NEAR MYTHS: FLAME OF RECCA PTS 1-156 (1995-96?)

 

I might never have reviewed even the first 156 parts of FLAME OF RECCA had I not wanted to compare the manga to its 1997 anime series, which review will appear separately on my movie-blog. Based on my early reading of the manga by one Nobuyuki Anzai, I didn't think there was much to say about it. It seemed a decent if unexceptional shonen manga of the mid-nineties, though I have the impression that it's not remembered much these days. I think Anzai followed the template set by Akira Toriyama's late eighties DRAGONBALL Z, in which the protagonist was a bit of a dummy yet one with amazing martial prowess, who became the moral center of a group of similar good-hearted champions. Anzai doesn't emphasize martial arts as much as Toriyama did, for his dopey protagonist Recca and his friends all utilize specialized talismans, "madogu," which endow them with super-powers like those of American costumed heroes.                                                                 

 Thus far, the only major distinction I've discovered in RECCA is its take on the roles of the main hero and his opposite number. Manga (including DRAGONBALL) has no shortage of heroes who earnestly defend their bosom friends while their villains are obsessed loners motivated only by the desire for power. Anzai does come up with a novel twist on this theme. Recca, though he's a teen who's been raised in the 20th century, was actually born in a ninja cult during the 16th century. When the cult gets wiped out, Recca's mother sends her infant son forward in time, where the baby is fortunate enough to be raised by a poor but virtuous "father." However, Recca's older half-brother Kurei, raised by his mother to trample upon the weak, attempts to kill Recca, but gets caught up in the time-spell. Kurei too gets catapulted to the 20th century, but he gets adopted by a nasty gang-boss who will eventually propel all of his agents, including Kurei, against the champions following Recca. Like many DRAGONBALL imitators, RECCA structures a lot of its action around tournament-competitions, the better to supply fans with plenty of wild action scenarios. And toward the end of the tournament-plotline, Recca squares off against Kurei both philosophically as well as physically. First, we have Kurei, expousing the belief that the strong alone matter.                                                         

                                                                       

And then there's Recca, expousing the belief that connections to one's circle of family and friends are paramount.                                  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

                                                                                                                

It's possible that some later episodes of RECCA might develop these opposing philosophies. But failing that, the rest of the series probably only earns status as a "near myth."  

NEAR-MYTHS: "THE GRIM HUNT" assorted Spider-Man comics (2010)

 

This post is more of a notation than a proper review. I only picked up GRIM HUNT from a local library because I noticed that, though its main plot concerned the return of Kraven the Hunter from the undiscovered country, a subplot dealt with an alliance between the prophetess Madame Web and at least two Spider-Women. None of the HUNT narrative bears any strong resemblance to the storyline of Sony Pictures' recent flop MADAME WEB. But since the subplot about the "Spider-Clan" precedes the action of HUNT, it's possible that either this arc, or another like it, gave the Sony scripters the idea that Marvel's "school for spiders" concept could be converted into a "girl power" movie.                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Ironically, the subplot could have made a better film than the upscale Lifetime movie that Sony came out with. Every fan knows that Marvel Comics began to come out with assorted "spider-women" to protect and/or enhance the franchise created by Spider-Man. That's one reason I'm not giving HUNT a proper review: it's referencing all sorts of continuity-based developments that I'd have to research over many assorted SPIDER-MAN comics. In any case, as far as the origin-stories of characters like "Arana" and "the Julia Carpenter Spider-Woman" are concerned, the heroines' resemblance to Spider-Man is mere coincidence. Someone-- I might assume the dominant writer of HUNT, Joe Kelly-- elevated the coincidence to the level of a metaphysical possibility, that all of Marvel's Spider-people are bound within a "web" of influences. Madame Web asserts the existence of this intertwinement, while Peter Parker and the other Spider-people are more skeptical. This sort of metaphysical uncertainty might have been produced a better dramatic arc for a movie about spider-heroines, even one that was obliged to erase Spider-Man from the (literal) picture.                                                                                                                                                                                                      Then there's the main plotline about the rebirth of Kraven the Hunter. I was loosely aware that, following the demise of the villain in the 1987 continuity "Kraven's Last Hunt," other pretenders to his throne had popped up, at least one of whom was Kraven's son. By 2010, there's a whole family of Kravniofs, all of whom quarrel with one another over their patrimony but who are united in the quest to bring down their nemesis, "The Spyder"-- also sort of a symbolic representation of all the spider-people, I think. Joe Kelly's definitely a much better SPIDER-MAN writer than most of the people who followed in the wake of Stan Lee, but I can't really judge this HUNT without having seen more of the surrounding terrain.