Geobreeders (1) Vol.#03

By: Mike Dungan
Review Date: Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Release Date: Wednesday, May 01, 2002



Creative Talent
Writer/Artist:Akihiro Ito
Translated by:Laura Jackson and Yoko Kobayashi
Adapted by:

What They Say
Kagura Security is on vacation for three days, but can they avoid blowing things up? Don't bet on it! The Phantom Cats don't take coffee breaks! Join the women of Kagura Security as they fail to have a good time on their summer vacation.

The Review
With Taba's apartment having been blown up in the previous apartment, he's moved into the basement of the building Kagura operates out of. Maya has learned to cook for him, which would be great if only she knew how to make only one kind of spaghetti. Which she serves for him every single meal.

It's summer and it's time for a vacation. Taba, Maya and Yuka are the only ones with nowhere to go, so they spend their time in the basement of Kagura Security. Yuka's constant references to old movies and tv shows leaves Taba pretty sure she's much older than she appears.

Takami Sakuraragi returns to her hometown, a place with some bad memories for her. She's a fugitive of a certain organization and she has no desire to return to them. Unfortunately, a woman, an old acquaintance from that organization sees her. What follows is a tense reunion as they dance around the issue of Sakuragi's former employment and her chance meeting today. Finally, the trap is sprung and Sakuragi is captured. By the doujin (fan-comic) circle she used to be in. The summer convention is coming up and they need help getting thier comic done in time. They use compromising photos of her cosplaying to get her to cooperate.

Eiko Rando has returned home and is visiting with her younger brother. She's in a yukata and they're walking through the woods to get to the fireworks festival, but they've become lost. Some guys in a car stop to give them a lift, but they turn out to be way too grabby with Rando. They flee the car and pursued, but Eiko puts her hand-to-hand skills to great use to take them out in a great fight scene and some hilarious dialogue between Eiko and her brother.

Yuu Himehagi returns home as well, where she spends all her time sleeping. With about a million brothers and sisters, that means it's time to play games with Yuu, They dress her up and draw on her face, and she never realizes, even when she wakes up and heads out to the store to buy cigarettes.

A major case comes up at Kagura, but when Yuka and Taba try to raise the vacationing employees, absolutely no one answers.


In the big story of this volume, Maki "Red Shooting Star" Umezaki goes back home to visit the crime boss she once worked for. Their current hired gun is none other than Ryuji, Maki's former lover and the man who taught her everything she knows, including her dress sense. The two of them have a drink at a bar when a "business deal" goes wrong. Much gunfire ensues, with Maki and Ryu working like the team they once were. Her old boss convinces her to help him with a deal going down at the docks that night. A veritable army of hired guns on both sides are there, and someone decides to throw a match into the powderkeg. Doublecrosses and double-double crosses are revealed, with a phantom cat thrown in to sweeten the deal. She's after Ryu, whom she addresses as the last of the old Kagura. Ryu sends Maki off to the airport and tells her to wait for him. In the morning, Maki is waiting, not in her trademark suit, but in a dress. Yuka, who is still trying to raise members of the company for the big job that's just come up, finally gets through to Maki. But Maki has decided to leave Kagura. She's going to leave with Ryu. Unfortunately, that's not why Ryu wanted Maki to wait for him at the airport. He's leaving with another woman to start a new life, and wanted to warn Maki about working for Kagura. The heartbroken Maki gets on the plane and heads back to Kagura.

On another airplance, Yuu is sleeping. Unfortunately, that's a plane full of phantom cats. The are trying to deliver a special passenger to the Black Cat. Both the Hounds are Kagura are trying to stop it. First, up is maki firing a cannon out the back of a helicopter to force the plane to fly lower and slower. Next up is Eiko commanding four planes that attempt to box the jet in and use tags to seal the cats inside. Only afterwards do they discover that Yuu is inside the plane. On the ground, Takami discovers the military is going to use a ground to air missile to bring down the jet. She takes on the entire squad armed only with her rollerblades, butterfly knives and hand grenades to stop them from killing Yuu.


Comments
The third volume of Geobreeders is a break from the phantom cat of the week formula. The side stories of everyone's vacations is fun and even a little poignant in the case of Maki. The art is as solid as ever, but the art reproduction is once again atrocious. This is the worst of the five volumes CPM released. It's printed too weak, yet the screentones are muddy and dark. The pages look like they were printed on an office copier machine. As with the previous volumes, the art is printed flipped, reading left to right. All sound effects are translated and retouched to English. Sadly, all the nudity is once again edited as well with either nipples removed or clothes drawn on the characters. The cover is a compound image of Maki with guns blazing, Eiko in her Yuakata deliver a high kick, and Yuka, Taba and Maya rounding out the image. The back cover is an improvement over previous volumes. Horizontal images of the female members of Kagura which highlight their faces are used, with a brief bit of text to draw the reader in. Some extras this time around are a cover gallery in the back, though the pictures are in black and white, not color, and a dossier file of the members of Kagura at the front of the book which is quite well done.

With edited nudity and horrible printing, it's impossible for me to recommend this release of Geobreeders. As of this review, Geobreeders is an ongoing series in Japan with 9 volumes released. CPM stopped publishing it with volume 5. It is hoped that the recently announced rerelease of Geobreeders in a new format will address the issues of editing and art reproduction.