A Thousand Miles

ATM: Bus Gamer

****

Bus Gamer is an action manga by Kazuya Minekura. It originally ran between 1999 and 2001

Cover Appeal

“Bus Gamer”– Right off the bat, the title gets your attention – even for its oddness. Looks can be deceiving here, though. This isn’t a game involving busses. Rather, a cursory look at the description reveals that it’s a game involving business secrets. So, it’s really more like “Bus(iness) Gamer” and literally reads as “Bizu Gema” in japanese. Perhaps “Biz Gamer” would’ve been a more grammatically correct title. Regardless, it gets its point across well enough after you get past that hurdle.

“Pilot Edition” – Fun fact: Bus Gamer’s original run was between 1999 and 2001. ORIGINAL. Those eleven chapters she released during those years would eventually be collected and released as the “Pilot Edition” or a primer, if you will, to the universe and characters since she was unable to get them serialized at the time, but did want to pick back up when she got a chance in the future. Apparently, the mangaka would get another shot at it with a new 2006 run in Shonen Monthly, Comic Rex. That, however, this is not.

“Kazuya Minekura” – The back cover, in similar fashion to our previous entry “Happiness”, shouts out the mangaka’s previous hit work – in this case being Saiyuki. Being the pleb that I am, I’ve never read Saiyuki (future entry, perhaps?). Sadly, that means that this, in turn, means nothing to me. However, if you have a gander at how her name is printed on the cover, you’ll notice that the A’s in her name are all colored. That corresponds with the colored portraits of the main characters. It’s a nice touch as the three on the cover are known in-universe literally as “Team AAA”. I won’t spoil what that means, but it’s a nice detail that pays off once you start the story.

Portraits and MDs – Complimenting the Team AAA in the mangaka’s name are the colored portraits. I don’t know why, but single-colored monochrome pictures just scream 90’s to me. I blame Cowboy Bebop, Gunsmith Cats and Black Lagoon. And if that wasn’t “turn of the century” enough for you, we’ve got MDs – easily identifiable by their disc innards and “80 [mins]” labeling. MDs, you ask? Why yes, above the portraits are MDs, or MiniDiscs – a very popular storage medium in Japan (though not quite as much here in the states) developed by Sony in 1992. They’re like the Zip Disk of the audio world, if cassettes were floppy disks and CD’s were……uh, CD’s. Really, all you need to know is that they were little CD cartridges that you can store data and audio on – at a computer or even on the fly using their handheld players (many of which functioned as audio recorders). They’re used prominently in the story and anchor it squarely in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Sony stopped production of MD players in 2011, but MiniDisc is still alive and kicking in Japan, meaning that even if the story was modernized some, there would still be a place for this kind of technology in it.

The Gist

So the cover has us primed for a game involving business secrets. Perhaps some kind of business espionage? A riveting mystery tale? Not quite. While there is definitely room for those in this universe, that’s not the focus of the series.

Bus Gamer follows Kazuo Saitoh, Toki Mishiba and Nobuto Nakajyo shortly after they are introduced into the “Business Game” by Mr. Kaichou of the Midou Life Company. The “Business Game” is an underground game played by street level players fronted by Corporations and using their corporate secrets. It’s akin to a game of underground capture the flag or seige where two teams (one known as the “home” team and the other as the “away” team) fight over a disk (usually a minidisc). The “away” teams goal is to steal the disk from the “home” team, who is trying to defend it for a set period of time . As new recruits, Team AAA has been on a hot streak. They’re all really just doing this for the money, but as they see previous players go missing and outright die in front of them, they come to recognize the stakes are much higher than they originally thought.

The Cast

Kazuo Saitoh – 18 year old high school student and resident electronics expert. Wants to take over the family company when he’s a little older. Cut from a different cloth than his associates, he’s the last to come to terms with what the Biz Games true stakes are. He’s essentially the heart of the group, trying to get the other two to open up to each other.

Toki Mishiba – 20 year old “student”. Always serious and alert. Doesn’t seem to like connecting with, nor being around people much. Can be a bit too self focused at times. Is Team AAA’s standout fighter.

Nobuto Nakajyo – 22 year old college student. Also mentors people at the Shogi center. Is rather reserved and we’re lead to believe that he’s rather neutral. Regardless, he’s still a team player. He’s more of a balanced character acting as both tactician and fighter.

Detective Ichinomiya – A detective that, much like her manga counterparts, doesn’t accept any shenanigans from her colleagues – superiors included. She’s (reasonably) got a chip on her shoulder about being overworked, underappreciated and conveniently sidelined. She’s the one that sees how suspect the rash of recent Biz Game deaths are.

The Rub

I love the concept. The “underground CTF” take on corporate espionage is an interesting one. It’s a concept that has room for potential. It really wouldn’t feel out of place in a cyberpunk property. But even beyond that, I found myself wondering just what sinister secret this game was poking at. My bet’s on this being just one layer in some grander corporate espionage plot – some way to launder or transport around sensitive trade information without any particular corporation having to cop to it.

The one thing you’ll notice is that Bus Gamer, much like a business, is trying to sell you on an idea just as much as they are any product or service. And also, much like a business, it doesn’t always really stick. The manga tries to sell you on the notion that the Business Game is just a game fronted by people with too much money. Team AAA tries to sell to THEMSELVES the idea that they have (and only NEED) a purely business relationship. Detective Ichinomiya superiors try to sell her on the notion that the recent rash of disappearances and deaths are merely accidents.

Once Kazuo uncovers a secret roster of Bus Gamer rankings and people start getting disappeared and killed right in front of them, it’s obvious that more is going on. Team AAA may not want to have a close relationship with each other, but the game pushes them to spend more time together and to watch each other’s backs in such a manner regardless. Detective Ichinomiya doesn’t get definitive proof as she wants, but she is errierly close to it.

The weakest part of Bus Gamer is that it sacrifices depth for breadth. Some of Team AAA’s skills can come across a bit muted due to not quite getting the detail they need to stand out. Toki gets the worse since he isn’t the only one who fights. Whereas Nobuto’s strategizing and Kazuo’s technical skills get some de facto presence since they’re the only ones on the team doing it, Toki’s supposedly superior fighting skill has to be inferred. You can see some degree of practiced technique in the final match but if there was anyone who deserved a more detailed focus on their fighting, I feel it would be Toki. This can be extended to the rest of the characters as well, though. Fewer, more detailed matches with more panels focusing directly on Kazuo’s computer wizardry, Nobuto’s quick observation and the visceral power of Toki’s honed technique (as well as the thought process driving each) would go a long way in making the matches more gripping and Team AAA seem more like a force to be reckoned with.

Verdict

This volume hits the general notes I want out of a first volume: it establishes the characters, sets up a premise, shows me how invested said characters are in said premise and then hooks you by letting it play out. However, it does suffer from not exploring the characters enough. I understand that I’m not going to, nor do I expect to, get a characters full background – especially in one volume. You don’t have to show how they got that way, but you should show me who they are presently. It’s easier to sell me on a character being observant enough to know they’re being tailed, for example, if I’m in their head enough to know what they look for.

Continue?: Eh. Sure