Wicked Lovely Desert Tales, Volume 2: Challenge

Last year I wrote a review for the first issue of a manga series based on the Wicked Lovely novel series. Here’s the synopsis of the first book:


…



Uh…


Something about a desert?

I was really not impressed by the first book. Nothing was explained properly, the story took forever to unfold, the character’s motivations were unclear and the dialogue made no sense.

But guess what, it’s not over yet! Someone at Tokyopop thought it would be a good idea to make the manga tie-in a trilogy. Because you know, those things have worked so well for them in the past…

                                              Shy's head is a little too close to Rika's chest...


Book 2 opens with a battle scene between Shy, some kind of fox faerie we met in the first volume, and some other faerie called Mali. It might be because it’s been months since I’ve read the first book, but I can’t recall if she even appeared in that one.

But still, a fight! Something exciting that I can get emotionally invested in! And the artwork even looks like it’s improved a little too. Hey, maybe this series won’t be so bad after all!

                                                   The tilted angles are just my crappy copying.


Yes, you could probably tell I was speaking too soon. An otherwise engaging fight scene is peppered with the nonsensical dialogue I mentioned earlier. It’s pieced together so poorly that each speech bubble seems like it’s been copied and pasted from a different book altogether. On top of that, in the background are some faceless characters and I can’t tell who they are. They might be part of the novels, but how does that help me, who hasn’t read them?

We then see the protagonist Rika, a faerie, and her love interest Jayce, a human, on a date in town. It seems that spending two hours together then kissing means that they’re in love now.

They seem to have forgotten that first time around, Rika made a huge bitching deal about how iron and steel are poisonous to her which is why she is trapped in the desert forever. So why are they on a date in town? Even the smallest towns have lots of buildings made of iron and steel. Should I even be questioning the logic of this series anymore?

The two of them discover Shy bleeding on the backstreets, having been stabbed by Mali with an iron rod. Rika somehow transports him to her cave in the desert so he can recover. This would normally be quite an interesting and dramatic plot point. Except that they drop it pretty quickly so that Shy can go on about how he’s not going to seduce Rika because….Uh….He doesn’t like blondes? He seems awfully talkative and perky for someone who has just been near fatally stabbed.

                                                                        Shit just got real.

He tells Rika to go back and fetch Jayce. Yep, because being in a busy urban area with his friends is a lot more dangerous than being in a cave in a desert surrounded by these morbid faerie things.

We then cut to a girl skateboarding. Nice and all, but it doesn’t seem to do much for the plot either. Why is it there, and why does it take up several pages?

 

Next is a funny moment when Keenan, the Summer King (of course that title means nothing to me. You could call him The King of Gelatinous Cubes and it would be the same to me) and Rika’s maybe former lover arrives at the cave. He’s a bit peeved to find foxy man lying in her bed, showing off his perfectly smooth man legs.

The two of them bitch at each other for a while until Rika arrives and she and Keenan bitch at each other for a while.

Also a return of the confusing artwork, as there’s a panel that seems to me like it isn’t drawn quite right. Rika appears to have her mouth wide open for no reason. It looks like she’s about to breath a fireball on Keenan for no reason.

So Keenan leaves and Jayce arrives and he and Rika spend a long time talking about how no other faeries are in line for her heart. This is pretty much the only proper development of their relationship we get in this volume. It’s not exactly romantic if Rika is constantly reassuring Jayce that she doesn’t fancy anyone else, when she so does. She sits awfully close to Shy most of the time.

Jayce asks to hear more about the faerie world, so I guess he’s just as confused as I am. And then they spend a long time talking. And talking. And more fricking talking. Obviously it doesn’t answer any questions so Jayce just sits at the side and doodles, and man he can draw fast! Or rather, the panels are set up so poorly that it appears that he can do four drawings in about half a second.

So finally we get another fight scene - Rika verses Malli and the desert faeries. We only had to sit through all that damn politics to get to it. And still there isn’t any build up to it. It literally cuts straight from Rika getting all cuddly with Jayce to the fighting. It’s basically the same as a jump cut in a film - incredibly jarring.

