Men Are Objectified, Too!

 This is one of the arguments defending sexist depictions which, while not completely wrong, also aren’t completely right. In visual media all over the board, there are objectifying ways men are portrayed, as there are objectifying ways women are portrayed. The way they are objectified, though, is not the same.

 

When women are objectified for the male gaze, which is the standard gaze in visual media, they are sexually objectified. They are shown in a way which emphasizes the body parts men usually enjoy looking at: breasts, butt, thighs, groin. They are made sexually desirable, someone the viewer can imagine to have sex with.

When men are objectified for the same male gaze, they are shown as hyper-masculine. They are shown in a way which plays into the images of what makes a ‘real man’: overly muscled, square face, harsh features, tall, powerful. They are made into wish fulfilment, someone the viewer wants to be like.

 

This becomes very obvious when you look at role-playing games for computers and consoles.

Most male options for the looks are supposed to make the character more imposing: ridiculously large shoulder pads, heavy armour, everything to make the body appear even more massive than it already is. They are supposed to command respect or even fear.

Female options, on the other hand, do not make a female character more imposing. Instead of covering the body in a layer of thick armour and making it look more massive to command respect or fear, female characters are clad in clothing which would not protect them at all in reality - even though armour is meant to protect people. Female clothing options usually bare as much skin as is possible.

While male characters might have some trouble fighting in their armour, too, due to being swathed from head to toe in heavy metals and leather, female characters wouldn’t last a minute on the battlefield in their metal bikinis (which are often even worse than the infamous metal bikini Princess Leia wears in “Return of the Jedi”). The men are at least adequately protected from projectiles or blades, the women are not.

 

Yet, over-the-top anime characters who fight bare-chested are often pulled out to argue that men are objectified as well - so it’s fine, both sides do it. What is not included in this argument, however, is that those men are not objectified by women or to please women. Those men serve as self-inserts for the male viewers while the women serve as objects of lust and sexual desires for the same male viewers. It doesn’t take a lot of consideration to see that this is not equal - both is done for the pleasure of the same audience.

First of all, objectification is not fine, no matter which side does it. Objectifying someone should never be considered ‘fine’ at all. Characters aren’t only there to look at, they’re also there to tell a story and that should be their first job, not the second one after ‘looking sexy.’

There are some anime which are actually infamous for their many ‘panty shots’ (“Agent Aika” comes to mind for me - I do enjoy the stories, but they’re full of those shots). This expression describes scenes shown at an angle which makes it possible to see underneath the usually short skirts of the female characters and ogle their panties or scenes deliberately and without good reason putting female characters in poses where their panties are visible. It’s part of what is usually described as ‘fan service’ - giving male fans an additional incentive to watch the stories.

 

Now, while a woman might be visually designed to be a sexual object, that doesn’t necessarily mean she can’t be an interesting character or kick ass. As mentioned above, I love “Agent Aika” despite the many panty shots and the anime-typical well-shaped characters. Yet, it definitely keeps female audiences from identifying with her as much as male audiences identify with the hyper-masculine male object of desire. It’s one thing to identify with the alpha uber-male who gets the woman in the end and will vanquish his foes. It’s another thing to identify with the sexually attractive and in the end sexually available woman who might be as powerful as she wants but will in the end serve the male character’s story and not her own (this is actually where “Agent Aika” differs a lot - Aika needs no man to save her and she’s the one who vanquishes her own foes). While this can be fun once or twice or a few more times, if it’s your only choice, it does get boring.

 

That doesn’t mean I’m all against showing women who are sexually attractive and like having sex - men have for too long assumed that women have no sexual desires of their own -, but I find it annoying when that’s all the representation I can find. Yet, a lot of the time the women are even more sexually available than sexually active (meaning the sex is not instigated by them, but by a male character), which also doesn’t send the right message.

By now, we do have a character stereotype which helps a little with bringing down the uber-male - the himbo in all his good-looking, but non-toxic splendour -, but it’s still rare to see a more masculine and less sexually attractive woman being portrayed positively. There are examples, such as Ripley from “Aliens” or Furiosa from “Mad Max - Fury Road” and more who are not defined by their attractiveness, but they’re still niche characters. Even the Bride from “Kill Bill” is first of all attractive in her tight-fitting yellow clothing and deadly only secondly, although she certainly does have a lot of agency, which is to be praised.

