Vaca... Spirit of Wonder log

201409211450 Spirit of Wonder 1
I actually liked how the last story ended. Actually, the whole last story. That aside...
The stories were too short. Kenji Tsuruta doesn't do things that differently, in the end. All stories carry some amount of timelessness, and he excels the most in the panels that don't have any speech in them. And, for a short story of this type, there are no such panels. There's too much information needed. And he does include it, but there's no more filler between it, it feels just like an information dump. The information included in the dialogue isn't thaaat different in his longer stories, like Forget-me-not, but between the panels with info there, we get whole pages of just scenery, character expressions, and so on. Most of the storytelling actually happens there, in these voiceless scenes. What gives them voice is not the dialogue, but the image itself.
What about Spirit of Wonder? First, his art wasn't that polished back then. Second, all stories in the first volume were way too short. In fact, the only one I liked was the only sequel one. Its first part was equally crowded, but the second part Kenji was free enough to do his thing, in the way I love it. And, crowdedness aside, in the end the information we got was the bare minimum to get the story. We had to piece it together... act, made even more difficult by the translation quality, I think. I can't be sure, of course, before seeing the original. All of this said already, it's not like I disliked the book. Presentation aside, what I managed to piece together from the stories was actually really thoughtful and sweet, while depending on the background of scifi to be gotten completely, I appreciated it a lot. That's my taste in fiction, after all. And... next volume is the China girl, what actually got adapted. I am bound to love it, I guess. Time to read, eh?

201409211520 Spirit of Wonder 2
Ok, Miss China's Ring was 10/10, will read again.

201409211532 Spirit of Wonder 2
>China Strikes Back
ha

201409211547 Spirit of Wonder 2
Miss China's Mood Cam was even better.