This is MJ Muñoz bringing you a quick quick review of Skullman. I've already
reviewed Skullman one time it was actually four years ago according to
YouTube so I don't know if that means I uploaded it for my celebrate Ishimori
2021 initiative or if it was from 2020 and it just doesn't quite have the
calendar right however that doesn't really matter what matters is that years
later I've decided to go ahead and reread Chitarai Ishimori's Skullman and I
definitely saw it through different eyes I actually went back and listened
yesterday to my review of it because of my initial review of it because I just
kind of wanted to see where I was at where I was coming from what my
perspective was and I still agree with a lot of what I said in that review
however this review and that review are different because I'm a different person
at this time and while I called the first review nihilism incarnate I'm
thinking about calling this something more like the tragedy of Skullman
because Skullman is a tragedy Tatsuo is a tragic figure Skullman is a tragic
figure Tatsuo Kagura is the name of Skullman the name that he has
wow it's really interesting because he is an orphan and you can kind of you
know quibble about his name but whatever he is Skullman that's the important part
that becomes who he is over the course of his life and that defines who he is
up until his death in the original manga spoilers for Skullman by the way
which is you know decades decades old so yeah it's really interesting because it
is such a tragic story before I get to bog down and that I do want to go ahead
and say something with the artwork which is fantastic again I still have some of
my quibbles with it but honestly listening to myself try to come up with
criticisms for Ishii Nomura's artwork I thought yeah this is a I think this is a
less confident person who's afraid of being called a shill who's afraid of
being called somebody who just loves all of somebody else's work and you know
doesn't you know wants to maintain the veneer of neutrality and the truth is
I'm not neutral when it comes to story ishomori I am willing to criticize but
you know I don't know because I don't need to because the focus of this is to
celebrate him and his work and that's what I need to do here without any
qualifications so yeah there the first 22 pages of this book of this manga are
completely done in sequential art and there's absolutely no dialogue there are
no thought bubbles which I don't know that you know the manga has that bubble
sometimes yeah there's no dialogue and there are no thought bubbles and yet it
tells a compelling story sets a mood of of horror and destruction and mystery
that draws the reader in and makes them intrigued as to what is actually going
on in this world what is going on in the world of skullman and why are these
things happening and how are they connected with each other and that's
amazing that's beautiful that's that's the a mark of artistry and skill and
it's something to be very appreciated and I'm here appreciating it and telling
you about that okay so now that I've spoken briefly about the fantastic art
in this book I want to go and talk about the story and the real tragedy that is
skullman and the thing that's making me actually really appreciate this work now
I thought it was just about destruction and nihilism before and like being edgy
and dark but I don't see that anymore this time when I read it and maybe next
time I'll see just the edginess I see the real tragedy of Tatsuo it's very
vague it's very unclear exactly what happened and we don't learn this until
the end so it's kind of like one of those twist endings you know where you
find out everything at the end it all comes together and then instead of
there being like a cool resolution or whatever everybody seems to just die in
a fire but at least they're together because that's what family is all about
right you can't spell families without dying in a fire together so anyway and I
know I'm kind of making fun of that and I'm you know talking about how this is a
tragic thing and now I'm mocking it but uh you know it's a coping mechanism it's
it's a really sad ending and it's I don't know it's a little bit hard to
explain without just saying what happened in the manga and like just doing
an exposition dump which is what I don't want to do so hmm so we learn that
Tatsuo's grandfather Chisato something or other excuse me um is the one who's
had this detective agency the Takichi I think or Tachiki? I think Takichi anyway
detective agency looking for him for the last 15 years because he disappeared as
a toddler we learn that that happened when Garo the bioengineered being the
man werewolf alligator bat guy took Tatsuo toddler Tatsuo away from the site
of his parents murder and his parents were murdered by his grandfather because
when his sister Maya was born he realized that she with her incredible
psychic powers or whatever would be a big bad problem for the world she and
and Tatsuo himself if that was his name at the time I don't know because we
don't really know if that was his name I would imagine he was given a name at
the orphanage or given a name by the Yakuza instead the couple that took him
in but anyway he like loses his family but his grandfather's one who kills his
mother and father but the grandfather can't bear himself to kill him and he
takes Chisato or Maya sorry he takes Maya she's not just it feels like a
given female name from like a book isn't she sought to the girl and persona 3
that focus friends with I think so they're like I can't remember what it's
called but the the fashion girl with the like dyed hair and they're like pink
lips and whatever anyway um tan skin is what I mean and their lips stand out in
contrast anyway I don't know all the fashion trends or whatever from Japan I
don't need to I don't know them all from my own country so and I don't need to so
anyway anyway the Maya has these second powers which the grandfather's able to
tell about somehow apparently his son who I don't think we know his name and
his wife are both these beyond genius people with various types of powers that
are not defined which is very clever very clever trick or each award just said
they had ungodly powers they were neo-human mutants I would say that's me
doing his grandfather's voice and the thing is that he wants to prevent his
