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| Dragon Voice; vols. 1-4 | |
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| Topic Started: Aug 3 2005, 03:47 PM (261 Views) | |
| Katrina | Aug 3 2005, 03:47 PM Post #1 |
Captain
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Let's get one thing straight: I've never been into boy bands. I guess the main reason is because even when I was in that demographic, the main choices were Menudo and New Kids, and come on . There's also the fact that I plunged early into the waters of mopey British "woe is me" music and it took me a few years to shake that off. Then I went into the whole quirky alternative scene, and then world music and then No Depression / Americana, and so on. In short: no N'Sync for me, thanks. So when I first heard about Dragon Voice and saw that it was about a boy band, I shuddered and passed it by. But it kept popping up on my Amazon recommendations so I looked it up and the premise -- Rin, a dancer with a very gruff voice tries to become a singer -- somehow interested me. Okay, fine, the thought of Tom Waits joining the Backstreet Boys just amused the hell out of me. I found the first four volumes used fairly cheap, so I picked them up... and then took a month to get through the first volume. It just kept hitting each and every one of my embarrassment squicks because all the other characters take turns telling Rin how horrible he sounds. (In retrospect, the fact that I felt so badly for the kid after a few pages should have been a tip-off that I was going to get hooked. I'm a bit slow sometimes.) I stuck with it, though, and I'm glad I did because it's actually very good. The set-up is really simple (boy band with small label tries to hit the big time) but there's plenty of things to do with that. The main characters are: Rin: a former street dancer who possesses (dun dun dun!) the legendary Dragon Voice, which is supposed to possess the strength of a demon and the beauty of an angel. He's rude and abrupt, so I like him very much. His mother was a world-famous singer who died when he was five. He's on the verge of falling in love with a mysterious girl who appears and disappears (since she may or may not be his mother's ghost, this might be a problem), but there's also a young actress who's falling for him. The rest of the band is Shino (the calm big-brother type), Yuhgo (the very pretty iceberg), Goh (Kabuki-haired hothead) and Toshi (girly-man wimp). The label's owner is a gambling pervert and the label's secretary/voice trainer is on the prowl for a new boyfriend, and their accountant (who doesn't show up until vol. 4) is a one-woman wrecking crew. The plots are -- let's face it -- pure crack. There's a feud with another boyband, and then they get banished from the entertainment world so they stage an amusement park coup d'etat (and believe me, the sight of them in their mascot uniforms is almost worth the price of the entire series), and then they do a costumed Power Ranger-type show (only about music, right?) and there's a running omake in each volume that puts the chibified cast into a Star Trek: TNG scenario. It's pure fluff, but I'd recommend it to just about anyone. |
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katrina I live by the spiritual truth that 'No' is a complete sentence. I rest as a spiritual act. --Anne Lamott | |
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| Pipster | Aug 3 2005, 08:56 PM Post #2 |
Pervy VA Fancier
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OMG! As an avid boy-bander, I simply MUST check this one out! They really nailed all the characters in a boyband and the who coup d'etat at the amusement park sounds absolutely HILARIOUS.  Thanks for posting about this one, Katrina! 
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| Katrina | Aug 3 2005, 10:18 PM Post #3 |
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Captain
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It really is a hoot -- it's damn funny and I think it's right up your alley. Besides, boy band or not, even I am not immune to the charms of cute guys in long leather coats. Ahem. |
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katrina I live by the spiritual truth that 'No' is a complete sentence. I rest as a spiritual act. --Anne Lamott | |
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11:34 AM Feb 6