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Jason Thompson's House of 1000 Manga - Crying Freeman


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Fronzel



Joined: 11 Sep 2003
Posts: 1906
PostPosted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 12:23 pm Reply with quote
That...really does sound very trashy.
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Nuts



Joined: 08 Jan 2004
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 1:06 pm Reply with quote
I love this manga because it is sooooo batsh!t insane. The premise, the characters, the events are so off the wall, I couldn't help but enjoy it. Because this manga is every male fantasy rolled into one, it's certainly not for everyone. However, I will admit, after reading Crying Freeman I always feel the need to read a good shoujo or josei manga just to get the taste of masogynism out of my mouth.
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TokyoGetter



Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 416
Location: CA. You can tell by the low moral standards.
PostPosted: Sat Feb 26, 2011 12:52 am Reply with quote
I always like Koike's work because, really, everybody is an asshole in them. They're pretty much all horrible people or ciphers, whether they fall into being "protagonists" by proxy or context or not.

Crying Freeman's such an absurdly fun example of that. They're all huge, screaming, ugly stereotypes, all the way down the line. Koike's absurdly educated and knowledgeable about a lot of things. He was making fun of comics, plot, story, and heroes all the way down the line, and not a lot of people mention that.

His biggest hero killed children, for God's sake. "It was his job in historic Japan!" is still an equivocation on the moral scale in some way. Once you accept that and see his work as a REALLY mean allegory it gets fairly interesting. Your shock value may vary...
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Sunday Silence



Joined: 22 Jun 2010
Posts: 2047
PostPosted: Sat Feb 26, 2011 4:10 am Reply with quote
Anime World Order wrote:
The live-action movie starring Mark Dacascos is also quite good.


I disagree. The guy is too.....serious. Notice on both Iron Chef America and Hawaii Five-O, his "seriousness" only tends to screw up the atmosphere of the show (particularly Wo Fat in Hawaii Five-O. I HATE the fact that he was casted into the role. Wo Fat is supposed to be a cunning calculated tactician, not some metrosexual asian eurotrash wannabe) . Hell, the relationship with him and Emu in the film was......dumb. You could see it was more like some gross fan-fiction script than a serious one.
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Sariachan



Joined: 09 May 2005
Posts: 1507
Location: Italy
PostPosted: Sun Feb 27, 2011 12:14 am Reply with quote
Crying Freeman porn? Laughing
Erotic manga I could agree, but not porn.

Anyway, I'm a female and really enjoyed it (I read a bit of everything, from shounen to jousei, shoujo and seinen included).
It's a manga with a strong vibe... it's really funny, basically, and really, really crazy. At the same time, it makes sense if taken on its own, and this is why it's great.


Also, Lone Wolf & Cub boring (this comes from one of the comments, not the review)?!?!?! Shocked + *facepalm*

Lowe Wolf & Cub is so culturally rich than it hurts, not to mention that it's godly drawn.




Ending note: not all people think that manga is just one style (manga are more identified by the often dynamic layout), and not all Shounen Jump manga are bad or simple graphic-wise (just think about Death Note, Hikaru no Go and Bakuman... and the rich of details, awesome Oda's panels for One Piece, to name a few).
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ptolemy18
Manga Reviewer/Creator/Taster


Joined: 07 May 2005
Posts: 357
Location: San Francisco
PostPosted: Sun Feb 27, 2011 1:10 am Reply with quote
Sariachan wrote:
Crying Freeman porn? Laughing
Erotic manga I could agree, but not porn.


I dunno. I generally use the term 'erotic' and 'porn' interchangeably. I find that most people define 'erotica' as one or both of these things:

(1) Erotica = less explicit porn
(2) Erotica = porn that *you* like, as opposed to the dirty, filthy, nasty, low-down, bad porn that other people like -_-

Although it's true that adult manga of the Icarus/Eros Mangerotica kind is waaaaay dirtier and 'pornier' than Crying Freeman. Crying Freeman is a manga that happens to have a lot of (fairly) explicit sex scenes; the typical ero-manga is ALL explicit sex scenes. So I guess you could say that one is porn and the other is just an X-rated non-porn movie, but there isn't a very good word for that. Anyway, my point is, it wasn't meant as an insult. Wink


Last edited by ptolemy18 on Sun Feb 27, 2011 1:28 am; edited 1 time in total
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ptolemy18
Manga Reviewer/Creator/Taster


Joined: 07 May 2005
Posts: 357
Location: San Francisco
PostPosted: Sun Feb 27, 2011 1:27 am Reply with quote
Sariachan wrote:
Crying Freeman porn? Laughing
Erotic manga I could agree, but not porn.