son and grandchildren the people from you know the product of his loins to the
people who he's responsible for from destroying or damaging or doing terrible
things to the world and it's like a great tragedy for him because in so doing
he has these people murdered but then Tatsu goes out and he's a loose cannon
and he and Garo are ripping through people they're causing so many innocent
lives to be destroyed along with the legitimate targets if you want to call
them that because he's Tatsu somehow even though he doesn't know who the man
is that killed him he knows he's this very powerful person somehow he's been
able to divine this stuff by the way a divinanzar from Spanish means to guess
that's the like verbal form to this to that whatever coming out is to walk a
divinanzar is to guess a divinanz that part like the divine is in there so like
divine to guess that's what I'm saying he did like somehow he guessed you know
for plot reasons he guessed that there was this very powerful figure singular
figure who was controlling all these different things and he's able to trace
it back to his grandfather finally when he gets the detective who was hired to
track him down to identify him and it's unclear how he determined that all these
people were connected to this mastermind who killed his parents so it turns out
like I don't know like three-quarters in you think oh he's kind of a madman
driven mad by revenge because he wants to avenge the death of his parents at
the hands of some you know cold-blooded killer who took his parents away from
him and turned him into an orphan who was a child only to be raised by this
strange wolf that alligator man man and then it turns out that that's true but
maybe the guy had a reason but it's a to quote an old associate it's a kill
kill motive still murder and it turns out that his grandfather and then he
kind of just wants to give up on life at that point and he's trapped in this
house that his grandfather has rigged to fight to burn with the three of them
inside of it or the four of them if you count Gara which you should Gara's a
person to you know engineered though he is and as far as we know Tatsu just
accepts it as Tatsu Kagura he has this brief emotional for him goodbye to the
parents who raised him because he doesn't think or he's not sure he's going
to come back from trying to avenge the parents who whose blood flows in his
veins the parents who brought him into this world and he has a longing and a
love for them which is good and legitimate and true but at the same time
he has parents who love him now and who want what's best for him now who are
here even though they're not his blood relatives something feels off something
feels empty something feels wrong and he feels compelled to pursue vengeance for
people he didn't know and he knows that that's going to possibly lead to his
death and his separation from people he does know and people who will mourn for
him his dead parents can't mourn for him I guess in the hereafter they could but
would they you know is it just a moment no as Aslim says all times are soon for
me you know is it just gonna be soon till he's with his parents again if if
that we know after if that worldview of an afterlife existence go man and each
tomorrow's mind for this story if that's something real then like Tatsu is
wasting his time and energy and he's putting all this blood on his hands in
order to avenge people who he doesn't really need to avenge in some way and
maybe I'm missing something about honor culture maybe I'm missing something
about being raised by Yakuza I don't know but I don't know it's interesting he
had a whole life ahead of him he had the ability to inherit this Yakuza family
and run it however he wanted to and do good in the world but instead he caused
the lives of he caught he ended the lives of so many innocent people and his
grandfather tells him if you want to kill everybody who's even remotely
associated with me you'll have to kill everybody in Japan and Tatsu says that
he's fine doing that and yeah that's evil but an evil is evil I believe evil
should be called out but I'm seeing that there's he's only 18 years old there's a
lack of maturity here and there's an obsession of fixation there's a tragic
flaw that he has which is I don't know that he can't accept the love of those
around him or that he's so wounded by what happened with his parents I'm not
exactly sure and school man's powers are very ill-defined so it's hard to tell
like what does Tatsu know how did he find out in this information it seems
like he can hypnotize people it seems like he has amazing physical abilities
and he probably inherited his parents like super intelligence which could
explain how he at 15 started acting a skull man started doing these things and
started piecing things together but I don't know it's tragic that this man
felt like he had to kill his father or his son and his daughter-in-law and he
had to kill his children and his grandchildren but he couldn't bring
himself to do it and then he decides that they should all just die together
because of the monster that Tatsu has become in trying to avenge the death of
the murder of his parents he's murdered so many other people and it's just I
know it's this very interesting cyclical thing like you can see it from his
perspective but he's obviously morally in the wrong but you can still see his
hurt and pain and feel sympathy for him and want better for him I'm not saying
want him to get off scott-free I'm saying you can want him to have made
different choices and that's where I'm at with Tatsu right now I really feel
badly that this is where he ended up and I wonder what his life could have been
in different circumstances and if he had felt the love of his yakuza parents and
took it to heart and let the memory the pain the ache the wound of his birth
parents being murdered in front of him if he could do something else with that
how different would he have be and how much a better place would the world be
or would you know his little area in Japan be if he took that into
consideration maybe he'd be a yakuza boss who would you know make sure they
don't hurt kids again I don't know much about yakuza or their families you know
when it can be avoided or you know avoiding it at all costs or whatever it
