One thing I like to do from time to time is to read manga - not the manga in stores, but manga that has been scanlated (i.e. scanned and translated) into English by people online. I have no idea who these mysterious translators are, or where they find the time, but they are wonderful, wonderful people. Why? Because they make available to someone like me (who speaks no other language than English) a huge treasury of art.
Now, quite a few of these scanlated manga are utterly terrible. More than one features a teenage introvert loser who mysteriously picks up a harem of women, at least one of whom is clearly underage.
Some, though, are very good indeed.
One such is Shingeki no Kyojin, which you can read here: Mangareader.
Variously translated as "Attack of the Giants", "Advance of the Titans" and (bizarrely) "Attack on Titan", this is a piece of bleak, post-apocalyptic science fiction somewhere between a Giant Robot story and a zombie apocalypse: JG Ballard meets Starship Troopers. Describing it in terms of other works of art, though, does not really do justice to the extraordinary tone, which is bleak and nightmarish in the best possible way.
At some indeterminate point in the future, giants - or titans as the translation calls them - have appeared. These creatures, which look like enormous, naked, deformed and sexless humans, between three and fifty meters in height, appear to want nothing more than to eat people. Lots of people. The last remaining humans on Earth have been driven back behind the towering walls of a city the size of France. The story begins when an unusually large titan appears and kicks in the gate of one of the outermost walls, precipitating a titan invasion.
The main characters are teenagers, responding to the aftermath of the attack and trying to come to terms with a world in which humanity may well be on the verge of extinction.
Now, all that probably sounds a bit depressing. And it is. The violence is utterly horrific, with titans biting people in half (or worse) on a fairly regular basis, and the titans themselves being exceedingly fleshy and anatomical. So why read it?
Well, you might just like that sort of thing.
Assuming you don't, the number one draw is that it is very exciting. Not knowing when and if something horrible will happen (and this is a series that often kills people off) makes the scenes of action and danger genuinely gripping.
Furthermore, none of the characters is stupid: people work things out fast, react sensibly and come up with reasonable plans.
Then there are the titans. These creatures are compellingly horrible to look at: clearly inspired by Bosch and Breugel, they have almost kindly expressions above their monstrous jaws. If you like the creepy style of Junji Ito, these monsters are rather reminiscent of that, although they are also exploring a space of the uncanny all their own.
Finally, this is not the dull, one-note/one-idea world of a zombie apocalypse. There are clearly larger things going on here. There are conspiracies among the humans and the larger mystery of just what is going on with the titans keeps getting deeper and more intriguing.
There is a headlong feel to this comic. It is the author's first and one gets the sense that he is plunging ahead into new territory - that this could go anywhere (even though little details dropped here and there that later pay off suggest a degree of careful planning). Although it only seems to be translated relatively infrequently, there are already about 70 chapters online. This is a ride worth catching, I think.
EDIT: I wrote this a long time ago, in pop culture terms. Since then, the anime of SHINGEKI has come out, and the fandom has exploded in size. It is now very well known and almost ubiquitous. Meanwhile, the plot has progressed in some interesting directions. It is now clear that the author has been artfully and carefully planning ahead. Unfortunately, recent chapters have not always had the headlong feel I mentioned. Ah well. It remains interesting.
