From Eroica With Love
Feb. 3rd, 2013 01:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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scans_dailyI don't read that much manga, I must admit, but this series has managed to completely win my heart.
From Eroica With Love is a long-running series by Yasuko Aoike that dates back to the 70s; the first 15 volumes were translated into English by CMX before they folded. Like the name suggests, it's a bit of a cheerful spoof of Bond movies and cold war era spy stories, with wacky capers going on all over the globe. But the real heart of the series is the relationship between its two leads:
They are: Dorian Red Gloria (right) and Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach (left). Dorian is a flamboyantly gay English Earl who moonlights as the infamous international art thief Eroica. "Iron Klaus" is a bad-tempered, homophobic, either deeply repressed or asexual German NATO Major who's distinctly unhappy about being the love of Dorian's life. Together, theyfight crime squabble a lot, interfere with each other's missions, and occasionally team up against their mutual enemies.
43 manga-sized pages below the cut, taken from chapters 2-5 of the manga. (The original stories are each around 70-75 pages.) Warning for homophobic language and threats.
Chapter 2. "Iron Klaus"
The manga gets off to a bit of a false start, where the leads are briefly a trio of squeaky clean teens with psychic powers before they are wisely put on a bus and replaced with Klaus as a foil for Dorian. For that reason, I'm skipping over the first story to start with Klaus's introduction in chapter two.
One of the teen trio, Caesar Gabriel, was Dorian's original love interest, and he plays a brief role as a plot device here, when Klaus is detailed to investigate his alleged ESP. Caesar is supposed to be a genius art appraiser, so Klaus plans to use his own family art collection as a pretext for a meeting. On his way home to fetch the paintings, he's annoyed to be cut off by some idiot in a flashy car...
(Scans read from right to left. Apologies for blurry edges; CMX were not fans of leaving gutters.)
Wacky hijinks ensue. Dorian steals the painting, but then discovers the Major has Caesar. He offers a trade, but Klaus isn't having it, so Dorian makes a daring move to grab him from the airport. This is when he discovers that Klaus is a big believer in overkill.
The chase continues to the edge of the North Sea, and all three end up stranded when the weight of Klaus's tank collapses a bridge behind them. Dorian shoots out the radio in the tank, so it's a standoff while they wait to see whose men will arrive first.
Unfortunately for Caesar, Dorian has managed to take out the tank's heater along with the radio. He asks for Klaus's jacket, which doesn't go down well.
Dorian finds himself unexpected charmed.
Eventually Klaus's men turn up in a helicopter, but they only have room to take two passengers. Dorian volunteers to stay behind. When his own men show up in their zeppelin, he steals the Major's tank, and leaves the painting he took behind as a trade.
Chapter 3. "Achilles' Last Stand"
Our heroes meet again when one of Klaus's agents hides a microfilm on a statue of Achilles that Dorian decides to steal. Klaus catches up with the Earl at one of his bases:
Unfortunately for Dorian, the liner carrying the statue has been hijacked. The Major refuses a team-up, so they make their separate plans to take back the statue. Neither of them is terribly concerned about the Duchess who was taken hostage along with the liner, but Dorian charitably rescues her in passing, and gets beaten up by the hijackers for his trouble.
Klaus shows up and makes swift work of the hijackers.
Unluckily for both of them, the captain of the liner had found out the statue was stolen, and has already sent it on to the Louvre for safekeeping.
Chapter 4. "Love in Greece"
These next two stories are from volume two, which is the point where the series starts to properly find its feet; Caesar and friends are now gone for good, and the art starts to shift towards the more masculine look for the lead characters that's seen in later volumes.
Klaus's latest mission is to prevent the KGB from taking over a major Greek shipping company. The Russians have sent an agent to seduce the playboy son who's just inherited, but NATO get a lucky break when they find out he had an older sister who disappeared.
Klaus has Agent G play the role of the sister, Daphne Phaerikis.
