Subject: Manga Reviews: Captain Nemo, v. 1 | Author | Messages | Billy Aguiar
Posts: 84
 | Posted: 8/31/2007 8:50:59 AM | Captain Nemo, vol. 1
Seven Seas
$10.99, b/w, 192 pages, Available Now!
Written by Jason DeAngelis with Art by Aldin Viray
Rated for Teens, 13+
Reviewed by Billy Aguiar
2 1/2 stars
In a 1892 in which Napoleon won at Waterloo and spread his Empire across Europe and then the world, there is a need for people like Captain Nemo to resist the French Imperialism. Too bad the French Navy blew apart Nemo and his Nautilus two decades before. But now French ships are mysteriously sinking again, and it is revealed that there is a new Nemo and Nautilus wanting to begin a revolution against the French Emperor Napoleon IV. Camille, the headstrong daughter of one of the Emperor's vice ministers of security, sneaks off onto the ship that is hunting for the new Nemo with her father, and when the ship inevitably finds Nemo and his colorful crew, she falls overboard and is presumed lost. But to little surprise, she is captured by the new Nemo, son of the first and now in his late teens, and they start a delicate dance of mutual attraction and hate. Along the way they visit the undersea land of Lemuria where Camille almost gets eaten by a sea creature, and later go to visit the barbarous land of Japan. In hot pursuit are the French Navy and her father.
This is a manga that wears its influences proudly on its sleeve. This is a vision derived from Captain Harlock and his whole genre of outer space adventurers, transposed onto a Jules Verne future. That being said, it does not fully succeed in capturing a pulp tone. The mid-book story with Camille and Lemuria, while it may be necessary to set up stuff later in the series (I hope), derails the energy of the story. Pulp heroes went from cliffhanger to cliffhanger, always dueling their foes. An ancient city with dinosaurs under the sea does not qualify unless there are French aquanauts also there seeking to plunder its tombs. There are also some nice character touches, such as Camille's very refined sense of social class and the lack of the trust the Empire has in Camille's family due to their Jewish origins, shades of the Dreyfus Affair from our history. Still, despite the break in the flow of the story this is a good action yarn that promises more to come (if there are any more volumes, that is.)
This is a weekly manga review here on the CBG site, but don’t forgot to check out my other review site, Prospero’s Manga for more manga reviews.
www.gomanga.com
Vol 1. ISBN: 1-93316-408-5
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