just really makes me think about that and I'm just you know coming up with
random examples now but I think you see what I'm saying even though he's this
you know murderous person the fact that he's doing it for vengeance the fact
that he's so young he's only 18 years old and the fact that he's been pursuing
this vengeance for a few years in his you know unsophisticated on you know
immature you know teenage mind 15 18 year old it's not that he's not
culpable of course he's culpable and you know there's justice in the fact that
he dies at the end there but it's also sad to see the tragedy or to recognize
the tragedy that it didn't have to be this way and I think that's part of what
makes a tragedy a tragedy it didn't have to be this way but it ended up this way
because of the choices that people made and it's uh it's bitter I'm not gonna
say it's bittersweet it's definitely bitter but sometimes a little measure
bitterness is good every now and and I really I really enjoyed reading this this
time I think I wasn't shocked by the violence and shocked by the bloodshed
and the bloodlust you could say and because of that I was able to see it
again with this different perspective and see the tragedy in it as opposed to
just the horror of it and I thought it was you know very useful for me um very
interesting and I don't know I made like a 30 minute recording and I made a
shorter 10 minute recording or 10 or so minute recording where I was you know
winding up to this celebrate each and every day which this everything I'm
doing should be releasing before the actual 25th and it'll be to encourage
you to check out each and more stuff on your own but I mentioned in one of those
recordings I don't remember which one is the solid one that I actually am
writing a I've been working on the idea of a tokusatsu literary universe or I'm
writing book series that are took such who inspired pension hero inspired
specifically or more specifically there might be kaiju stuff or like Godzilla
not really good so I'm not really interested in Godzilla but I do like
Ultraman and there are kaiju in that so anyway we'll see where that goes but I'm
thinking I want a not skull man literary universe where this character who's
inspired by school man but it's a different take on school man does things
and he has such a massive effect on the world that his world not just Japan but
his world is influenced by crazy things that would appear in a tokusatsu show
except they're all linked together think kind of like concrete revolution oh but
less I don't know it's kind of yeah if you like it's gonna be part school man
or not school man part concrete revolution and part my own thing there's
gonna be no confusing jumping between timelines it'll be as linear of a story
as I can get it to be and I just I kind of want to explore what happens to
somebody with all this power who has all these things taken away from him and
what choices will he make and how will those affect the world and I'm like very
excited for this idea and it's something I wanted to write a short story for each
morning's birthday but I was out of time so I decided to work on something in the
background instead and I'm probably going into too much detail but anyway
regardless I've kind of been thinking like what was each of we think when he
made skull man and it's like such a dark bleak thing it's just nihilistic that's
all I was thinking I've seen you nihilism nihilism nihilism that's all I was
thinking about it and when I read it this time I thought well at the end
there's like a concession and like a sadness of like oh this is what I want I
wanted to kill these people but now these people mean something to me and
the people I killed before didn't mean anything maybe they were strangers and
so now it's different and oh also I love the fact I think the cover for scroll
man the the comics all these last each memory pro one no offense it's less
appealing than it should be I'll say that way I'll be charitable so
spilling them it should be however the fact that it has grandfather and Maya in
his eyes and then we get that shot echoed in one of the last pages where
they're reflected in his eyes but their backs returned to him as they're walking
away into the house is like such a gut punch because all he's wanted this time
is to have to avenge his family and then he finds his family and then he finds
that half of his family murdered his other family and Maya is an innocent and
he probably loves her in some way already and his grandfather is the
opposite of instance he's a blood-soaked monster and but then again so is Tatsu
Oh and he's longing for something and these people represented this innocent
girl and this blood-soaked man they represent what he's been seeking this
whole time the thing that'll make him complete and so he follows them
willingly into a death trap that he doesn't know is a death trap but then
it seems like he just decides to stay in the fire and doesn't seem to fight his
way out of it because the manga just ends there and it's just very meaningful
and I know it feels it feels like there's something there I don't quite
know what it is but it's something kind of it's something powerful and resonant
I don't know that it's beautiful but it's definitely like it's making an impact
and that's really cool and I want to be able to do that with my own story that's
inspired by this but not quite like this and where you can have this you know
jaded anti-hero and you can have real heroes emerge in the wake of his actions
and in the world that he creates and I think it's a really fun idea and it's
something I'm gonna be plugging away at in the background as I'm working on my
middle grade books that are much more cheery light-hearted but do have still
you know tokusatsu stuff in them but I decided if I do the skullman universe
or not skullman universe I'll be able to put all the tokusatsu stuff I want into
that and then I can leave all my other books alone and not try to cram in
comradereferences which is something I have been doing and I might alleviate or
remove some of those in the in the in the revision that I do to my book anyway
that's it for now check out MJ winners comm for the show notes for this and
check out girlbugs.com to learn about my middle grade book series to find out
sneak peeks and release dates and things like that until next time folks take
care be well