BECK Volume 1 Review

Beck, the manga by Harold Sakuishi, centers around Tanaka Yukio (Koyuki) and Minami Ryusuke (Ray), and a world of music, bands, and people's lives So, can a manga based on music actually work? Well...yes it can and quite well in fact. It can because it relies largely on it's characters and their emotions to convey meaning, and not what our ears would be hearing In fact in volume one there are only five instances where the audio aspect of music is missing; Koyuki unwinding to Kuniyoshi Chiemi, the brief scene at the Serial Mama show, the Dying Breed MD (DyBre a popular and influential American band), the four panels devoted to The Musicmans show, and Koyuki singing at the very end of the book. Even for these scenes lacking the audio doesn't much matter as the scenes largely, or atleast somewhat, deal more with the emotions brought on by the music, than what is actually being heard.

For those of you interested there is a Beck animated series where you can hear the songs. It hasn't been licensed yet (Yukino edit: Series has been licensed by FuniMation of Fruits Basket fame, release date of disc one is set to be in early 2007) so you can use your BT and get out there and download the fansubs. Or, you can get the soundtrack (there are two discs Beck and Keith).

The characters are really what make Beck. All the characters are solid and mostly realistic, even the supporting characters. The character's appearance also seems to fit them well. The perverted Tanabe with his almost buzz-cut, and catcher's mitt of a face, could just as easily be a peeping middle aged salary man, as a perverted junior high kid. Izumi-chan and Maho are both drawn in a way to give the pretty girl appeal, but also are distinct enough that they feel very real. Eiji, Taira, and Ray do not look like they should be doing anything but rocking. Lastly Koyuki looks like an average, unimpressive middle schooler. My only complaint about the art is that sometimes the expressions, especially Koyuki's facial expressions, can be a little over the top. It isn't bad or anything, just something that I felt didn't always fit.

Koyuki however is anything but average. Actually at first he's duller than average. In fact at first blush Koyuki seems like the last person you would want to read a story about. Thankfully as the story progresses we see Koyuki is every bit as mixed up and confused as any other 14 year old. He does want to do more than just be a warm body, but doesn't quite seem secure enough with himself to change his current situation. You really can't blame him, because the first time he tries to go out and do something (help an old lady he ends up getting thrashed by some punks. After this Koyuki thinks “I guess I stepped out of my place in society.” Note: we will revisit this in more depth later. Koyuki also shows his good heart on a few more occasions; helping Beck (a Frankenstein of dog parts and the series name sake), not ratting out Tanabe when it would have saved his ass, and standing up to three Gaijin to help his friends. Indeed in the case of the Gaijin he also shows some considerable balls. Koyuki though isn't all brash and dashing. He isn't either of those things, at all. He's just a small awkward kid (see scene with Maho and her friends) with a good heart. This leads to him being more cute than anything else, and he's still miles from cool. His initial taste in music is lame, and he can barely get a sentence out of his mouth sometimes.

Going back to the earlier quote. The quote when added to Koyuki's seeming awkwardness with dropping the kun and chan from Ryusuke and Maho, plus the scene where he's worried about calling Mit-chan, Mit-chan seems to establish some sort of pattern. From this we can see that Koyuki, despite his desires to live an exciting life, is actually a fairly reserved kid. Perhaps brought up by parents who were more traditional Koyuki has to battle a little bit with the behaviors that he has learned from home and what he desires his life to be like. Indeed his newly forming social circle seems to be taking up a side opposite of his apparent nature at the beginning. Izumi, Maho, and Ray are all more independent and casual people. They, especially Ray, seem to be opening a door to a place were Koyuki can embrace his desires for what he wants from life, and give him an opportunity to express himself. At this juncture though it does not appear that Koyuki has the skills or practice to fully embrace this. He is still reserved, still awkward, and above all still very confused. It will be interesting to see how this progresses.

The second main character in the series is Ray. Ray seems to be almost an opposite of Koyuki. With Ray we know what he wants to do, and to a certain extent we can see where it will take him. What we don't get with Ray however is the clarity of what type of person he is. Part of this is because we do not get narration or inner dialog from Ray. However, it extends beyond that. He at the same time seems to be a very nice and friendly person, yet cold and capable of being extremely emotionally distant. This dichotomy can be seen by how Ray acts when he is breaking up with the girl in the bar. He is anything but kind. He is blunt, cold, and while honest, he doesn't pull any punches. Yet a few minutes later he sticks his neck out to bail out Koyuki and his friends from the previously mentioned Gaijin. Further contradictions include it being mentioned that Ray is the son of a company president. However, we always see Ray borrowing money and apparently broke. Ont op of that he is only 16 yet living in an old run down fishing shack where he works. We know his passion for music, but nothing beyond that seems clear. Still, he is a likable character, and interesting, if not compelling.

Well, I'm looking forward to volume two. I'll try and do a little more actual plot analysis next time, instead of just talking about a couple characters and one odd tangent.

A non-wanky opinion of Beck 1 (Yukino's Review)

Alright....so below this is my review of the first volume of the Beck manga. It's pretty much pieced together from the notes I took while reading, so it will be disjointed and not flow clearly. And that's how I want it...