These sudden changes in Rika’s mood also make me wonder how we’re actually supposed to perceive her character. Is she a shy, lonely, innocent girl trapped forever in a desert prison? Or is she the tough as nails strongest faerie who kicks some arse to keep order in her desert? If she’s a character with hidden depths, then these changes need to be much more clear cut and we need to know the reasons for her reactions.

Just as you’d expect, the only cool scene in the entire book is over in just a few pages. Malli injects Rika with something, drags her off and ties her up, then reveals to her that it was Shy who pushed Rika and Jayce together. Wow, it only took five sixths of the book for the drama to kick in! Rika overpowers Malli, confronts Shy, confronts Jayce then calls a lady called The Winter Queen (faeries have phones now?) and the comic ends.

Aside from some nicer art (the faint image of snowflakes around the winter queen are a nice touch) and a few cool scenes, this book has all the same problems as the first one. Except that this one has an even worse flaw - The good bits are breezed over in exchange for endless talking about mindless, confusing faerie politics. Because that’s what teenage girls want when they read a book - politics! I’m not saying fantasy novels can’t have politics in them, in many cases they can be quite interesting, but it should back up the story rather than put the readers to sleep.

After two books and endless prattling, I still have no idea what these faerie things are. We hardly ever see them doing anything cool. They seem no different than ordinary humans, especially since they forget their own limitations. If you’re going to have magical creatures in your book, MAKE THEM MAGICAL!!

I was nice before, but I am starting to question Melissa Marr’s abilities of a storyteller. She certainly doesn’t take advantage of the visual medium of graphic novels.

The whole thing just feels like a huge wasted opportunity. The very first scene was a great set up - A human girl transformed into a magical creature and forced to live in a desert, in love with a man who can’t even see her or even knows she’s there. Whatever happened to that story? What is this book even supposed to be about?!

Cloud verdict - 2/10.

Manga Review - Wicked Lovely: Desert Tales

Wicked Lovely: Desert Tales. Volume 1: Sanctuary


After my first read through of this manga, my initial thought was ‘what the hell?’ After a second read through, my thought was ‘Uhhh….’

‘Wicked Lovely: Desert Tales: Sactuary’ (so good they named it three times!) is a sort of manga add on to the novel ‘Wicked Lovely’ by Melissa Marr. I haven’t read the book nor have any intention to, but it’s gotten very positive reviews and a dedicated fanbase, so I’ll assume it’s pretty good. That said, this is the age that gave us the Twilight fangirl…


This manga apparently focuses on characters that were only mentioned in the novel and the script was written by the same original author. Apparently, each of the novels is about a different character, which I’m not sure I’m a fan of. There’s nothing worse than getting really attached to a great character then opening the next book in the series and finding out that you’re not following them anymore.

The story of ‘Desert Tales,’ from what I can tell, is this - A girl named Rika is watching a sensitive artist guy called Jayce who she is in love with, but he can’t see her because she’s a faerie. Don’t bother asking me what that is because the manga never explains.

Despite the confusion, the opening is rather sweet, but unfortunately it spirals very quickly into just plain weird. Some other kind of faerie called Keenan arrives for what is supposed to be an exposition scene yet explains nothing. I hate clunky expo dumps but exposition should at least explain something! Also Rika’s emotions make her seem almost bi-polar in this scene. One moment she’s all sad and mopey, the next she’s angry and then she starts this weird laugh for no adequately explained reason. But Keenan can make chairs out of sand, that’s really cool!


All I can gather from the backstory is that Rika was once human and she and Keenan were lovers. She screwed up some kind of ceremony which made her carry ice in her body and now she has to live in the desert because iron and steel are poisonous to her.

Or something.

That’s the first major problem with this manga - Nothing is explained properly! Maybe people who have read the original book will understand it, but those who haven’t are left completely stumped. I’ve read plenty of other ‘tie in’ mangas that made sense to those who haven’t seen the original material and may even inspire them to check it out. This one just alienates a huge chunk of potential readership. It’s almost no wander Tokyopop has gone out of business.

