BECK Volume 10
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
The rest of the band is nowhere to be seen, so Koyuki decides to head up on stage at Greatful Sound by himself. With nothing but an acoustic guitar, he starts singing the Beatles' "I've Got a Feeling." Before he even finishes, the band joins him on stage, unable to resist the siren song of music. Saku backs him up on the drums. After a few minutes, Taira adds his funky bass to the mix. Then, Ryusuke approaches the stage bearing the famous guitar Lucille. Finally, Chiba arrives, completing the once invincible group. The bands rips into their own material, working the crowd—and themselves—into a frenzy. Could this once-in-a-lifetime performance bring the band back together once and for all?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Manga has its share of bildungsromans that follow the path of an unathletic kid who, by dint of practice, mentorship and unstoppable will, becomes a top basketball/tennis/baseball player. Beck belongs to this genre, with the interesting twist that its nerdy 14-year-old hero, Yukio Tanaka, is on a journey from zero to rock-'n'-roller. In the beginning, Yukio knows nothing about rock and is a fan of Okinawan pop music (which, it is implied, is very uncool). Yukio meets Ryosuke, a 16-year-old rocker who was brought up in the U.S., where he played guitar in a garage band. Yukio starts going to rock clubs, listening to rock music and hanging out with his beautiful classmate Izumi, Ryosuke and Ryosuke's sister, Maho. But not until the very end of this volume do readers get a hint that playing rock music is in Yukio's future. This appealing tale is marred slightly by the inclusion of a silly and clich d peeping-tom subplot, but Sakuishi's characterizations have a strong identification factor, aided by a sharp and funny translation. The book is aimed at older teens, and there is some profanity. The clean, easy-to-follow art resembles a slightly less manic version of Eichiro Oda's art in One Piece.
