Seán Michael WilsonRezensionen

2019-05-11: Meh. It's still the Tao Te Ching but it's a very leftist translation. Instead of just taking the wonder of the Tao Te Ching they shoved it through the filter of their dogma to get a version that supported their world view.

If you have a dogma you're not a liberal, you're a conservative.

PS. Having pictures doesn't make it a graphic novel. Novels have narrative, a story. The Tao Te Ching could be retold as a story but that would likely obscure the message. Regardless this did NOT have a narrative and is not a novel, it's the Tao Te Ching with pictures and leftist dogma.

PPS. I may be overly harsh above regarding dogma but that's how I remember it. I'll try to take another look.


2023-12-02: I didn't remember it and checked it out again, we'll see how that goes.

2023-12-06: I'm basically reading it as I pass through the kitchen. I'm at #4 (5?). #1 was way off. #2 or 3 compared Mao (a murdering ass clown) to the Master. Yeah, I'm not sure they read the same Tao Te Ching I did.

2023-12-29: It went back last weekend. I did a quick flip through and I don't think anyone involved has read the Tao Te Ching with any understanding.

Note: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review through NetGalley.com.

"Enjoy" is not the right word, but I am glad that I read this. I had no idea about the Minamata disaster, and this briskly tells the tale, provides context of the time, and shows the personal long-term effects of those caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wish that I got to know the main character a little better, because I do think this could have been expanded out into a more fleshed out A and B plot, whereas the way it is set up, the protagonist doesn't have much of an arc or that extensive of a life going on around him. He is essentially a framing device with the research about Minamata being the main plot. Despite this, I still love what I read.

Literature's original fuckboy gets to bring his bed-hopping and human-trafficking lifestyle to the graphic novel format.

I bought the original book for a college course back in the 1980s, but I never read it through, just flipping through it for the parts I needed for class. It seemed dull. This adaptation cements that impression.

But I don't think I was aware what a creep Genji is, kidnapping and adopting young girls and grooming them to become sexual partners on top of his general infidelity. This is a boring day-to-day soap opera of way too many characters crushing on and sexually harassing or raping others. The art is okay, but sometimes it was hard to distinguish between the many too-similar characters. Too often I'd think, which mopey, horny guy in a robes and a hat is this one again?

Interesting old ghost stories from Japan, illustrated beautifully. The transition to English/kindle perhaps suffered, as there were many typos in the lettering, and progressing left-to-right in page turns (english), but right to left in panels (manga).

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Wilson-Le-dit-du-Genji/1431025

This graphic novel adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic Christmas tale is good, but not great. It reminded me of those graphic illustrated classics I read as a kid.

Lee and Matthew travel together to Edinburgh, where she begins her studies and he resumes his life of being a complete jackass. As I await the relationship's inevitable implosion, I'm at least happy to see that Lee is making progress toward not being a total doormat.

The final volume has been published, but I don't see it at my libraries, so it may be a while before I track it down. It certainly wouldn't be worth buying . . .

I read this coming-of-age romance back when it first came out in 2011 and though I enjoyed it, I wasn't able to get my hands on the concluding two volumes. Now that I can get them from the library, I re-read this first volume to refresh myself on the story, and I sort of wish I hadn't.

While the female lead is still interesting -- a 24-year-old woman living in Hong Kong with her parents as she tries to figure out what to do with her life -- the male lead -- a 27-year-old Scottish poet teaching English in Japan and Hong Kong -- has all sorts of red flags with his fetish for Asian women and the consent trampling he does. I don't like what it says about me that twelve years ago I didn't see those as red flags.

I'm still going to read the next two volumes, but now I'm less enthusiastic.

A plain language way to read a classic for those who struggle with them. Gets the point across without being overwhelming, good for reluctant readers.

This book was mostly "ok." I had high expectations given it bills itself as a collection of alternative manga. Aside from a couple of stories that were pretty good and even made me think a bit, most of the stories in this collection are the kind of artist sketch that should have stayed in the sketchbook. They seem incomplete and often half-baked. As if the artist was having some kind of brainstorm thought, but then he never followed through. If this is what is defined as "underground," it can stay there. As I said, there are a couple of stories that are worth reading, but aside from those, most of the volume is pretty forgettable. This one is one to borrow, not buy.

