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zare_i's review against another edition
4.0
So first off this is volume that brought memories from works like Wolverine Weapon X and Silent Dragon. Entire look and feel, overall story, makes this book feel like something from decades ago, not from 2017.
First thing is art - truly great. Level of details, panoramas of the LA and Tokyo areas .... they are just beautiful. Assault scene, ambush on Led Dent in Tokyo, it is not just event on small piece of land, it moves across the shore of the river and then moves over the waterfall to the rocky coast below where blades flicker from every direction cutting everyone, our heroes and assailants. Entire look and feel is epic, cinematic.
Story wise book also holds its own. We are shown near future where LA is broken into smaller Islands after the world level catastrophe (rest of the world is also changed, it seems like every nation is controlled by its own warlord). Everywhere technology rules and people have lost their jobs because there is no need to work anymore. To keep them busy with something, nations have given their populace to indulge in sensory overloads - idiotic shows, sex overload, murders, mayhem, destruction, bullying, just think Clockwork Orange to the Nth degree, but with government encouraging such behavior. And to keep people even more under control they are given Juice, nanite machines that put people even more under the influence of media and general sensory stimulation. To enforce the rule new order is created, Constables, humans enhanced by the nanites, grown up in size and muscle but basically made zombies and almost terminally addicted to juice, executing people without even being aware of what they do.
So when two constables, Led who is under full spell of Juice, and Debby, Led's lover truly devoted to him but not a Juice user )only one in the force), are sent to Japan to prepare ground for the invasion it is tragedy in making. Sent by the LA warlord Flak, they will try to find the refuge in Japan (since it is protected from the technological invasion). Unfortunately Flak is not that trusting and he causes Led to fall back and ...... lets say it ends with a heart break.
Cybernetic implants, people going crazy from the use of the nanites and changes done to their bodies, murderous - no, maniacal - cyborgs, ordinary people mowed down without any thought - dystopia in its fullest.
Excellent book , highly recommended.
First thing is art - truly great. Level of details, panoramas of the LA and Tokyo areas .... they are just beautiful. Assault scene, ambush on Led Dent in Tokyo, it is not just event on small piece of land, it moves across the shore of the river and then moves over the waterfall to the rocky coast below where blades flicker from every direction cutting everyone, our heroes and assailants. Entire look and feel is epic, cinematic.
Story wise book also holds its own. We are shown near future where LA is broken into smaller Islands after the world level catastrophe (rest of the world is also changed, it seems like every nation is controlled by its own warlord). Everywhere technology rules and people have lost their jobs because there is no need to work anymore. To keep them busy with something, nations have given their populace to indulge in sensory overloads - idiotic shows, sex overload, murders, mayhem, destruction, bullying, just think Clockwork Orange to the Nth degree, but with government encouraging such behavior. And to keep people even more under control they are given Juice, nanite machines that put people even more under the influence of media and general sensory stimulation. To enforce the rule new order is created, Constables, humans enhanced by the nanites, grown up in size and muscle but basically made zombies and almost terminally addicted to juice, executing people without even being aware of what they do.
So when two constables, Led who is under full spell of Juice, and Debby, Led's lover truly devoted to him but not a Juice user )only one in the force), are sent to Japan to prepare ground for the invasion it is tragedy in making. Sent by the LA warlord Flak, they will try to find the refuge in Japan (since it is protected from the technological invasion). Unfortunately Flak is not that trusting and he causes Led to fall back and ...... lets say it ends with a heart break.
Cybernetic implants, people going crazy from the use of the nanites and changes done to their bodies, murderous - no, maniacal - cyborgs, ordinary people mowed down without any thought - dystopia in its fullest.
Excellent book , highly recommended.
red_lemon_diary's review against another edition
4.0
Cyberpunk dystopia that often hits a little too close to home. The main characters are solid, though the story was over pretty swiftly. If you want to read about a drugged up man on a motorbike/tank thing from San Fransisco and his partner become ronin (for some reason) and set off a nuke in Tokyo, this a story for you!
mazloum's review against another edition
4.0
Things I like about Tokyo Ghost: the art is gorgeous, Debbie is a cool, emotionally engrossing character, and I really enjoy the vision being presented about two different futures based on technological advancement.
Things I'm ambivalent about: Teddy/Led is kind of boring as a manchild foil to Debbie, the pacing is a little too rushed for my liking, and I'm still not sure if I'm annoyed by the unnecessary nudity or not (though the book does attempt to balance things by making both men and women be naked, I'll admit).