But anyway, back to the story. After her uber emo moment, Rika spots Jayce and his friends climbing up a cliff. After a storm. With no harnesses or protection.

And their stupidity is rewarded. Some creatures called the desert fey appear and again no explanation of who they are or what they’re doing there. I’ll just assume they’re the evil!faeries. They cause Jayce to fall but Rika catches and saves him. Somehow this means that Jayce can now see her.

Wait, what? How does that work? Why didn’t she explain that before? Why didn’t she make herself visible before now? And why did the desert fey try to kill Jayce anyway? You can see the frustration I get from reading this.

After that it picks up a bit because there’s a scene where Jayce is shirtless. Then again, if I wanted hot shirtless men then I could just read yaoi instead. In fact, why aren’t I reading yaoi right now?

By this point, the manga is just coming up to the halfway mark. That’s the second major problem with this manga - The story takes for-fricking-ever to tell anything. So many of the panels seem unnecessary and others just make no sense to me.

The only other option would be to admire the artwork, but it’s not exactly spectacular. There’s some nice panels of the desert and the shirtless scene I mentioned. But other than that, there’s nothing particularly interesting to look at. The dyed parts of Jayce’s dreadlocks make him look like he has branches coming out of his head!

The rest of the book shows Rika trying to protect Jayce from the desert fey without revealing her identity or being poisoned by the icky nasty metal. The first half was confusing but in the second half the story runs all over the place and I can barely tell what the hell is happening. The romance scenes between Rika and Jayce are very sweet and tender. Yet in a surprising change from the rest of the story, the romance progresses awfully quickly which just feels unnatural.

There are a few nice moments and you do feel a lot of sympathy for Rika, but otherwise the art is average, the characters are underdeveloped and the storytelling is downright terrible. The worst offender is a double page spread with word bubbles that just repeat the dialogue that has just taken place.

The manga does contains an extract from another of Marr’s faerie novels and although it’s not the best prose ever or the type of thing I would read, it’s much better than the manga. It shows that the author is very inventive and her storytelling style does work in novel form.

The only people I would recommend this book to are those who have read the original novel and have never read a manga before. I don’t condone Melissa Marr for trying her hand at manga, admittedly I’d like to do it myself someday, but I think she should stick to a medium that she is good at.

Cloud verdict - 3 out of 10

Merlin season 3 review and musings

WARNING: This review contains major spoilers. And vast amounts of epic.
In my first review I revealed that I was a Clamp-holic. Well now I will also admit that I am a Merliknight, and proud of it.


The BBC’s Merlin is just so wonderfully addictive. I love everything about it. I love the adorably cute actors. I love the fantasy epicness. I even love the overwhelming cheesiness. If it wasn’t for this show, then my only fandom obsessions would be for depressing soap operas and romance films, or for crummy sci-fi shows.

I was lucky enough to watch the first double length episode of season 3, The Tears of Uther Pendragon, at the BFI screening at the beginning of September (big shout out to my sister for bagging me a seat). As if the start of the new series wasn’t exciting enough, I was watching on a big cinema screen amidst hordes of fellow fan girls. It made the whole experience so much better. I laughed and squeed and cheered to my heart’s content.

And I got to wear a cape!

The first episode of season two was kind of ‘meh’ but in comparison, this was a much much better way to open a series. Morgana had turned into a femme fetal. Merlin’s dragon lord powers came back. Uther was completely freaking out. And best of all, dragon riding!! I left the BFI theatre overwhelmed with awesomeness and the next day I went on holiday to visit Pierrefonds, which made me all the more excited for the third season.

Me at Pierrefonds, having the time of my life.

Then came Goblin’s Gold. Oh I have never seen a show take such a fast downhill turn. The premise of this episode was actually pretty good - Merlin accidentally releases a goblin which possesses Gaius, and he has to find a way to capture it without hurting his beloved mentor.

