Speaking of British writers writing Japanese action heroes

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

Tokyo Storm Warning was a three-issue mini-series by Warren Ellis, which he described as "a gentle piss-take of the giant robot genre played straight." The premise is that the United States nuked Tokyo instead of Hiroshima during World War II.



This entry covers the first half of the series. I'm dividing the pages between two entries to prevent an unwieldy, huge number of pictures in one entry.

Lots of property damage later...



Some more property damage...





In the next entry, covering the second half of the serie, we learn the origin of the ARCAngels.

Comments

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Interesting, though you'd think that the notion you should also treat your giant robot as a wrestler as well as a fighter jet would have occurred to them before now, just think of Megazord fights!

[vignettelante.insanejournal.com]

Reminds me a LOT of Evangelion (except the pilots are grown up here). "A gentle piss-take of the giant robot genre played straight" is a pretty good way of describing Eva, actually.

I wonder if calling the robots Arcangels is a shoutout. And the foreign pilot being a redhead, for that matter. Hum.

[menagerie.insanejournal.com]

I don't think Eva qualifies as a "gentle" piss take. ;)

[mullon.insanejournal.com]

This seems downright friendly compared to Eva.

[cmdr_zoom.insanejournal.com]

That was my thought too, though see below comments. If this is "gentle", Eva is more like, oh, Millar or Ennis.

[(Anonymous)]

True.

So where does Bokurano fall on this scale? XD
-Vignettelante

[hybrid2.insanejournal.com]

Look interesting.

[thelastgreymask.insanejournal.com]

when did this come out
also, is it out as a trade

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

Early 2000s. It's available in trade, but only packaged with another, unrelated three-issue Ellis series (though I can't remember what at the moment), to bring the book's length up to your standard 6 issues.

[misterfedex.insanejournal.com]

"Red" is the other issue that its packaged with. They're both awesome stories.

[proteus_lives.insanejournal.com]

The river of blood? Very cool.

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Hee hee. You can always tell a British writer. I mean, okay, yes, I also occasionally call America "the States," but that's because I live near the border and watch a lot of Dr Who.

This seems cool, though. And I'm always a sucker for a competent redhead.

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

I also occasionally call America "the States," but that's because I live near the border and watch a lot of Dr Who.

The border with Britain???

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Canadians and Mexicans, who are also, technically, (North) American, do not therefore often refer to a single country on that continent by that name in my experience.

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

I know what you meant. It's just the way it was written caused brain whiplash while I was distracted.

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Heh. To be honest, I thought about re-wording to prevent that from happening, and then decided the US border with Britain was an amusing enough concept that making people think of it wasn't a bad thing.

[seawolf10.insanejournal.com]

I'd been meaning to post some stuff from this mini, but I was so hard-pressed to figure out what ought to make the cut that you beat me to it. Good job.

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

Heh. That's always one of the most difficult parts of organizing a scans_daily entry, isn't it?

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

The fact that the new "American" transfer is a red-head make the Evangelion nod a little more blatant (and thus lovable).

The only gripe you'd get from me from these scans is the creature design seems far to western and less Kaiju oriented.

Still a cool critter.

[jarodrussell.insanejournal.com]

I'm going to say it, and I don't mean this in any kind of ironical way...Warren Ellis should not be allowed near Japanese mecha. I read the first two-thirds of TSW, and just didn't feel any of the love that I feel when watching something as hokey as Power Rangers or Gigantor, much less Transformers or GiTS. Ellis just lacks the wild abandon required to write mecha.

It's because his style is to home in on the horrible underbelly of his subject...in this case, some kid who was killed when Tokyo was bombed that was dreaming all this stuff up. That kind of thing just doesn't mesh with mecha, whose sole purpose is to be Big Shiny Toys, even when dealing with as serious subjects as "what if life?" as GiTS does.

I dunno. Maybe it was because TSW was Ellis wanting to write mecha and assuming he could. Whatever the reason, TSW has always stuck in my craw as the one thing I wish Ellis had never written.

[cmdr_zoom.insanejournal.com]

When the kid wakes up, does everyone else dissolve into Tang?