Meanwhile, Dorian is hoping to take advantage of the celebrations to steal a jade statue. While he's there, he notices Agent G having fun playing belle of the ball.
The KGB agent makes plans to bump off this new rival. Dorian decides to step in to save "that sweet little transvestite", and offers to drive G to the airport to escape. There's a chase, and the KGB force the car off the cliff. Klaus is surprisingly devastated.
Then he discovers Dorian and G managed to jump free. He accuses Dorian of seducing one of his agents and Dorian pleads innocence, never expecting Klaus to have employed a transvestite. Klaus reacts violently to Dorian's talk of destiny bringing them together:
They both go their separate ways and complete their missions. Unfortunately, due to a slight mix-up involving identical trucks, Klaus's men end up with the jade statue while Dorian's thieves get the KGB agent.
Chapter 5. "Dramatic Spring"
Chapter five sees Klaus playing security guard at an East-West peace conference held at a manor house in rural England. He can't even get on with the Americans, never mind the Russians.
Klaus notices a lot of suspicious activity centred around a nearby castle. Naturally said castle belongs to Dorian, currently hosting a gathering of criminal colleagues from around the world. Klaus gatecrashes to find out what's going on.
Dorian considers the party ruined, but the rogues' gallery have quite enjoyed the free entertainment, and one of them even volunteers some info on the Neo-Nazis that he can give Klaus. Dorian makes a call...
Klaus tracks the information on the Neo-Nazi group... to a pair of men's underpants with secret plans sewn into them. But they've already been sold - to Dorian's super-stingy accountant, who saw the marked pair as a bargain and bought them for him. Which leads inevitably to this sequence...
Thanks to the information in Dorian's underpants, they learn that the Neo-Nazis have planted a bomb in the form of a vase of flowers. Klaus has no discreet way to step in with all the media watching, but Dorian goes in grab the vase in the guise of a publicity stunt.
Klaus hurls the bomb away to explode at a safe distance - at which point his days of going without sleep finally catch up to him.
From Eroica With Love is a long-running series by Yasuko Aoike that dates back to the 70s; the first 15 volumes were translated into English by CMX before they folded. Like the name suggests, it's a bit of a cheerful spoof of Bond movies and cold war era spy stories, with wacky capers going on all over the globe. But the real heart of the series is the relationship between its two leads:
They are: Dorian Red Gloria (right) and Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach (left). Dorian is a flamboyantly gay English Earl who moonlights as the infamous international art thief Eroica. "Iron Klaus" is a bad-tempered, homophobic, either deeply repressed or asexual German NATO Major who's distinctly unhappy about being the love of Dorian's life. Together, they
43 manga-sized pages below the cut, taken from chapters 2-5 of the manga. (The original stories are each around 70-75 pages.) Warning for homophobic language and threats.
Chapter 2. "Iron Klaus"
The manga gets off to a bit of a false start, where the leads are briefly a trio of squeaky clean teens with psychic powers before they are wisely put on a bus and replaced with Klaus as a foil for Dorian. For that reason, I'm skipping over the first story to start with Klaus's introduction in chapter two.
One of the teen trio, Caesar Gabriel, was Dorian's original love interest, and he plays a brief role as a plot device here, when Klaus is detailed to investigate his alleged ESP. Caesar is supposed to be a genius art appraiser, so Klaus plans to use his own family art collection as a pretext for a meeting. On his way home to fetch the paintings, he's annoyed to be cut off by some idiot in a flashy car...
(Scans read from right to left. Apologies for blurry edges; CMX were not fans of leaving gutters.)
Wacky hijinks ensue. Dorian steals the painting, but then discovers the Major has Caesar. He offers a trade, but Klaus isn't having it, so Dorian makes a daring move to grab him from the airport. This is when he discovers that Klaus is a big believer in overkill.
The chase continues to the edge of the North Sea, and all three end up stranded when the weight of Klaus's tank collapses a bridge behind them. Dorian shoots out the radio in the tank, so it's a standoff while they wait to see whose men will arrive first.
