Gravitation (manga)
| Gravity | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Original title | グ ラ ビ テ ー シ ョ ン | |||
| transcription | Gravity | |||
 | ||||
| genre | Shōnen-ai , comedy | |||
| Manga | ||||
| country |
 Japan
|
|||
| author | Maki Murakami | |||
| publishing company | Gentosha | |||
| magazine | Kimi to Boku | |||
| First publication | 1996-2002 | |||
| expenditure | 12 | |||
| Original video animation | ||||
| Country of production |
Japan
|
|||
| original language | Japanese | |||
| year | 1999 | |||
| Studio | Studio Plum | |||
| Episodes | 2 | |||
| Director | Shin'ichi Watanabe | |||
| Television series | ||||
| Country of production | Japan | |||
| original language | Japanese | |||
| year | 2000 | |||
| length | 22 minutes | |||
| Episodes | 13 | |||
| idea | Maki Murakami | |||
| production | Masahiro Chiku, Yumiko Masujima | |||
| music | Daisuke Asakura | |||
| First broadcast | October 4, 2000 - January 10, 2001 on WOWOW | |||
| Light novel | ||||
| country |
Japan
|
|||
| author | Jun Lennon | |||
| illustrator | Maki Murakami | |||
| publishing company | Gentosha | |||
| First publication | 2000-2007 | |||
| expenditure | 4th | |||
| continuation | ||||
| ||||
Gravitation ( jap. グラビテーション Gurabitēshon ) is a Shonen-Ai - Manga by Maki Murakami , also known as anime - television series was implemented. The manga was continued as Gravitation Ex .
The story is about the relationship between the musician Shūichi Shindō and the novelist Eiri Yuki .
action
The 19-year-old Shūichi Shindō ( 新 堂 愁 一 ) and his best friend Hiroshi Nakano ( 中 野 浩 司 ), also called Hiro , have the big dream of working as musicians and Shūichi's idol, the singer Ryūichi Sakuma ( 佐 久 間 竜 一 ) of the band Nittle Grasper to surpass. During their school days they founded the band "Bad Luck", which thanks to manager Sakano ( さ か の ) became famous under NG Records. Shūichi constantly doubts his skills as a songwriter and often falls into depression.
One night he meets Eiri Yuki ( 由 貴 瑛 里 ) while writing lyrics in a park , who says that his lyrics are at most elementary school level and that he should give up songwriting. Since that day, the blond man Shūichi has not gone out of his head and he wants to prove to him that he has that “certain something”.
On a date with a girl that Hiro has given him because Shūichi is frustrated, he sees Yuki drive past the café and spontaneously jumps in front of his car. Since Yuki does not want to attract any attention, he takes Shuichi with him. At his house there is another argument between the two. But Shūichi soon realizes that he has fallen in love with Yuki and he wants to be around him all the time. The 22-year-old Yuki Eiri is an author of romance novels and became known under this pseudonym, actually his name is Uesugi Eiri.
After initial success as the opening act for the band Ask, they were assigned the 16-year-old keyboardist Suguru Fujisaki ( ふ じ さ き す る る ), who Shūichi is not at all enthusiastic about at first. However, he can convince Shūichi with his talent. Her new manager Crawd Winchester, known as K, manages to get her to appear on television.
After Shūichi moved to Yuki, Bad Luck performed at Club Ruido, where Shūichi's role model, Ryūichi Sakuma, made his debut. But then Hiro and Shūichi meet the young Ayaka Usami ( 宇佐美 綾 加 ) who is looking for her fiancé. This turns out to be Eiri Yuki, whereupon Shūichi has to fight for Yuki. But in the end he decides for him. However, when Yuki's sister Mika Shūichi draws attention to Yuki's past and he talks about it, he is thrown out of the apartment. Soon after, he was also beaten up by Aizawa, the singer of the band Ask, because he was envious of his success. Soon afterwards, Aizawa is threatened by Yuki and the owner of the record label NG Records, Tōma Seguchi, that he should never harm Shūichi again.
