Black Magic

It’s a brand new year and what better way to ring it in than by talking about a manga that was originally published in 1983!  Not only that, but it’s also something I picked up for four bucks in a sale earlier this month.  Before anyone makes any jokes about me getting what I paid for, let me tell you that… you’re absolutely right.  This is one of the earliest works by Shirow Masamune, best known as the creator of “Ghost in the Shell,” and boy does it show.  Ostensibly it’s about the conflict between computer A.I.s and their bioroid enforcers, but that setup is quickly discarded as Shirow pours on the action and focuses on the things that really interest him:  badass babes, robots and mecha, and potificating about the human condition.

This was originally published here back in 1990 and I’m willing to bet it seemed really cool to comic shop audiences at the time, but the truth is that everything here has been done better by Shirow in his later works.  “Ghost in the Shell” and “Appleseed” contained more thoughtful analyses on the effects of technology on the human condition, while “Dominion” and “Orion” have much better examples of his anarchic/sociopathic sense of humor.  For my money, “Dominion:  Conflict 1 — No More Noise” is his best work, maintaining action, character, and humor in a delicate balance of terror while not being weighed down in technical jargon.  Yes, “Black Magic” has a little of everything that made him great, and while some of the individual sequences aren’t bad, this is a case where the parts are definitely less than the sum of the whole.  Not worth your money (even four dollars of it) unless you’re a Shirow completist.