For some bizarre reason, the writers and producers thought that this episode should ignore the rest of the viewers and appeal only to 4 year old boys, by filling it with endless fart jokes. I really wish I was joking. The tavern thing I’ll give them, because it was actually sort of funny. But come on, most of us grow tired of fart jokes when we’re about 9 years old. Why are you trying to alienate the majority of your viewers? Why are you trying to stop people from watching your show? How is Arthur loving Gwen even if she has severe flatulence supposed to be romantic? For sanity’s sake, let’s pretend that episode never happened…

For those of us that found the will to keep watching, episode 4 thankfully picked up again and introduced us to new recurring character Gwaine. He’s a loveable rogue who constantly gets into bar fights yet has the heart of a knight. Oh and he has his shirt off for a good portion of the episode. Why did it take so long to introduce such an awesome character? I really want to see more of him, maybe even have him become a main character.

Episode 5, The Crystal Cave, opened with Arthur and Merlin being chased by random bandits, and the very first thought I had was ‘their affiair was discovered! They’re running away from the torch wielding villagers!‘

But it wasn’t until later in this episode that one of my favourite scenes of this season came. Uther is so desperate for Morgana to live that he gives Gaius permission to use magic. But the reason he does something so hypocritical is even more shocking - “Morgana is my daughter.”

Woah, Merlin the soap opera! I half expected to hear the Eastenders theme music after this line! Apparently Uther had a brief affair with his best friend’s wife while his own wife was away. I find it a bit weird that Uther was so distraught when Igraine died that he killed all the sorcerers, yet he cheated on her while she was alive. Couldn’t the writers have said that Morgana ‘happened’ after Igraine had died? Ah well, don’t argue with the plot devices.

The Eye of the Pheonix instantly became another of my all time favourite Merlin episodes. It was almost not like Merlin but something completely different. The perilous lands were shot differently to give an other worldy feel. The quest story was different than all the ones before. And the climactic scene with The Fisher King was brilliant in every way. Plus I was pleasantly surprised when Gwaine showed up again to join the team. It made me hopeful that he would have a more permanent role in the story.

The following episode gave me something I had been craving for a long time - Gaius’ back story!! And I was worried that the only ‘Gaius episode’ this season would be the gag one! For a while I had been wandering what it would be like if Gaius had a doomed romance in the past that came back to haunt him, and it actually happened! (Wait, I hope the writers aren’t stealing ideas from my brain…) An added bonus was Merlin getting all jealous that Daddy didn’t love him anymore. It was so cute! The final scene between Gaius and Alice was so moving that I cried. My only issue is that they never fully explained the manticore thing. Alice apparently thought that it would make her more powerful, but why would she go along with it when it tried to pin the blame on her one true love?

The series started with an epic two parter and ended with one too. The opening shot showed Sir Leon lying dead, and I was devastated! How could they have even thought of killing Sir Leon?! But it was ok, because he was healed by The Cup of Life, returning from way back in season one. It took me this long to realise that The Cup of Life is supposed to be The Holy Grail!!

There were several things I felt were missing from the final episode. I wanted to see more of Camelot under Queen Morgana’s reign. I wanted to see more of new character Percival. I wanted to see more of Uther after he’s fallen as low as he possibly can.

But most of all, I’m pissed that we didn’t get to see Merlin and Freya reunited! I had been looking forward to that for the whole season, but it never happened! Freya’s hand holding Excaliber appeared out the lake, but that was it! I wanted a big, romantic mythical scene of Freya, now The Lady of the Lake, handing over the sword, professing her love for Merlin and maybe even a kiss! But no! Nothing!! Come on, Freya is essentially Merlin’s true love! We got plenty of action between Arthur and Gwen, can’t any other characters have some romance?

But then again, the writers had a hell of a lot of stuff to cram into just 50 minuets. They did the right thing with having the main focus on the formation of The Round Table (or as I like to call them, The Raid Group). They managed to have every character contributing something to the heroic battle. Even Gaius using magic! Awesome!

But best of all - Sir Leon crossdressing and stripping! Who cares if it was unessential? I might almost forgive them for cutting Freya’s big scene. Oh wait, no I won’t….

