Batman: Child of Dreams

Rating:
Summary: Will It Never End?????
Review: Batman: Child of Dreams marks the first time a DC Comics character has appeared in an original Japanese Manga, and while it's a nice looking book, it leaves a LOT to be desired storywise. And it's so looonnng.......

The meager plot revolves around a Japanese television crew that travels to Gotham City to snag an interview with Batman. Their arrival coincides with the arrival of a designer drug that allows the user to transform into a member of Batman's rogue gallery, followed shortly thereafter by their death by mummification. Yes, this IS as stupid as it sounds. As strange as it sounds, there are degrees of suspension of disbelief, at least as far as comic characters go. You can accept an outlandish plot like this in a Superman comic; Batman has a more gritty, realistic feel to his little corner of the DC Universe, and this story just seemed overly far-fetched at best, laughable at worst. The art, by Kia Asamiya, is breathtaking. His first glimpse of Gotham City will be forever etched in my memory. The story, though....Asamiya's original Japanese script is adapted by Max Allan Collins, creator of DC's amazing The Road To Perdition, and while he does a good job, the book is WAY too wordy for it's own good. I thought the book would never end. On the plus side, Asamiya has created one of the most likeable characters to join the Batman cast in years, the adorable Reporter Yuko Yagi. Hopefully someone will bring her back in some capacity soon. Other than her, I have to look at Batman: Child of Dreams as a gorgeous failure.

Rating:
Summary: Lost in Translation
Review: Criteria to produce manga:
1:All foreigners (ie. non-Japanese) must be represented by drawing inordinately (almost comically) outsized noses.
2:There must be a scene involving the heroine in the shower/female nudity (possibly with "sensitive" areas obscured for those sensitive Western readers.)
3:America must be portrayed as a utopia of pop culture and global trendsetting.
4:America must be portrayed as an ultra-dangerous urban hell.
5:The story should have minimalist dialogue.
6:The story should contain soundeffects for even the most trivial of actions (eg.the shuffle of a skirt on a seat,the sound people make when they want to sneeze etc.)
7:You should,it seems,stay away from Western comic book heroes.
The problem with Kia Asamiya`s take on the Batman myth is that it just isn`t Batman.It looks wrong,for a start.While the author may cite Jeph Loeb as an influence ("The Long Halloween"),perhaps taking his cue of giving Bruce Wayne a rather Roman profile as a character trait,Asamiya turns it into a caricature.
While Two-Face may look like a fair approximation of the classic villain,he doesn`t sound like a stilted public-schoolboy/half baked philosopher in any of the stories I read before this.
While any new take on The Joker is more than welcome (stop using him as a miniscule cameo character,DC people!) he never spoke in the polite stiff and overly mannered tones of Asamiya before.And isn`t the point of The Joker that he`s supposed to be funny?Hideous,but nevertheless funny?
And that`s just it.Kia Asamiya wrote "Child of Dreams to introduce/reintroduce Japanese readers to Batman so it`s not the Batman we all know and love.What works in the West doesn`t always work in Asia and vice versa (just look at "Batman:Hong Kong").I should know,I live here.A fair apportion of blame must rest with the translator (who if his blurb is to be believed really should have done better).
Perhaps Mr.Asamiya thought he was being terribly clever and postmodern but at the end of the day this was a misjudged attempt that just doesn`t work.

Rating:
Summary: The Ultimate Crazed Batman Fan - Batman Beware
Review: Finally, a decent and entertianing Batman graphic novel, which has been sorely lacking in the last couple of years. Kia Asamiya with Max Collins treat the reader to an entertianing read with outstanding artwork. The black and white, magna styled pitchures add to the dark mysterous Batman mythos.

The plot, though a little predictable, is written well enough to string the reader along. The strength is in the characters Batman and Yuko, a Japanese reporter out to try and do a story on the Batman. But someone, on the heals of Yuko's arrival, is duplicating Batman's villians and even Batman himself. Batman must battle these strange duplicates. Of course, the world's greatest dective knows that this is no coincidence and heads back to Japan when Yuko does.