Volume 1 is the story of how Koyuki (Yukio) Tanaka, a middle schooler who feels that there's no excitement in his life, meets Ryusuke (Ray...apparently though they never say this in the manga so Mayama confused me and made me think we were talking about other people named Ray) Minami who's sorta fresh from America and plays guitar in a rock band. The band is having problems though and in the end Ryusuke and his bandmate Eiji split and decide that they will compete to see who can make a better band.

Ok, now beyond the summary to my thoughts:

In the beginning, I really like that Koyuki wants to write an autobiography about his life, but thinks it's too boring to be interesting. This reminds me a lot of how I want to make a movie of my life and how I have various scenes and the soundtrack all in my head, but no one would make a movie of my life because I don't DO anything important to society that would bring me enough fame to warrant a movie. Even a made-for-TV movie. It's sad to think that really. It may also be sad that I constantly strive for fame and recognition, but we're not going to go into that side of things. However, as the story goes on you realize that yeah, Koyuki's life isn't exciting to the "real world", but he's a pretty tough kid underneath is shy and cute exterior. He's got some quite biography-worthy moments in his life. And when it comes down to it....so do I. And that's what keeps me going some days, so I hope Koyuki recognizes it too. I also like that whenever his friends go anywhere he generally tags along, but he never has any money. Which is so very much like me....as at least the majority of you reading this will know. So, this helped me get pretty attached to him. That and his shy, quiet adorability a la Shinji Ikari. For an example of this, when the high school kids take him to a bar he's so proper and quiet and shy about things while everyone else is getting drunk and just hanging out there. A good example is that one of the girls asks him why he isn't drinking and his reply is, "I am. This is my second oolong tea!" So cute. Beyond that, and Mayama touched on this, there's a point after Koyuki helps an old lady that was being harrassed by Yakuza and then gets his shit kicked by them where he makes a comment about acting too far out of his social standing and how he will live by the rules of society from now on. This makes me think a lot about at least what I know about Japanese society and how different it is from ours. The fact that he feels that he was obviously in the wrong to help an old lady makes me a little sad in a lot of ways. Koyuki comes through a few more times helping people, and I think to myself....if he were "living by the rules of society" he wouldn't be doing nearly as much for these people and therefore wouldn't be nearly the person he is. Without knowing.....he's gaining support by defying the "rules of society".

On music....Koyuki is SO oblivious. His favorite singer is this jpop idol girl. Ok, so I have the soundtrack, which makes this manga a little better more than likely as I can actually envision what's going on. So it's funnier to know the songs when you hear him make the transition from liking Kuyinoshi Chiemi to The Dying Breed. Conversely, reading the manga is making the soundtracks make more sense...cause there are like 20 bands and everyone sings with everyone else and I have to admit I was confused while listening to it. But I do like it. I REALLY like the music in the series. It also amused me that after Ray and Izumi (the hot girl at Koyuki's school) were having a conversation about American and western music that Koyuki knew nothing about, he attempted to learn more and ended up reading about ridiculous American pop a la Celine Dion. When he finally does hear The Dying Breed (they're supposed to be all the rage in the American rock scene) he's overwhelmed by it and listens to it so much that he admits at the end that he memorized the words (more on this later in the "random things I liked section"). It's funny too that the Japanese kids on their encounters with the gaijin and other things try to speak English. This is one of those things that's even funnier if you know the soundtrack or the anime. But you get enough about it in the manga to make it amusing.

Overall, this book was really good and I'm really looking forward to reading more and getting more into the storyline. There are a lot of books in the series (23) so this thing keeps on going for a while. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes as far as the two bands and how Koyuki gets more involved (cause I know he does and I know the soundtrack)

Random things I liked:

Koyuki says to Ryusuke after Ryusuke thanks Koyuki for helping him and tells him how much he appreciated this time and how Koyuki helped his dog Beck: "It's just that lately, for a long time now, it seems like no one really cares or notices if I'm alive or not." That just made me think about the times I've felt like that and how much it meant to me just to have someone thank me for doing even the littlest thing for them. It makes you feel good and it makes you really really really grateful to that person, whether they know it or not. And the cycle turns.

Ryusuke reads shoujou manga because of his sister. Which is hilarious cause he kinda tries to be all like...I'm a rockstar, but then he reads shoujou. Like me....only I'm a girl.

Koyuki's reaction to hearing The Dying Breed: "It was only 10 seconds or so...until that point in time there was nothing in my heart that could approach Kuniyoshi Chiemi's stronghold..."

Koyuki's reaction to Ryusuke's band: "I don't know much about guitar playing, but they look SO COOL!" Haha yeah, they do. And I've SO been there before.

I like the random stoner rocker trying to give an analysis of the band. He amuses me greatly.

Koyuki gets scared by the hidden track on the CD. Hee hee.

Ryusuke setting Koyuki up to get food with his little sister is both cruel and ingenious at the same time. However, then Koyuki goes out with her and her friends and ends up thinking, yet again, that he's boring and no one will ever be interested in him. I've been here, I know some of the rest of you have too.

Ryusuke: "The most important focus of the band is the bass and drums." YES!!! It took me a while to get to this revelation, but YES!!!

Ok...this completes my review of Beck 1. Less wanky than Mayama's, but less coherent and analytical as well. I'm being the girl for once.

posted by Yukino at 1:18 PM

Dusting off the English Major Wanking (Mayama's Review)

A non-wanky opinion of Beck 1 (Yukino's Review)