Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Boogiepop Darkly: The Scat Singing Cat

When a Towa agent -- the awesomely named Thelonious Monkey -- goes missing after a fight with a mysterious MPLS known only as Scatterbrain, Reset dispatches the infamous "strongest" -- Fortissimo.
Fortissimo is a bit like the Daleks in Doctor Who. He's inherently awesome, and cheapened by overuse. I know he isn't in every Boogiepop novel, but he's been in far too many of them, and been far too ineffective in most of them, so I was a bit disappointed to see him playing a major role this time around. But I'm guessing Kadono wanted to revamp the character a bit, because I honestly don't think he's been this fucking bad ass since his first fucking appearance. Walking on water, evaporating said water with a flick of the mind, ignoring crowds of zombies attacking from all sides as they bounce off him, making his own heart explode and reform so he can free himself from a mind-control spell with a bit of temporary death -- he's single-handedly Jojoing the shit out of this volume, and it was awesome to behold. I hope Kadono has the sense to keep him out of the spotlight so the next time he shows up his very entrance provides a thrill.
This is possibly the closest to outright horror the series has been in years. The section where Fortissimo reads Thelonious Monkey's cryptic journal, encountering puzzling references to a cat set randomly between accounts of people she knows not remembering her, and her not remembering people who clearly know her, is some genuinely chilling stuff.
The other story cross cut with Fortissimo's investigation involves the local junior high's photography club searching odd corners of the town in the hopes of finding evidence that Boogiepop exists. These four are archetypal Kadono characters, all presented as stock types before their interactions serve to knock each other off balance, their reactions never quite what we expect, so that they gradually take on a life of their own.
The structure here is classic Jojo's Bizarre Adventure -- a mysterious power is at work, and the bulk of the book is spent figuring out what it is and how it works, while being more than a bit afraid of it. For once Boogiepop is forced to play a fairly active role, even if that largely just means the climax of the book has more than it's fair share of cryptic riddle-speech. For better or for worse, Kadono is a man who never strays very far from his own set of foibles. But The Scat Singing Cat is definitely on his better side.

9 comments:

  1. Ugh. I might be willing to learn the Japanese language just to be able to read the Boogiepop novels or something. How good do I need to be? I'm guessing pretty damn good...

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  2. They're on the easy side as long as you are willing to totally ignore the philosophic mumbo jumbo like I do.
    I was reading them along with Kino no Tabi when I was passing my 二級 exams? As first novels go, they're nice and straight forward, not much slang.

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  3. I don't know if I could feel good about skipping the philosophic mumbo-jumbo. After all, Kirima Seiichi quotes are one of my favorite parts of the Vs. Imaginator books. Or would I like them less were it not for your translations? lol.

    Either way, I have a LONG way to go. I can't even read kanji yet orz.

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  4. YO AC, I notice that Gosick book 2 suddenly came out?! Were you involved this time?! I opened up a book at my local store, and both for Translator and English Adaption, no name was listed!!! WTF?!

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  5. It's the translation I did for them several years ago, before the hiatus. I don't have contacts there any more, so I can't really comment further.

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  6. This sounds so epic!!!!!!!!!!!!
    Thank you for posting!!

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  7. Andrew I really love this series and am learning Japanese just to translate it.

    I don't know how much you can talk about about the topic, but if I were to translate them and put them up for download on the internet, would I be legally at risk?

    I want to get into the translation business, but I don't wanna start off by getting myself in trouble.

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  8. I have hunted and hunted and still to this day wonder if you or anyone you know will translate any more of the Boogiepop series. I have read and re-read them a lot and wish i could get deeper into the series but unable to with the lack of learning a new language. I wonder if Seven Seas would do it for more books. I have seen and read the reviews of the other books by those who can and feel i am missing out on so much. One day ill see the other books.

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  9. Real shame that no more Boogiepop novels were translated :[

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