Or, think of Crying Freeman this way: it's like food porn, but with photorealistic naked women.
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fuuma_monou



Joined: 26 Dec 2005
Posts: 1846
Location: Quezon City, Philippines
PostPosted: Sun Feb 27, 2011 9:48 am Reply with quote
ptolemy18 wrote:
(1) Erotica = less explicit porn
(2) Erotica = porn that *you* like, as opposed to the dirty, filthy, nasty, low-down, bad porn that other people like -_-


Heh. I tend to go with the Alan Moore categories: porn is cheap smut, erotica is expensive smut.

Never got around to reading Crying Freeman, but Dance Till Tomorrow was pretty much in the same boat as borderline porn.
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marcos torres toledo



Joined: 01 Sep 2009
Posts: 269
PostPosted: Sun Feb 27, 2011 5:13 pm Reply with quote
I only know of it thru the anime series of which the first five of the eight part anime and did find it quite interesting and I would like to watch the last three of the series but with Blockbuster bankrupy and Video Ave cut back I doubt I ever will it was quite entertaining as a anime series Surprised
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Sariachan



Joined: 09 May 2005
Posts: 1507
Location: Italy
PostPosted: Sun Feb 27, 2011 7:41 pm Reply with quote
Erotic works deals with sex matters within a contest, not just for the sake of it like porn.

It's a clear and distinctive difference, even if there could be some grey productions of course. But Crying Freeman isn't that case.
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TokyoGetter



Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 416
Location: CA. You can tell by the low moral standards.
PostPosted: Sun Feb 27, 2011 8:53 pm Reply with quote
Sariachan wrote:
Erotic works deals with sex matters within a contest, not just for the sake of it like porn.


Shocked

Typ-OH-hilarity.
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jr240483



Joined: 24 Dec 2005
Posts: 4447
Location: New York City,New York,USA
PostPosted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 8:48 am Reply with quote
Charred Knight wrote:
The only manga of his I have read was a couple chapters of Mad Bull 34 years ago. It was fun in a trashy way, and that's not really bad. I would rather read something that was stupid and a blast than some pretentious anime where the guy managed to throw in the beliefs of some obscure religion for no apparent reason.



I never knew there was a manga for Mad Bull 34 in the US.

I liked that series even though the violence was way over the top.

Unfortunately it's cause of it that and cause it's the 21st century where people prefer Shouen Jump type content, that great series like Crying Freeman , Mad Bull 34 Guyver and especially Bastard are no where to be seen in any manga stores at all. And from the looks of things , even Black Lagoon may suffer their fates as well.
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Sariachan



Joined: 09 May 2005
Posts: 1507
Location: Italy
PostPosted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 10:41 am Reply with quote
^ I don't think that's the case.

It's just that seinen are for adults, it's normal to see manga for everyone more. Wink

Anyway, here in Italy (and in other European Countries too, as far as I know) you can find pretty much any type of manga in comics stores... maybe it's only in the USA that the more adult contents manga are marginalized?
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Akcoll99



Joined: 28 Feb 2011
Posts: 280
PostPosted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 11:42 am Reply with quote
Anime World Order wrote:
The live-action movie starring Mark Dacascos is also quite good. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if it was ever released intact in the US, if at all. There is also a Hong Kong version of Crying Freeman in which the lead character spends most (all?) of the movie wearing that porcelain mask. That one's...well, "for fans only."


There was an announcement made about 6-7 years ago that the Dacascos version would finally get a US release and then...nothing. According to Patrick Macias, the music rights are prohibitively expensive. I have my bootleg and I guess that will have to keep me happy for now...

And there were actually TWO other live action adaptions of Freeman, both made in Hong Kong circa 1990. One was called "Killer's Romance" and the other "Dragon From Russia." Amazingly, both of these ARE available on DVD in the US. I was able to rent them from Netflix. Names are changed, but the basic plot elements are all there. I like the Dacascos version, but these are both pretty dreadful, though I remember liking one more than the other. It's been a couple years since I've seen them so sadly I couldn't tell you which one was which.

And as far as Ikegami, his artwork still blows me away, even 20 years after first seeing it. I have what I believe is the only official art book he's ever released. It came with a DVD of him showing off his drawing techniques. There's no visual reference at all (at least not one in camera frame anyway) and yet he STILL manages to draw these gorgeous photo-realistic pictures, just from pure memory and knowledge of anatomy/design. Worth hunting down for any Ikegami or Crying Freeman fan.
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TokyoGetter



Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 416
Location: CA. You can tell by the low moral standards.
PostPosted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 1:50 pm Reply with quote
Akcoll99 wrote:
And as far as Ikegami, his artwork still blows me away, even 20 years after first seeing it. I have what I believe is the only official art book he's ever released. It came with a DVD of him showing off his drawing techniques. There's no visual reference at all (at least not one in camera frame anyway) and yet he STILL manages to draw these gorgeous photo-realistic pictures, just from pure memory and knowledge of anatomy/design. Worth hunting down for any Ikegami or Crying Freeman fan.


Oh that sounds drool-worthy. Pics? ISBN? Other info?
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