kamino_neko (kamino_neko) wrote in scans_daily, @ 2009-03-12 10:14:00 |
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Current music: | Alice Cooper - Black Juju |
Entry tags: | genre: horror, medium: manga |
In the spirit of Fuan no Tane: Magabana
The Fuan no Tane post reminded me I wanted to post a couple of these.
Anyway...each collected volume of Franken Fran ends with two non-magazine extras: An extra chapter featuring the Franken Fran characters (Fran in v1, Veronica in v2), and a separate (so far as I can tell so far) series, Magabana.
Why the FnT post reminded me is pretty obvious - the format of Magabana is very similar - short (invarably two pages, many only 3 or 4 panels) horror-themed stories.
I say horror themed, because not all of them are particularly horrory in tone...Like Franken Fran - or FnT for that matter - some merely go for weird supernatural goings on, others go for funny, and some go for creepy/scary.
Unlike FnT, though, Magabana has 2 recurring characters. Neither has a name (as yet), nor do we learn anything about them, save for the one point that their stories are based around, but, they both appear in one story each in each of the Magabana chapters.
What follows is 2 pages/6 from vol 1, and 4 pages/14 from vol 2.
So...let's get started...opening with the first of our recurring characters, in his first appearance in the first volume:
OK, not much to that one, I know, still...I thought it was fairly effective, for what it was - not scary, just a bit gory, but somewhat unsettling in the random strangeness of what's happening.
I particularly like that the ghost girls, despite the fact that they're now bloody, eyeless specters, with busted up dentalwork, are still walking along, talking like any other middle school girls. Makes a fun change from the typical vengeful ghost, or ghost attempting to tell you what happened, or just being a pest.
Ghost Guy's bit in the second volume goes much the same way, though the specific situation he encounters is somewhat different. I like this one better.
Next up, from vol 2:
That there is our other recurring character, Eyepatch. (Look, they don't have names, simple descriptives make it easier!)
This is the more awesome of her two appearances, so far, IMO, though the other one did have it's charms.
But Eyepatch, more than most of the Magabana stories, turns the potential weakness of the format into a strength, at least in my opinion.
2 pages isn't nearly enough to explain anything, so nothing is explained - weird shit happens, Eyepatch shows up and saves the day with her sword-scissors (seriously), and disappears. Why the weird shit happens, who Eyepatch is, where she comes from, where she goes, and why she has such a strange weapon... Never explained.
Which leaves the reader in much the same boat as the people Eyepatch rescues - 'I have no idea what just happened, there, but, it was freaky...and kind of cool.'
I really like the spooky photo thing used here, also. It's not overly original, granted - though Eyepatch's part in this one kind of is (that one Red Dwarf episode excepted) - but it's nice and high on the scale of 'things that should not be, and therefore are really creepy even when not overtly sinister'.
This is also my second favourite of the Magabana shorts, so far.
THIS is my favourite:
OMG!VORE!
*ahem* There's so many reasons why this is my favourite. First, of course - the punchline is frickin' hilarious - the human has creeped the hell out of the monster! ('Ayeee! Vore!!')