Soon after, Ryūichi Sakuma wants to start a comeback with his band and is therefore reuniting with Tōma and Noriko Ukai, who had previously formed Nittle Grasper. Now Shūichi's role model becomes his competition, which he has to face. According to an agreement between K and Yuki, this guy invites Shūichi to the amusement park when he sells a million singles. When he succeeds, however, Yuki lies in the hospital because of the stress. He is advised to leave Shuichi and Japan and recover. Before that, however, he goes to the amusement park with him. Now he also tells Shūichi about his past. When he was young, he fell in love with his tutor Yuki Kitazawa, but shot him in self-defense.
Manga
The forerunner of gravitation was a dōjinshi series by Murakami called Help! It had a similar plot, but the characters sometimes had different roles. After Gravitation Murakami also produced the 13-part dōjinshi series Gravitation Remix and three Megamix dōjinshis. Both belong to the Yaoi genre.
The manga was published from 1996 to 2002 in the Japanese manga magazine Kimi to Boku of the Gentosha publishing house. It was also published in twelve paperback books. Gravitation appeared in English for Tokyopop , Taifu Comics in France , Mangismo Danmark in Danish and Mangismo Sverige in Sweden . The manga has also been translated into Spanish and Portuguese .
The manga was published in German by Carlsen Verlag from 2003 to 2005 . The translation is by Claudia Peter.
Anime
OVA
1999 were from the studio Plum Anime - OVAs produced two consequences. This was directed by Shin'ichi Watanabe , the character design is by Hiroya Iijima . The OVA was published on July 23, 1999.
Translation into English, French, Dutch and Russian followed. The OVA was released on DVD in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Poland by Anime Virtual (now Kazé) on September 5, 2005.
The OVA tells a self-contained plot. Before a concert, Shūichi is in a depression and is avoided by Yuki. He wrote a song for the competition pool Nittle Grasper.
Television series
After the thematically similar series Weiß Kreuz , which is also about a boy band, was a success, the OVA on Gravitation was also followed by a television series. The Studio Deen produced in 2000, a 13-part anime - TV series directed by Bob Shirohata . The character design comes from Miho Shimogasa . The series ran in Japan from October 4, 2000 to January 10, 2001 on the satellite channel WOWOW .
The series has been translated into English, French and Dutch. The series was published in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Poland by Anime Virtual (now Kazé) on 5 DVDs. A premium box set was released on September 24, 2007, which not only contains the DVDs but also the two soundtracks.
synchronization
The German synchronization was carried out by the company Elektrofilm.
| role | Japanese speaker ( seiyū ) | German speaker |
|---|---|---|
| Shuichi Shindo | Tomokazu Seki | Ozan Unal |
| Eiri Yuki | Kazuhiko Inoue | Dennis Schmidt-Foss |
| Hiroshi Nagano | Yasunori Matsumoto | Nico Sablik |
| Sakano | Takehito Koyasu | Vanya Gerick |
| Toma Seguchi | Ai Orikasa | Kim Hasper |
| Suguru Fujisaki | Fujiko Takimoto | Raúl Richter |
| Mr. K (Kei) | Ryotaro Okiayu | Gerrit Schmidt-Foss |
| Ryuichi Sakuma | Kappei Yamaguchi | David Turba |
| Ayaka Usami | Rie Tanaka | Julia Kaufmann |
| Taki Aizawa | Shin'ichirō Miki | Konrad Bösherz |
| Mika Seguchi | Hiromi Tsuru | Maria Koschny |
| Tatsuha Uesugi | Hideo Ishikawa | Hannes Maurer |
music
The music of the OVA as well as the series was composed by Daisuke Asakura . Takashi Kodama directed the music for the television series. The songs of the band Bad Luck are from Mad Soldiers.
The opening credits Super Drive and the closing credits song , Glaring Dream , were played by Yosuke Sakanoue, Kinya Kotani and Mad Soldiers. They also produced the opening and closing credits for the OVA, Blind Game Again and Smashing Blue .
The soundtrack was released on two CDs by Wasabi Records in Germany .
