manga: From Eroica With Love Vol 3-4

[meganbmoore]

I think a single volume of this takes about twice as long to read as any other manga I’ve read. And I’m including some pretty wordy mangas there. I wonder if it’s like US comics, where most of them get consistently less wordy as time goes by.

Still a very fun spy spoof manga about a flamboyant (sometimes sadistic) thief and the super serious German spy who’s the reluctant object of his affections. Reluctant enough that I regularly worry Klaus will have a heart attack. I find it funny that I was talking to smillaraaqabout how he’d kill anyone who tried to sneak sugar into his coffe, and then about 20 pages later (after getting booted from MSN…) Klaus was trapped watching someone put ten sugar cubes in their own coffee.

While I suspect the train adventures in “Hallelujah Express” and Dorian’s…uhm…“bath assault” are the fandom’s favorite parts of these volumes, mine was in “In’shallah” when Klaus was outraged that Dorian sold his gun for a fraction of its worth, and then they stole each other’s vehicles and were so incensed that they broke down that they were too busy calling each other’s enemies to think to call for help.

And then there were “Borgias” in Rome! And Dorian unable to grab “Lucretia” because of her girl bits!

And I love that even in Dorian’s fairy tale dream, Klaus hates and rejects him.

James still annoys me, but I enjoy his regular near heart attacks. I find Agent G somewhat charming, though, and like Agent Z and Klaus’s concerns over Dorian corrupting him, too. Though I’m not overly thrilled that Dorian does business with a guy who sells child prostitutes, or that he “reserves” one years in advance. I suppose it suits, though.
 

Comments

[musouka-manga.livejournal.com]

Nah, I think my single favorite moment was when Klaus kicked Dorian out the back to the plane before he could even finish his catch phrase. Then again, I'm not sure I really "ship" those two along traditional lines, so that might be a part of it. (I also like the bit where Klaus can't figure out "which nun" Dorian is)

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Though I’m not overly thrilled that Dorian does business with a guy who sells child prostitutes, or that he “reserves” one years in advance.

I parsed that "reservation" as being more about Dorian not wanting to hurt Haloun's feelings -- other than Klaus, the pattern he's shown with other objects-of-attraction (Caesar, a ballet dancer in later volumes that haven't been translated yet, etc.) has tended towards boyishly-youthful-and-pretty-but-definitely-legal sorts in their late teens and early twenties. (Mostly blonds, too, which makes Klaus's fears of Dorian corrupting Z, who's much closer to Dorian's usual type, all the funnier...) Between an angsty bit of Dorian's own backstory, and his negative reactions at being offered the underage boys, I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that he disapproves of the whole thing, although his scruples aren't strong enough to keep him from dealing with the pimp in the first place. Still, he *is* a fairly high-level criminal, and a fairly self-absorbed and manipulative sort, so it's not like he's a classic hero showing a unexpected glitch in ethics there; Dorian's ethics are fairly questionable to begin with, and even when he ends up working on the side of the angels it's typically more for his own pleasure and amusement (or even profit) rather than any particular desire to do good for its own sake.

[animeshon.livejournal.com]

Sounds cute :D I shall have to add it to my wishlist!