may take it all in stride, other performers don't. It's life or death pushed to the point of laugh out loud absurdity. And the fans follow in step, believing every statement in the most literal way and interpreting everything, no matter how obviously showing that the emperor has no clothes, into something worthy of His Satanic Might.

To give an idea of what this title is like, here is what basically happens in one chapter. Negishi, needing a break from the tension of it all, goes back home to his family farm, only to find that his younger brother, Toshihiko, has become a hard core DMC fan, walking around the house head-banging and howling lyrics about raping and killing his parents, in front of his parents. Since Toshihiko will not listen to anyone, Negishi decides that the only thing to do is dress up like Krauser and teach him to help around the farm and go to school, but Toshihiko is doing none of that, because he thinks Krauser wouldn't either. So, Negishi, as Krauser, teaches him to feed the cows (to imitate his mastery over beasts), to harvest crops with a sickle (to prepare for taking off heads in the coming apocalypse), to drive a tractor (as practice for car-jacking), and to study (to imitate his Satanic mastery of all subjects). Toshihiko is suitably impressed. He had no idea that the Emperor of Hell was such a handy farm-boy. Truly, Krauser's infernal talents know no bounds. We end with a picture taken with the whole happy family; Krauser in the center in full armor and make-up, wearing a big smile and holding up two large yams. There are, of course, many other funny jokes and situations in this chapter, but you get the idea.

There is a sticker on the front of this book giving a parental advisory for explicit content. You should take that much more seriously than you do with most other titles. There is a continual stream of profanity and some lewd situations that would likely go over the line for many readers. This is definitely not a manga for kids or adolescents. It is part of Viz's Signature Line and is a mature title, in the sense of being inappropriate for minors, but not because of porn or even truly adult content. The laughs, language and behavior in this series are actually rather immature, but all of this is part of the comedy necessary to properly satirize the subject matter. If you have the slightest doubt that this is your cup of tea, it probably isn't. While I can appreciate what Wakasugi is doing, and laughed out loud many times, in the end I gave the volumes back and decided it really wasn't something that I would buy for my library, as it just went too far over my personal line too many times.

The other potential problem with the title is its limited subject matter. After a while, it starts feeling like the exact same jokes and situations are merely being recycled with different characters in different contexts. What was hilariously funny the first few times becomes stale. And while Wakasugi usually manages to insert something new, the amount of rehash seems to continually grow with each chapter. By the time you reach the end of the Satanic Emperor Festival story line in volume 4, you've pretty much seen it all and it starts to drag, unless your sense of humor is right in line with the series. If you read the manga Wallflower very far, you will see the same thing befall that book, as well.

In the end, this is really a buyer beware title. It will either really click with you and you will be laughing until you cry, particularly if you are familiar with metal culture or have metal friends, or you will read the first volume and feel the need to stop and take a shower to scrub it off. In between you may have the bizarre experience of feeling like you should really stop reading it, yet find yourself compelled to turn the page to see what insanity is going to happen next. The best advice is to preview it at Viz's website or in a store before purchasing. It shouldn't take long to figure out whether or not this series is for you.

This manga makes me feel like I am reading a lighthearted, happy, manga about somebody who has read one to many 'sensitivity' books one moment and then turns into a heartless, raging metal fest on the same page. A wonderful book for anybody who talks about Hellsing, Sin City, Preacher, Tank Girl, Scud... etc in public and goes home and watches some Nana while having a nice cup of tea...