Tag: Flash Fire Thoughts

Heart Gear Volume 7 by Tsuyoshi Takaki

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After building some astonishing momentum across two volumes Tsuyoshi Takaki concludes Heart Gear with a sudden stop and a sharp pivot. Jettisoning every conceivable subplot for the sake of resolving the main story as quickly as possible. Roue enters Heaven Land and sees a new world unlike anything she’s encountered for the second time. At its best the final volume offers some slow and meditative for the last girl on Earth as she sees the peak of human development before the collapse. There is a sense of unease different from tension or danger. Out of all the robotic Gears in the series the staff of Heaven Land are the most mechanical. Being flatly unable to hinder or undermine Roue’s choices as they are humanity’s most loyal (though most critical) servants.  So what happens in the finale cannot be a direct confrontation and must play in an unconventional manner. The slow ponderous tone makes for a sharp departure from the excitement built up previously.  And while it is interesting to see Takaki experiment this way it is just watching a cute girl in a zoo think about things until it comes time to make a simple binary choice. 

My concern that some members of the expanded cast would denied closure for their storylines was naive. It did not account for the possibility of all of them would be denied any form of closure or any input in the final volumes.  At this point the series hinges absolutely everything on finding a resolution to Roue’s adventure with every single character who could divert attention away from it being tossed out the back door.  This gamble fails as the conclusion ultimately invalidates the entire conflict that has driven the series and this final arc. 

It is almost commendable watching Takaki pursue brevity at every cost.  Based on his own commentary in the final volume and how he is manically attempting to flush out Rock the Camera’s backstory in-between chapters through text pieces – he knew that he could have accomplished more. Yet he felt compelled to cross the finish line as soon as possible while still trying his hardest to remain true to the seires’ core purpose as best he can.  Covering this series has been a rollercoaster of energetic highs and quite miserable lows.  The art can always be appreciated and stuffed with tiny nuances worth examining. And you can empathise with how the creator’s health had an unfortunate impact on his output. Volumes 3, 5 and 6 were all strong in their own ways. Yet Heart Gear unfortunately proves incapable of building on those strengths. And it does unfortunately sour of the experience overall. 

Crazy Food Truck by Rokurou Ogaki

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A surprising amount was overlap with both Creative Burnout regular Heart Gear and personal favourite Soara of the House of Monsters. Like Soara it is bombastic and fantastical on household topic.  Like Heart Gear it is a road trip of two people (one knowledgeable human and the other a dumb superhuman) across an arid wasteland in the search of meaning. But Crazy Food Truck unfortunately lacks the panache to stand out. 

Baring a few action scenes and comedy beats the series never commits to anything. The cooking elements are extremely limited, both in the recipes presented and barely touching on the joy of  a good meal. The food truck drifting across the wastelands looking for customers never serves clients or aids them through the culinary arts. Arisa might enjoy Gordon’s meals as her drives his new mysterious and powerful partner around. But they never extend it to anyone else.

Problems are resolved exclusively through the main duo’s capacity for violence. And attempts to find hidden depths to them fall victim to either the author’s indecisiveness or haggard pacing. Faults that becomes incredible obvious the more you read and realise that Gordon’s flashback stories to his military past highlight the four people who shaped his current life as a cook very conspicuously stop talking about the fourth person because that was too much to handle. Arisa taking her shirt off is not enough to distract you from how Gordon’s past and the wider cast is actually becoming less detailed as it is explored further. Without any special quality of its own Crazy Food Truck unfortunately becomes a bland and unsatisfactory experiment that highlights how others have achieved far more with the same ingredients. Avoid.

Heart Gear Volumes 1 and 2 by Tsuyoshi Takaki

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Tsuyoshi Takaki’s debut for Black Torch had its charms as an urban fantasy series about anti-demon paramilitary shenanigans. It failed to catch on and his latest series represents a change of direction. Heart Gear is a post-apocalyptic tale about the last known human journeying across the wastelands with her android protector. It doesn’t win awards for originality, the fabled city Roue and Chrome want to reach is visually similar to Zalem Central to the Battle Angel Alita series. And like many manga the first volume is an extended first chapter detailing the basic basic premise followed by the author struggling to find their footing with simple episodic adventures. Thankfully Heart Gear has solid action and cool machines rampaging through a desolate white landscape. With extensive exposition littered throughout before the final pages can promise a forthcoming overarching plot. Chrome might be a bland character but sometimes all you need is a guy on rocket stakes dodging rail-cannon from an insane Armored Core boss to keep the reader engaged.

Volume 2 achieves better results with its episodic structure.  With Chapter 10 the series changes gears; introducing a bored security camera experimenting with cinematography to give a quirky new perspective on events. This coincides with palace intrigue around the gladiatorial arena, Valhalla, and its tyrannical ruler Wodan. The fragile relationships between Valhalla and the other powerbrokers expressing their interests capturing in Roue and Chrome gives Wodan some panache.  The metal overlord might seem dull but he is silently weighing up conflicting interests.  He needs to plot around other factions while guessing at their intentions and figuring out how to exploit this current moment without accidentally provoking retaliation.  The conflict gets more layered while Takaki’s character designs get wilder and crazier in the arena.  So seemingly this is where Heart Gear truly begins. While not outstanding it has done enough to string me along for now.