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Reviewed by Craig Johnson He is Yo Hinomura, deadly assassin for the 108 Dragons, the Chinese Mafia. But to the criminal underworld that fears him, he is known as Crying Freeman, the killer who sheds tears at the fate of his victims. Young, handsome, sensitive, an artist, Yo has been psychologically programmed by his Dragon masters to kill on command: he cannot resist his masters' commands to kill, they cannot stop his tears of remorse. The Good: Just to clarify then, Yo cannot stop himself killing people he is order to kill, but he retains full control of his emotions and cries over each victim whilst tearing them to little tiny pieces. You can see where the story is heading even just from the description (he's gonna rebel eventually, right?) but the journey there is wonderful. An example - the book opens with a great narrative device, well away from the titular character (and it's revisited a couple of times) so you're already on the backfoot: you wonder, is the book going to be about Crying Freeman, or about the impact his work has on those around him? Or those hit by the effects of what he does? How does it all tie together? How does he begin to break his restraints? The destination may seem obvious, the journey is the thing, and it's a great journey to be on. The Bad: The book displays a laughable attitude to its depiction of sex. Graphic violence, hideous murders, abuse and torture - no problem. But come to a natural act, an erect penis, or even - god forbid - a woman opening her legs in anticipation of pleasure and here we go with liberal use of whiteout, or ridiculous shading or even - I kid you not - pixellation. The censorship that says that extreme violence is ok, whilst sex is not, is fucked up. The problem of course is that it kills drama and the flow of the book stone dead, as you sit there kicked back to reality rather than engrossed in the book. The Ugly: The violence is...violent. The Verdict: Essential mature readers publication, buy it. Comment on this review of Crying Freeman v1 on the Manga Life Forums. |
6 October 2009
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