See my full review on my blog, The Itinerant Librarian. Click or copy and paste the link on your browser.

Link to review: http://itinerantlibrarian.blogspot.com/2013/11/booknote-47-ronin.html

Decent art, but overall a very slow story. The history itself is interesting, but for a graphic novel this did a lot more telling than showing. The end result is rather dry and hardly as exciting I'd hoped.

good stories, but i just can't get past when illustration looks all computery like this. I'm pretty sure one guy's coat texture was just that standard brick pattern-fill from microsoft paint?

just watch the movie kwaidan instead.

This is really a bare bones biography of Musashi. The setting is his adopted son explaining his Father’s entire life to someone standing at a memorial marker for Musashi. The entire thing reads as super brief summary of some facts. The book left me feeling that they glossed over the entire life of this person and kept repeating dry facts and dates without really touching what made this man who he is and how important The Book of Five Rings is to this day.
Digital review copy provided by the publisher though NetGalley

Rather than a retelling, this graphic novel takes the classic A CHRISTMAS CAROL and adapts it using "quick text," so that the reader still gets the effect of Dickens' novel, but can be read in one sitting rather than trudging through the original. The colors used to show the moods of the story are beautiful as they change from dark and dreary, to bleek during the ghost of Christmas past, to eerie with the ghost of Christmases to come and then to bright and cheerful as Scrooge changes his demeanour and decides to be a joyful, giving person.

Super creepy

This is a straightforward graphic adaptation of prose stories compiled from oral folklore. It reminded me a lot of the old "Classics Illustrated" comic book adaptations: skilled craftsmanship is evident, but it doesn't really excite so much as make you feel like you read a pretty good book report.

In the 18th century, forty-seven masterless samurai masterminded a secret plot, spanning over two years, to avenge the death of their master. Claiming to be the first historically accurate graphic novel accounting of the famed event, The 47 Ronin explores the deeply rooted Japanese engagement with honor, loyalty, sacrifice, and above all else, the bushido. Writer Sean Michael Wilson, editor of the groundbreaking [b:Ax: Alternative Manga|6928780|Ax Volume 1 A Collection of Alternative Manga|Katsuo Kawai|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1331427811s/6928780.jpg|7159010], and artist Akiko Shimojima stumble their way through the iconic tale. Both the script and illustrations, which suffer from brevity, often obfuscate rather than clarify. As a testament to the strength of the legend, The 47 Ronin overcomes these faults and ultimately proves a fascinating read.

I was provided a copy of this graphic novel by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I had never heard of the 47 Ronin before, and the release of the graphic novel is timely with the movie releasing theaters now starring Keanu Reeves.

The beginning sucked. I couldn't tell who was who and had to keep going back and rereading parts and trying to figure the story out. It seriously needed a prologue for people like me who didn't know the story and couldn't keep track of the similarly named and looking characters. And it's as especially that the characters were drawn similarly that added to my overall confusion. The language was also unclear.

Then about halfway through the ruse and what they're (the samurai) are trying to do starts to make sense. It gets interesting partway through and I definitely felt hooked to continue.
I loved the ending; it was beautiful. The artwork was spot on, and it's definitely a great story.

Overall there's a lot of room for improvement. I liked the graphic novel portrayal but wish it would've had a prologue. If more was explained early on, it would've caused less confusion because I had to keep flipping back pages and rereading and trying to see what characters were who and what side.

This is a great introduction to key protests in history from the Luddites leading up to the Occupy movement. The stories are necessarily concise and encourage you to go and find out more.

Adapted by Sean Michael Wilson

Excellent adaptation of a timeless classic, to which I'll be returning before long, I hope. I hope to update this "review" with more thoughts after I've sat on this for a bit.

I found it difficult to differentiate the characters, and I also found the story hard to follow, most especially the beginning and the crucial conflict that sets up the whole rest of the book. The later sections of this book were a bit easier to follow and understand. There seemed to be a lot of panels where nothing was happening and I didn't understand the facial expressions, body position changes, etc..., so the art did not help me follow what was happening.

A quick, powerful read about a most unusual coming-of-age.½

The Story of Lee focuses on Lee's relationship with her family, her love of British music, her desire to go to London, and her attraction to Matt, a handsome foreign man.