Things I'm ambivalent about: Teddy/Led is kind of boring as a manchild foil to Debbie, the pacing is a little too rushed for my liking, and I'm still not sure if I'm annoyed by the unnecessary nudity or not (though the book does attempt to balance things by making both men and women be naked, I'll admit).
cassie_grace's review against another edition
5.0
So good that if had been longer I wouldn't have been able to finish it. Like some of the best stories, it lets you relax all while reminding you that the peace can't last, and that stories have to have conflict. It did in five issues what worse comics take fifty to achieve.
misterkait's review against another edition
Remender has a knack for getting amazing artists and colorists to work with him. The topics of communication, connectivity, and the loss of humanity that can come with it are very poignant right now. He gets his point across without beating you over the head with it, it reminds me of Dahl's anti-television anti-stupidity messages, albeit made for adults. The story of Led and Debbie is one we are not unfamiliar with, but it is presented in such a way that it feels vibrant, beautiful, and so very sad. We know they are doomed, we just aren't sure how they will fall.
caitcoy's review against another edition
1.0
In Tokyo Ghost, the future is not bright. Unless you count the glow from the technology that has taken over everyone's lives. The environment is completely wrecked, most people have been put out of work by automation and the only law comes from corporations who pay enforcers to protect their interests. In this world, Led Dent and Debbie Decay are given the job of finding a way into Tokyo, the last bastion of nature in a world dominated by technology.
Soooo...unpopular opinion time. I struggled with this book from page 1. Remender is hugely hit or miss for me. I loved Black Science but hated Deadly Class. Tokyo Ghost was definitely in the latter category for me. It felt like exactly the kind of Garth Ennis over-the-top style, Luddite view of the future that instantly annoys the hell out of me. Humanity has become the kind of white trash stupid that you see in Idiocracy and fully embedded itself in virtual reality. Crude, overt humor is everywhere and subtlety is nowhere to be found. It's all the worst parts of Sin City without any of the occasional grit and subtlety that made that series enjoyable.
The only part I enjoyed was the curiously complicated relationship between the two main characters. They have a truly interdependent relationship, with Led so embedded in the drug-fueled violence of VR that he's almost incapable of reacting in a normal manner to the outside world and Debbie so afraid of being alone that she continually tries to wean him off of the drugs. That relationship was fascinating and made the story significantly better than it otherwise would have been. This is not a story that appealed to me at all, though I think if you're less annoyed by the way technology is represented and the writing style, it might be more your thing. It's not horribly written, it's just exactly the style I can't stand.
Full series review here
Soooo...unpopular opinion time. I struggled with this book from page 1. Remender is hugely hit or miss for me. I loved Black Science but hated Deadly Class. Tokyo Ghost was definitely in the latter category for me. It felt like exactly the kind of Garth Ennis over-the-top style, Luddite view of the future that instantly annoys the hell out of me. Humanity has become the kind of white trash stupid that you see in Idiocracy and fully embedded itself in virtual reality. Crude, overt humor is everywhere and subtlety is nowhere to be found.
Spoiler
Want to show that a corporate bad guy corrupts everyone around him? Why not have a reporter say really nice things and then perform oral sex on him to top it all off. Really Remender? You just couldn't find a less Frank Miller way of showing that one?The only part I enjoyed was the curiously complicated relationship between the two main characters. They have a truly interdependent relationship, with Led so embedded in the drug-fueled violence of VR that he's almost incapable of reacting in a normal manner to the outside world and Debbie so afraid of being alone that she continually tries to wean him off of the drugs. That relationship was fascinating and made the story significantly better than it otherwise would have been. This is not a story that appealed to me at all, though I think if you're less annoyed by the way technology is represented and the writing style, it might be more your thing. It's not horribly written, it's just exactly the style I can't stand.
Full series review here
ratgrrrl's review against another edition
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I really wanted to like this...
But it is just just edgelord sci-fi with cyberpunk aesthetics, including the orientalism that seems so important to those who are just using Blade Runner as a basis.
The art is really something, but art does not a comic make, and the characterisation, dialogue, narrative vacillate between copying homework, uninspired, or just plain bad.