This journey leads Batman to his ultimate crazed fan. Th story is enjoyable. I highly recommend it for the artwork and storytelling. Much better than the recently released "Batman: Absolution."

Rating:
Summary: not bad, not great
Review: Imposters posing as Batman's major villains attack without warning and die mysteriously, as a Japanese TV crew tries to do a story on the Dark Knight. A dangerous new drug on the street is involved, and Batman ends up travelling to Tokyo to get to the bottom of the mystery.

This was a fairly average Batman story, with numerous plot elements that have already been developed by other authors. There are fights with multiple villains (Jeph Loeb has done this twice), a warning on the danger of drugs (Alan Grant and others have done this), and an arch villain who wants to be Batman (a running theme with Azrael). The genetics angle was somewhat interesting, but not enough to create an original story.

I thought that the painted cover was very good and reminiscent of the early Batman movies. However, the interior art was a bit mixed in quality. Asamiya draws noses too big, and the frames were coarse and grainy at times. I couldn't tell whether this was a style choice, or a production problem. On the other hand, the shadowy atmosphere of Batman was well done, and the Joker was nicely drawn too.

For some reason, characters were often drawn with only one eye visible. Is this a manga convention of some type? It had to have been intentional. The manga style was apparent at times, but the book reads like an American comic. Occasionally the translation seemed awkward.

I would recommend this book for manga fans, and fans of Kia Asamiya, but anyone who has read a lot of Batman will find this work derivative and only mildly interesting. Still, it was not a terrible effort, and I'm now interested in looking at some of the author's other work.

Corey Butler

Rating:
Summary: Batman the Manga
Review: Kia Asamiya is perhaps one of the best Japanese illustrators out there. His legend is revered in his home country. With the great interest of manga in the American culture, it was only a matter of time before hot shot name would undertake the works of a classic character. Taking up Batman, however, was going to be a challenge.

The Bat is an extremely dark character that revels in the night. Though the Japanese don't have a problem with dark themes in the likes of Vampire Hunter D or even Akira, seeing crisp, clear art depict that darkness was going to be a challenge. Asamiya, howver, succeeds in creating and weaving an intricate, though maybe superficial at times, story that pits the Bat with a crazed fan(atic). The story moves from Gotham all the way to Japan and showcases most of Batman's rogue gallery. Though, unlike the great detaila nd plot of the Long Holloween, the characters are not really into the plot of the story and don't play a major role to advance the story. The most lost potential happens when the Joker meets up Batman to help him find the major villain of the story. That scene just fizzles and does not peak much interest.

Like most manga, the story is very laid down with no major surprises. Unlike Ameican written or themed comic concepts, manga does not challenge the reader. A great read and a nice story, though not a major contributor to the great Bat mythos.

Rating:
Summary: A fantastic fusion of manga and Batman!
Review: When a Japanese news crew arrives in Gotham City, hoping to catch an interview with Batman, the whole world begins to change. Batman's old nemeses - Two-Face, Penguin and the Riddler - start a campaign of terror, acting unusual, even for them. When Batman catches each in turn, they burn up and turn into mummies; a new drug has hit the street, one that can turn people into the super-villain of their choice. The Japanese news crew seems to be at the center of it all, but when a pseudo-Joker grabs Yuko Yagi, the team's anchor, they seem to be in as much danger as Batman himself. Someone is out to get Batman, someone with a great deal of knowledge about pharmaceuticals, and the trail leads straight to Tokyo.

This great graphic novel is the brainchild of Kia Asamiya, one of Japan's foremost manga illustrators. Combining traditional manga artwork with the Batman world produces a fantastic fusion that is true to the earlier Batman works, and yet is new and exciting! I loved the story and the artwork in this book; I was worried that I wouldn't like either, but boy was I wrong! The whole book is in black-and-white, but the lack of color goes along great with the story, keeping that Gothic feeling that one expects. I highly recommend this book to any, and every, fan of Batman.