The writers did a good job of taking the epic levels up even higher this season. Even some of the silly filler episodes were of a higher standard than usual. All except for the one we will pretend never happened…

The levels of character development throughout this season are also very impressive. There are so many sci-fi and fantasy shows that forget about character development (I’m looking at you, Star Trek), but in Merlin it is the very heart of the series.

Even Gaius got some character development. In season one, he would comically smack Merlin round the head just for moving a book with magic. But now, he steps in to save Merlin with magic without a second thought. Complete with glowy gold eyes! Way to go Gaius, we love you!

But of course the biggest change is evil Morgana. Before she was all ‘help the poor little children!’ but now, she orders her guards to fire upon the civilians! Woah, you do not want to piss her off!

Oh happy dagger...

She has always been my favourite character, and that hasn’t changed. Even if she is evil, she is still just as cool, beautiful and elegant as she always was, but now she has magic too! Katie McGrath remains my idol in how to be utterly glamorous all the time.

Gwen was perhaps a bit underused in some episodes, but I now fully support the romance between her and Arthur. In the last series, I thought the kiss scenes between them were nice, but sort of came out of nowhere. Now that their relationship has developed a little more, I can really see how they are great together and I think they’re really cute! Poor old Lancelot though, maybe he should get together with his mate Percival…

As well as the filler, there were still some things which I’m unhappy with. The downfall of Uther could have used a little more screen time because it was very interesting and dramatic. We never got to feel any real sympathy for Uther or see things from his point of view. Anthony Head certainly has the talent to pull it off.

The Great Dragon also only appeared in a handful of episodes. I know it’s more difficult now that he’s been released from the cave, but come on writers! You have John Hurt as a giant talking dragon and you don’t even use him?! I wanted to know what he’s been up to now that he’s free, other than being Merlin’s bitch. Is he cruising the dragon bars trying to find a mate? Has he found a nice cave somewhere to settle down and work on his pottery? What?!

On top of that, where was Mordred? Was the actor Asa Butterfield not available or busy with school? I hope that’s the reason, because I love that creepy yet adorably cute kid!

More Arthur and Merlin scenes would always be nice. But I would say that, being a slasher. I know Arthur was busy with Gwen, and Merlin was busy taking down evil Morgana, but what ever happened to bros before hoes?

Perhaps the best thing about this season was the build up to the Round Table scene. The show started with a fantastical kingdom with an arrogant prince. Now the kingdom is being rebuilt from the ground up, and everyone has to stand together to make that happen. And that means lots of yummy male actors all on screen together!!

Looking back at the beginning, it’s clear how far Arthur’s character has developed. Someone complained that he’s been blatantly throwing things at Merlin’s head to hurt him. But rather than just being mean, I think they’re actually comfortable enough around each other now that they can do things like that and know they don’t really mean it. Just look at the yaoi-riffic scene at the end of episode 4 where Arthur chases Merlin. No way he would’ve done that before, he would’ve just sent him straight to the stocks.

When I watched the scene of the two of them sitting on the steps, it reminded me of when I did the same a few months before. Just sitting calmly staring out at the courtyard and the beautiful castle, a massive contrast to the big fight scene we had just seen. Hanging out like best friends do and giving each other a playful shove shows that their friendship runs deep and strong. Brilliant, brilliant scene. However much they try to hide it, they aren’t a prince and a servant anymore. They are Merlin and Arthur. Oh it fills me with big squishy happiness!!

Horray! Now they can raid Icecrown Citidal!!

I have heard that season 4 will only have 10 episodes due to budget cuts, which sucks. I just hope they will be 10 really good episodes, none of this trolls and goblins rubbish. The set up for season 4 - the new knights, the unity of the round table and Excalibur being placed in the stone, was just too good. I don’t know how I’ll be able to wait so long for the next season.

My verdict - 8/10 (would have been 9 if not for Goblin’s Gold).

I shall end this review with the words of Monty Python:

When your life seems to drift
When we all need a lift
Tell yourself you won’t fail
Find your grail
Find your grail