I don't even have the energy to get into things more deeply, because it doesn't warrant it, but women don't need a lifetime of abuse to develop a sense of self, there's some real weird consent stuff, it's absolutely laughable that something ostensibly cyberpunk would have a whole riff about how there used to be good cops, like her dad...in the future! (there have never been good cops. Ever. The only good a cop can do is to stop being a cop. ACAB), neo-busbido in a beautiful, magical samurai garden in Tokyo because it just wouldn't be 'cyberpunk' without fetishising and/ or demonising Japan. I could go on...
One more thing, I swear a fuckload more than I probably should in my reviews, updates, and general speech, but the 'ha ha petite and attractive woman who likes the sex and swears like a caricature of a sailor with tourettes' is the most dudes rock, teenager-brained men writing women shit ever. Yeah, a lot of us fuck and say naughty words, but we generally don't sound like ten year old who have first got their hands of swearwords. The male gaze 'strong female protagonist' manic pixie dream girl energy is through the fucking roof!
I read this on Libby and ended up with the second volume in a random stack of graphic novels from they library, but I genuinely don't know if I'll bother. If it it wasn't already in my house, I definitely wouldn't.
Image and comic readers are better than this. We should celebrate schlock. We all enjoy a bit of schlock from time to time, as a treat, but everything, besides the artwork, gives scholocn a bad name.
But it is just just edgelord sci-fi with cyberpunk aesthetics, including the orientalism that seems so important to those who are just using Blade Runner as a basis.
The art is really something, but art does not a comic make, and the characterisation, dialogue, narrative vacillate between copying homework, uninspired, or just plain bad.
I don't even have the energy to get into things more deeply, because it doesn't warrant it, but women don't need a lifetime of abuse to develop a sense of self, there's some real weird consent stuff, it's absolutely laughable that something ostensibly cyberpunk would have a whole riff about how there used to be good cops, like her dad...in the future! (there have never been good cops. Ever. The only good a cop can do is to stop being a cop. ACAB), neo-busbido in a beautiful, magical samurai garden in Tokyo because it just wouldn't be 'cyberpunk' without fetishising and/ or demonising Japan. I could go on...
One more thing, I swear a fuckload more than I probably should in my reviews, updates, and general speech, but the 'ha ha petite and attractive woman who likes the sex and swears like a caricature of a sailor with tourettes' is the most dudes rock, teenager-brained men writing women shit ever. Yeah, a lot of us fuck and say naughty words, but we generally don't sound like ten year old who have first got their hands of swearwords. The male gaze 'strong female protagonist' manic pixie dream girl energy is through the fucking roof!
I read this on Libby and ended up with the second volume in a random stack of graphic novels from they library, but I genuinely don't know if I'll bother. If it it wasn't already in my house, I definitely wouldn't.
Image and comic readers are better than this. We should celebrate schlock. We all enjoy a bit of schlock from time to time, as a treat, but everything, besides the artwork, gives scholocn a bad name.
susani_'s review against another edition
4.0
It’s year 2089 in Los Angeles and humans are addicted to technology. They have implants in their heads that live streams reality tv shows directly to them. A world of unemployment, obesity, toxic contamination and no one cares because we are addicted to our next digital fix.
In this graphic book we follow Constables Led Dent and Debbie Decay. Debbie Decay is desperate to get her partner and her love, Dent off his digital fix. There is only one place on the world that could help, the last tech-free haven- The Garden Nation of Tokyo.
The concept of this graphic novel is so eerie because in today’s world so many are fixated with reality shows, denial on climate change, interested in virtual fixes, watching media that only shows what we want to hear and the fact world media is no longer interested in honest, unbiased news but have political agendas (Fox News).
This was seriously good and cannot wait to get the next volume.
4 stars
In this graphic book we follow Constables Led Dent and Debbie Decay. Debbie Decay is desperate to get her partner and her love, Dent off his digital fix. There is only one place on the world that could help, the last tech-free haven- The Garden Nation of Tokyo.
The concept of this graphic novel is so eerie because in today’s world so many are fixated with reality shows, denial on climate change, interested in virtual fixes, watching media that only shows what we want to hear and the fact world media is no longer interested in honest, unbiased news but have political agendas (Fox News).
This was seriously good and cannot wait to get the next volume.