Unfortunately for Caesar, Dorian has managed to take out the tank's heater along with the radio. He asks for Klaus's jacket, which doesn't go down well.
Dorian finds himself unexpected charmed.
Eventually Klaus's men turn up in a helicopter, but they only have room to take two passengers. Dorian volunteers to stay behind. When his own men show up in their zeppelin, he steals the Major's tank, and leaves the painting he took behind as a trade.
Chapter 3. "Achilles' Last Stand"
Our heroes meet again when one of Klaus's agents hides a microfilm on a statue of Achilles that Dorian decides to steal. Klaus catches up with the Earl at one of his bases:
Unfortunately for Dorian, the liner carrying the statue has been hijacked. The Major refuses a team-up, so they make their separate plans to take back the statue. Neither of them is terribly concerned about the Duchess who was taken hostage along with the liner, but Dorian charitably rescues her in passing, and gets beaten up by the hijackers for his trouble.
Klaus shows up and makes swift work of the hijackers.
Unluckily for both of them, the captain of the liner had found out the statue was stolen, and has already sent it on to the Louvre for safekeeping.
Chapter 4. "Love in Greece"
These next two stories are from volume two, which is the point where the series starts to properly find its feet; Caesar and friends are now gone for good, and the art starts to shift towards the more masculine look for the lead characters that's seen in later volumes.
Klaus's latest mission is to prevent the KGB from taking over a major Greek shipping company. The Russians have sent an agent to seduce the playboy son who's just inherited, but NATO get a lucky break when they find out he had an older sister who disappeared.
Klaus has Agent G play the role of the sister, Daphne Phaerikis.
Meanwhile, Dorian is hoping to take advantage of the celebrations to steal a jade statue. While he's there, he notices Agent G having fun playing belle of the ball.
The KGB agent makes plans to bump off this new rival. Dorian decides to step in to save "that sweet little transvestite", and offers to drive G to the airport to escape. There's a chase, and the KGB force the car off the cliff. Klaus is surprisingly devastated.
Then he discovers Dorian and G managed to jump free. He accuses Dorian of seducing one of his agents and Dorian pleads innocence, never expecting Klaus to have employed a transvestite. Klaus reacts violently to Dorian's talk of destiny bringing them together:
They both go their separate ways and complete their missions. Unfortunately, due to a slight mix-up involving identical trucks, Klaus's men end up with the jade statue while Dorian's thieves get the KGB agent.
Chapter 5. "Dramatic Spring"
Chapter five sees Klaus playing security guard at an East-West peace conference held at a manor house in rural England. He can't even get on with the Americans, never mind the Russians.
Klaus notices a lot of suspicious activity centred around a nearby castle. Naturally said castle belongs to Dorian, currently hosting a gathering of criminal colleagues from around the world. Klaus gatecrashes to find out what's going on.
Dorian considers the party ruined, but the rogues' gallery have quite enjoyed the free entertainment, and one of them even volunteers some info on the Neo-Nazis that he can give Klaus. Dorian makes a call...
Klaus tracks the information on the Neo-Nazi group... to a pair of men's underpants with secret plans sewn into them. But they've already been sold - to Dorian's super-stingy accountant, who saw the marked pair as a bargain and bought them for him. Which leads inevitably to this sequence...
Thanks to the information in Dorian's underpants, they learn that the Neo-Nazis have planted a bomb in the form of a vase of flowers. Klaus has no discreet way to step in with all the media watching, but Dorian goes in grab the vase in the guise of a publicity stunt.
Klaus hurls the bomb away to explode at a safe distance - at which point his days of going without sleep finally catch up to him.
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Date: 2013-02-03 11:09 am (UTC)There are some scanlations available online - I occasionally go reading them on a binge. Though the scans aren't that clean and sometimes skip chapters. I don't know how far they go until they run out - the last story I read was mentioning the fall of Soviet Russia but I hadn't gotten to the end of the archive yet.
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