Lee is in her early twenties and lives in Hong Kong. On the one hand, she is told she must show her father respect and keep in mind his wishes for her. On the other hand, Lee feels like her father's wishes for her are stifling her. She doesn't know what to do, but she's not happy with the way things currently are.

Lee's father couldn't be more obvious about his desire for Lee to marry Wang. There isn't anything wrong with Wang – he makes decent money and seems to like her – but Lee isn't at all interested in him. She goes on one date with him because her father basically forces her to, but she makes it clear that there will be no kissing or anything else. And all thoughts of Wang fly completely out of her head when she meets Matt.

Matt is handsome, blond, and British (Scottish?), and he writes poetry. Once Lee and Matt find an opportunity to talk, they realize they get along pretty well. They talk about British music, poetry, and more. It was nice to see Lee fully relax around someone and have a frank, open, and easy conversation with them. At first, I liked Lee and Matt's relationship.

In the end, though, I think I would have liked this graphic novel more if it had completed left out the relationship with Matt and focused more on Lee's relationship with her family and her wishes for her own future. The scenes involving Lee and her family were the strongest. It was sweet, watching her read to her sick grandmother, or seeing her talking to her uncle. It was easy to see that she loved them all, even her father, with whom she butted heads the most.

My worries about Matt first began when Matt and Lee were talking about British men and women versus Asian men and women. Lee said she preferred British men “because they are kind and caring. Not because of the way they looking” (70). Matt flat out admits that he prefers the way Chinese and Japanese women look to the way Western women look. However: “The ladies round here [in Hong Kong] are very attractive... But many of them don't seem to have much to say” (67). I let that go, because Matt truly did seem to like Lee for the whole package, her looks as well as her strong personality.

I was much less happy when, later on, Matt invited Lee over to his place to watch a movie. He assured her he wouldn't pressure her for sex, which I was fine with and even applauded. However, as they were watching the movie, Matt started kissing Lee and worked his way up to fondling her breast. She protested and was clearly uncomfortable. Here's the conversation they had next:

Matt: “What's wrong?”
Lee, embarrassed/uncomfortable: “...You said, 'no sex.'”
Matt: "It's only touching."
Lee: “What's the difference?”
Matt: “Sex and touching is different...”
Lee: “For me is not. It's not my culture to do such quick things...too soon.”
Matt: “Well, it's okay in British culture... And I think it's healthy for a man and a woman to touch.”
Lee, still looking uncomfortable: “This isn't Britain, we don't...”
Matt, smiling and moving closer to touch her chin: “I thought you wanted to be more 'international,' learn about other cultures. Well this is one example, right now.” (96)

He repeatedly made her uncomfortable and embarrassed, and, instead of respecting her desire to take things more slowly, pulled out the “I thought you wanted to be more 'international'” card. Um, excuse me? No. I was very, very happy when Lee once again put a stop to things and left, but it didn't erase the fact that Matt had just tried to talk her into accepting things she was clearly uncomfortable with doing and then never apologized.

When Matt and Lee eventually did have sex, it was after Lee had reached her lowest point. Her father had found out about her relationship with Matt and thrown her out, and then Lee had spotted Matt laughing with another girl. Lee got drunk at her friend Chang's workplace (Chang worked at a hostess bar) and almost got raped by one of the guys there. Chang dragged Lee back to her place to sober up, called Matt over the next morning, and then left the two of them alone. That's when they first had sex. Meanwhile, I was still wondering if the woman Lee had seen Matt with was really just a friend or if Matt had been lying, and whether Lee would ever be able to mend things with her family.

The happy ending was too sudden and left me wishing that the resolution with Lee's family had been fleshed out more. Since I was already unhappy with Lee's relationship with Matt, my unhappiness grew when the ending became thoroughly linked with Matt. As far as I can tell, a second volume of this series was never published, but I could too easily imagine that second volume featuring Matt leaving Lee behind for his friends and/or another woman after he was back on his home ground in Edinburgh.

All in all, the artwork was nice, and I enjoyed seeing how Lee would work things out with her family. Unfortunately, the romance did not work for me at all, to the point that it tainted the "happy ending."

(Original review, with read-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)½