4 stars
moonbites's review against another edition
5.0
Thank you Rick Remender for another beautiful, tragic, and addicting story.
shaneboyar's review against another edition
4.0
Okay let me just get this out of the way first. I now officially think the team of Sean Murphy and Matt Hollingsworth can do no wrong. They are the Dream Team as far as I’m concerned. Or well, rather, the Dystopian Nightmare Team if the content of the books they work on together is taken into consideration. Hollingsworth’s colors always seem to have this soft, deep, dreamy quality to them, even when he moves into the brighter end of the spectrum. He’s a man who can manage to even make a pastel pink almost nightmarish, and his choices are the perfect compliment to Murphy’s highly detailed line work that evokes a sense of reality without ever really getting to near to it.
Murphy has risen to the top of the ranks of comic art because he truly seems to have an eye for the cinematic. He brings a sense of movement and tension into every panel he draws even when it’s only a scene of two characters sitting across from one another or a close up on a character’s face. Murphy may have been the perfect choice for this comic which is a pastiche of movie tropes.
At first, I really didn’t think Tokyo Ghost was going to do it for me. The first chapter comes at you with such an intense frenetic pace packed with motorcycle chases and faces ground into the pavement and explosions. It feels like the comic book equivalent of a local TV ad for a monster truck rally. I kept turning the page expecting to see SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! plastered across a two-page spread. The little bad we meet a handful of pages in rockets around on a hover scooter, seeing life through a heads-up-display like its all a videogame. He screams YOLO as he thoughtlessly sends a rocket propelled grenade into a crowd of innocent people. He’s so tapped into the internet that he has become it, and like… we get it. It’s a little heavy handed and, quite frankly, exhausting. Also, its one of those lines that will cement this book in the time it was written, which is unfortunate for a book that’s supposed to take place in the future. Hell, it’s only been six months since the issue was originally published and people don’t even say YOLO anymore. I really hope it doesn’t make a comeback in 2089.
It’s all prelude though. It takes Remender a bit of time to build out the premise of Tokyo Ghost, but once he does, it’s actually a really strong one.
From chapters two onward, you come to learn about the relationship between Debbie and Led Dent aka Teddy. You see how two people can grow to depend on one another when they think they’ve been abandoned together, and how addiction can drive a wedge between them, and how hard it can be to give up the person someone was when their vices get the best of them. Remender has the uncanny ability to quickly craft these fully formed characters that you find yourself deeply caring about.
If Tokyo Ghost declared itself completed at the end of volume one, I think you could call it a success, but I’m excited to see it continue. The dynamic of Debbie and Teddy’s relationship is left drastically changed at the end of the collection, and it should be an interesting ride.
Murphy has risen to the top of the ranks of comic art because he truly seems to have an eye for the cinematic. He brings a sense of movement and tension into every panel he draws even when it’s only a scene of two characters sitting across from one another or a close up on a character’s face. Murphy may have been the perfect choice for this comic which is a pastiche of movie tropes.
At first, I really didn’t think Tokyo Ghost was going to do it for me. The first chapter comes at you with such an intense frenetic pace packed with motorcycle chases and faces ground into the pavement and explosions. It feels like the comic book equivalent of a local TV ad for a monster truck rally. I kept turning the page expecting to see SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! plastered across a two-page spread. The little bad we meet a handful of pages in rockets around on a hover scooter, seeing life through a heads-up-display like its all a videogame. He screams YOLO as he thoughtlessly sends a rocket propelled grenade into a crowd of innocent people. He’s so tapped into the internet that he has become it, and like… we get it. It’s a little heavy handed and, quite frankly, exhausting. Also, its one of those lines that will cement this book in the time it was written, which is unfortunate for a book that’s supposed to take place in the future. Hell, it’s only been six months since the issue was originally published and people don’t even say YOLO anymore. I really hope it doesn’t make a comeback in 2089.
It’s all prelude though. It takes Remender a bit of time to build out the premise of Tokyo Ghost, but once he does, it’s actually a really strong one.
From chapters two onward, you come to learn about the relationship between Debbie and Led Dent aka Teddy. You see how two people can grow to depend on one another when they think they’ve been abandoned together, and how addiction can drive a wedge between them, and how hard it can be to give up the person someone was when their vices get the best of them. Remender has the uncanny ability to quickly craft these fully formed characters that you find yourself deeply caring about.
If Tokyo Ghost declared itself completed at the end of volume one, I think you could call it a success, but I’m excited to see it continue. The dynamic of Debbie and Teddy’s relationship is left drastically changed at the end of the collection, and it should be an interesting ride.