Rating:
Summary: Asamiya Weaves a Good Story
Review: When I first picked this graphic novel up in the bookstore to look it over, I had no intention of buying it - the manga-style of drawing seemed too neat and clean, and the images are in black-and-white - but then I sat down and started reading the story. I was hooked.

Asamiya has great skills in plotting a story so that it captures and reader and moves you along. Asamiya also makes skilled use of dialogue - he relies very little on the narrator's voice because he is able to convey a remarkable amount of background information and character-development through his use of dialogue and a novelist's sense of timing when he switches viewpoint characters.

The story revolves around a number of disturbing themes that should have the intended unsettling effect on the reader: things and people are not what they seem; the most obvious, apparent enemy is not the source of the problem; and identities are always contested and sometimes compromised.

Asamiya introduces other themes as well, such as blurring the lines between "news" and entertainment, blurring the lines between television and reality, the dangerous extremes to which a fan (or fans) can take their identification with a celebrity and fantasy role-playing, and it touches on Commissioner Gordon's inability to control the crime in his own city - his, perhaps, over-reliance on one vigilante.

Oh, and did I mention the consuming public's perhaps over-reliance on pharmaceuticals to make us feel good, "get back in the game" and to imagine that we are that which we wish to be?

And then there are the very central themes of the relationship between dreams and reality, and the question of whether or not it is merely genetics (biology) that makes the man, or if something more is required?

This brings us back to the artwork. It didn't take long before I realized that Asamiya's art actually added to his ability to tell the story, rather than detracting from it. Most images are minimal and simplistic, but there is also a significant amount of detail in many of the frames; and the details Asamiya selected are just the right details to enable the reader to experience the story.

Night frames with aerial views of Gotham have all the feel of New York City. Frames inside the hotel lobby, the hospital, gritty back alleys, Wayne Manor and the Batcave are highly effective. And I could actually feel the hot shower as Yukio tried to relieve her stress back at the hotel after making a shocking discovery in the Gotham Cemetery. Tokyo is equally well-captured.

In other words, this story works. It works because the plotting pulls you in and holds your interest; it works because the dialogue tells the story and makes the characters real; it works because the themes the writer selected are not far removed from the reader's day-to-day reality - and that has a rather chilling psychological effect; and it works because the art sets the right mood and calls your attention to details that will stimulate the intended sensory and emotional reaction in the reader.

While the climax of story seems to drag on a bit, Asamiya is making an important point about what it is that really makes Batman who he is. As Frank Miller humanized Batman in his revolutionary treatment of the character, Asamiya also provides a revolutionary and humanizing treatment, but without resorting to an anti-heroic image.

There is also something Mooresque (as in Alan Moore) about Asamiya's ability to weave themes through his story, creating an integrated whole. Asamiya's themes, as mentioned above, center on dreams, fans, role-playing, identity and what it is that makes a person who he or she really is.

Asamiya weaves a good story and illustrates it well. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: It shows that Batman is an international hero.
Review: Yes, it is a very interesting story and it flows well as Batman pieces the puzzle together in his usual methodic manner. What was striking to me was that it seems the artist used Keaton's Batman for his model, something I have not seen used since the first movies comic. The action is a bit hard to follow and I never was much for magna adaptations of American comics, however it is a story worthy of any fans attention and a very enjoyable read.

Rating:
Summary: It shows that Batman is an international hero.
Review: Yes, it is a very interesting story and it flows well as Batman pieces the puzzle together in his usual methodic manner. What was striking to me was that it seems the artist used Keaton's Batman for his model, something I have not seen used since the first movies comic. The action is a bit hard to follow and I never was much for magna adaptations of American comics, however it is a story worthy of any fans attention and a very enjoyable read.