( 1 reviews )
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( 4 of 4 found this review helpful ) Posted: Mar 31 2005
Thinking that this is "Maus" in Vietnam is not too far of a stretch. It is less poetic, but more gritty and technical. It is a compliment to compare this to Spiegleman's epic, and I believe it is deserved. This is the first of three available volumes, of English-translated manga. It follows the adventures of three rabbits (U.S. GI's), fighting a very real, historically accurate war. There are even footnotes. The ordnance is referred to by their acronyms in the story, yet they're spelled out for you at the bottom of each page. Events like The Tet Offensive are given short explanatory blurbs to amplify and give context to what's happening in the panels. You will learn an amazing amount of information about the Vietnam War. Geography. Politics. How to take out a bridge. How to perform a targeted bombing. The history of the U.S. Special Forces. I'm being dead serious. Similar to "Maus", different races/cultures are rendered as different animals. The Vietnamese, for example, are cats. Whether they are "good" cats or "bad" cats is sometimes hard to tell, and that's exactly the point. Getting past these technical details, the story here is exquisite. If I had to compare this to a film, it would be "Platoon". It has that same sort of gritty realism to it. It's a true page-turner. You'll revel in some of the really cool artistic details, but the plot will have you wanting to read faster and faster... To be honest, more than a few times I had a hard time following what was going on, but in retrospect, that was probably the author's intent. Worst thing I can say about this book is that it ends in a cliffhanger... ...so I'm ordering the next books as soon as I finish this review.
