BECK Volume 9
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Time is definitely not on Beck's side! With less than a month until Greatful Sound, the members of the band, particularly Ryusuke, are feeling the stress. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, Koyuki would rather be sedated than try to finish writing the lyrics to "Out of the Hole." Meanwhile, Ryusuke's unease stems from the terms of the deal he made with Leon Sykes to get on the bill at Greatful Sound. When the fateful rock festival finally arrives, Koyuki makes a potentially dangerous deal of his own with Yoshito. Will a sudden downpour help love to reign over him?
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.