Light novels
Jun Lennon ( 純 礼 音 ) wrote two light novels - Gravitation the Novel and Gravitation - voice the temptation - with the illustrations by Maki Murakami. The latter was published in a translation by TOKYOPOP in the USA in 2006 under the title Gravitation: Voice of Temptation and the former in 2007. In 2007, both Japanese versions were reissued.
- Gravitation the Novel ( グ ラ ビ テ ー シ ョ ン ・ ザ ・ ノ ベ ル ). Sony Magazine, 2000, ISBN 4-7897-1640-6 .
- Gravitation - voice the temptation ( グ ラ ビ テ ー シ ョ ン 〜voice the temptation〜 ). Gentōsha Comics, 2002, ISBN 4-344-80069-9 .
- Gravitation Red ( グ ラ ビ テ ー シ ョ ン RED). Gentōsha Comics (Birz Novels), 2007, ISBN 978-4-344-80932-1 (new edition of Gravitation the Novel )
- Gravitation Blue ( グ ラ ビ テ ー シ ョ ン BLUE). Gentōsha Comics (Birz Novels), 2007, ISBN 978-4-344-80933-8 (new edition of Gravitation - voice the temptation )
Radio plays
Eight radio plays were also produced, in which most of the seiyū (Japanese voice actors) of the series participated. Five of them tell of events that also occur in the manga, the remaining three tell of new stories. The albums also contain pieces of music that are sung by the Japanese speakers.
reception
Jason Thompson calls the manga a "crazy comedy beyond the dreams of the wildest tabloid". While volume four is “unnecessarily gloomy” with the thematization of rape and murder, the following volumes are becoming more and more absurd and the narrative and graphic style approaches anime productions. The story becomes more and more chaotic, but this is a "funny chaos, tightly packed with good dialogues and moody scenes". The Anime Encyclopedia describes the OVA as mediocre.
The MangasZene describes gravitation as a "Shōnen-Ai-Soap, as there are only a few", the protagonists of which correspond to the usual trade patterns and clichés. For those familiar with the genre, the plot is so predictable that it is "almost embarrassing." But that doesn't scare fans off, for the female audience the series offers "many cute boys". The characters are easy to take to the heart and lovingly drawn, the clichés are well implemented. Stylistically, the manga can be compared with Yami no Matsuei or D · N · Angel , the quality of the drawing increases over the course of the 12 volumes. Despite the deficiencies in the content, the manga is fun. The attempt to make the anime more conspicuous with a combination of animated sequences and filmed backgrounds failed. Otherwise, the animation quality is kept within limits, positive is the appearance of the characters, which is kept constant across all episodes.
The AnimaniA also recognizes a significant improvement in the drawing style in the course of the manga, which at the beginning still looks sketchy and immature. In the later volumes, the style tends towards the "anime look". The manga artist specializes in “ SD figures and slapstick inserts”. The anime series deal with the genre clichés "refreshingly relaxed". Gravitation is particularly different from other series because of the good music and the many successful comedy scenes. Not only the protagonists, but also the many strong supporting characters are "lovingly worked out and quickly become dear to the audience". The animation quality was average for the time, we regret the apparently low budget and the very streamlined and therefore somewhat overloaded plot compared to the manga. Overall, the anime implementation was still successful. The change in character design from the OVA to the series is positive and more in line with the manga. The OVA is entertaining for fans of the genre, the synchronization is solid.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Jonathan Clements, Helen McCarthy: The Anime Encyclopedia. Revised & Expanded Edition. Stone Bridge Press, Berkeley 2006, ISBN 1-933330-10-4 , pp. 249 f.
- ↑ Jason Thompson: Manga. The Complete Guide . Del Rey, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-345-48590-8 , pp. 131 .
- ↑ MangasZene No. 6, p. 14 ff.
- ↑ MangasZene No. 15, p. 41.
- ↑ a b AnimaniA 01–02 / 2005, p. 16 ff.
- ↑ AnimaniA 11/2003, p. 30.
- ↑ AnimaniA 80-09 / 2005, p. 42.
Web links
- Official website of the anime (Japanese)
- Review of current German editions
- Gravity in the Internet Movie Database (English)