Manga: "Yellow 4" by Makoto Tateno
Aug. 3rd, 2006 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katikatToday, I've received two parcels from Amazon (yayayay!!!) and in one of them, there was the "Yellow 4" manga by Makoto Tateno. Naturally, I had to read that one first, having read the previous three in the series. I was really looking forward to this one since the third volume ended with a cliffhanger. Unfortunately, the 4th volume rather disappointed me. I thought/hoped that it would be suspensive, touching, a little sad but that it would grip me from the first page. Nothing was farther from the reality :(
What I didn't like? Well, I can sum it up easily:
1. The whole thing with the card and Mozart was utterly ridiculous. If Taki managed to convince the woman to help him, why didn't he simply write the whole thing down on a piece of paper? No details, just the name and the place? O.o
2. If Taki was more or less a prisoner, where did he get his hands on a surveillance system to spy on his "parents"? And I'm not even talking about the crowd of women who went through his bed in the short period of time. Where did he get to know them since he didn't seem to leave his room?
3. Goh came to save Taki and instead of running for the hills, they had sex right there, in the cell. Call me a cynic but that was so stupid that I didn't even find it hot. And talking about the cell, the guards outside etc. What the hell? Where did all that come from?
4. Tsunuga drugging Goh. Right, Taki really wouldn't notice that someone doped the man that was sitting right next to him with a chloroform (that must have been chloroform or something like that since Tsunuga had to press a handkerchief to Goh's mouth). Like I would believe that Goh would simply take it and not even flail a bit. Right. And the fact that Goh recognized Tsunuga because he smelled like this certain brand of coffee? Completely ridiculous X((
5. Tsunuga kidnapping Taki. I thought he was their friend and here he was ready to throw Taki back into the clutches of international assassins to have his revenge. Please, an elderly cop who has been a coffee shop owner for the last six years wants to take on TWO super killers. Right.
6. PLEASE, no amnesia, please! X( The fact that Taki had killed this girl was what really grabbed my attention. But Mari was actually Katsuro's email friend? And the police didn't know anything about a girl that had been washed out on the shore? Okay, whump me over the head but is the author trying to make us look like idiots or what?
7. The whole thing with Taki and Goh pointing guns at their respective heads. I really really wanted to see the scene as moving, touching etc. but it just looked funny - two adults pointing guns at their own heads while in the company of an elderly ex-cop slash coffee shop owner bent on revenge, a crazy international assassin with a changed sex, another international assassin with an internet fetish and a little girl with amnesia X( I think that Katsuro was the only normal guy there, really.
Oh, and not to mention the drawings and style. Some of the pictures were not that good anymore or downright ugly. It looked like the author didn't have the time to make the drawings as elaborate as they had been in the first volume :( I always hate it when something like that happens :(
I think that the quality of "Yellow" was dropping rapidly with each volume and I'm rather glad that it ended where it ended and that there are no more books in this series. I've hoped that this series would be as good as "Fake" but it really didn't reach that level.
Overall, I would give this series 3,5 - 4 stars maximum, but this volume would be 2,5 stars at the most. I'm very disappointed :(
What I didn't like? Well, I can sum it up easily:
1. The whole thing with the card and Mozart was utterly ridiculous. If Taki managed to convince the woman to help him, why didn't he simply write the whole thing down on a piece of paper? No details, just the name and the place? O.o
2. If Taki was more or less a prisoner, where did he get his hands on a surveillance system to spy on his "parents"? And I'm not even talking about the crowd of women who went through his bed in the short period of time. Where did he get to know them since he didn't seem to leave his room?
3. Goh came to save Taki and instead of running for the hills, they had sex right there, in the cell. Call me a cynic but that was so stupid that I didn't even find it hot. And talking about the cell, the guards outside etc. What the hell? Where did all that come from?
4. Tsunuga drugging Goh. Right, Taki really wouldn't notice that someone doped the man that was sitting right next to him with a chloroform (that must have been chloroform or something like that since Tsunuga had to press a handkerchief to Goh's mouth). Like I would believe that Goh would simply take it and not even flail a bit. Right. And the fact that Goh recognized Tsunuga because he smelled like this certain brand of coffee? Completely ridiculous X((
5. Tsunuga kidnapping Taki. I thought he was their friend and here he was ready to throw Taki back into the clutches of international assassins to have his revenge. Please, an elderly cop who has been a coffee shop owner for the last six years wants to take on TWO super killers. Right.
6. PLEASE, no amnesia, please! X( The fact that Taki had killed this girl was what really grabbed my attention. But Mari was actually Katsuro's email friend? And the police didn't know anything about a girl that had been washed out on the shore? Okay, whump me over the head but is the author trying to make us look like idiots or what?
7. The whole thing with Taki and Goh pointing guns at their respective heads. I really really wanted to see the scene as moving, touching etc. but it just looked funny - two adults pointing guns at their own heads while in the company of an elderly ex-cop slash coffee shop owner bent on revenge, a crazy international assassin with a changed sex, another international assassin with an internet fetish and a little girl with amnesia X( I think that Katsuro was the only normal guy there, really.
Oh, and not to mention the drawings and style. Some of the pictures were not that good anymore or downright ugly. It looked like the author didn't have the time to make the drawings as elaborate as they had been in the first volume :( I always hate it when something like that happens :(
I think that the quality of "Yellow" was dropping rapidly with each volume and I'm rather glad that it ended where it ended and that there are no more books in this series. I've hoped that this series would be as good as "Fake" but it really didn't reach that level.
Overall, I would give this series 3,5 - 4 stars maximum, but this volume would be 2,5 stars at the most. I'm very disappointed :(