It would be nice to see more of a balance for male and female characters alike. Not every male character has to be extremely masculine in his looks and not every female character has to be sexually attractive. It would in general be nice to see more ‘average’ characters - and not just ‘Hollywood average’ characters, either. ‘Hollywood average’ is still very attractive by common people’s standards.

TV series, when not made in the States today, often have a less limited range of characters. It would be nice if that were true for characters in other visual media, too. It would be nice to have more people from the streets in stories, people you could meet outside - and not just if your ‘outside’ happens to be Hollywood.

 

It would also be fun to have at least one game where the male characters are portrayed the way female characters normally are and vice versa - a game where I can have the male hero with a more pleasing athletic build instead of that of a bodybuilder and a female hero who is muscular and has a range of scars all over her body, showing how much of a veteran fighter she is.

Or just, you know, a female character who gets some regular armour and a male one who gets the same type of armour, safe for a few details which differ in their physiques. No metal bikini and no ridiculous shoulder pads.

 

Remember, even though men can be objectified as well, this is usually not done for the female audience. Objectified characters in general are mostly objectified to please the male audience. It would be nice to have characters in visual media who are not objectified and better represent the whole of mankind - the attractive and the not-so attractive, the old and the young, the male and female.

How to Undermine Your Message

 …or where “Hotel Transylvania 2” utterly fails. One big problem for quite some stories, in novels, in movies, or elsewhere, is that they have a clear message or something their main character definitely needs to learn, they work with it, they bring it to the forefront - and in the big climax, they just throw it away. That is what “Hotel Transylvania 2” does with Dracula’s arc and the big battle climax.

 

The first “Hotel Transylvania” was a good movie - not only ‘a good animated movie’ (an expression which for many holds the unspoken words ‘a good kid’s movie’), but a good movie in general. It presented a clear story, the characters (as far as they weren’t comic relief) were appropriately constructed to act out the story, and it had something to say about prejudices on all sides. Since the first movie ended with the marriage between Jonathan and Mavis - a human and Dracula’s daughter -, it stood to reason that the second movie would carry on with the story of them being married and be a family story again.

The conflict in the first movie is mostly between Dracula and Mavis with Jonathan being a catalyst of sorts - he’s the one who strengthens Mavis’ wish to go out and see the world. In the end, Dracula not only relents, but risks his health and life to bring Jonathan back to Mavis, accepting the human and respecting Mavis’ own wishes. While doing so, he also learns that humans no longer hate vampires and other monsters - he has fans who even help him reach the airport.

The conflict in the second movie is constructed around Jonathan’s and Mavis’ first child, Dennis. As the son of a human and a vampire, Dennis might or might not be a vampire himself, and Dracula, despite having come to terms with humans not being quite that bad, doesn’t want for his grandchild to be human. If Dennis doesn’t show any vampire powers by the time he’s reached his fifth birthday, he won’t get them at all, so in the weeks before that birthday, Dracula does all in his powers to ‘scare’ the vampire powers out of Dennis. Since this is both a children’s movie and a comedy, a series of shenanigans happens. On his fifth birthday, Dennis is still without powers and Dracula comes to term with his grandson being a human. He has learned that there are worse things than that and his beloved grandson will be his beloved grandson, no matter what. Then Dennis and his friend Wendy (one of the werewolf’s many children) get kidnapped, Wendy is injured while protecting Dennis, and Dennis turns into a super vampire immediately in control of all of his powers.

You see the problem with the description? Yes, it’s the last sentence. Without that, it would be a perfect story, but someone thought a great ‘huge bats against monsters and humans alike’ battle was what was missing from the story and put it in.

 

The story doesn’t need that battle. Apart from the conflict which comes from Dracula going against his daughter’s wishes, trying to turn his grandson into a vampire, there’s also a conflict between Dracula and his own father who despises humans far more than Dracula ever did. This, too, is resolved before the fight when Dracula stands up to his father, saying that his grandson is perfect the way he is - and his father relents. At this point, we could have had a great party for Dennis and, if he is supposed to be a vampire at all, perhaps a little hint, like a glint of small fangs as he smiles or a glow to the eye as he looks at the camera, that he actually does have those powers. Personally, I’d have gone with him being human and, perhaps, a younger brother or sister being a vampire. After all, nobody says Jonathan and Mavis can’t have more children.

Instead, a gigantic bat serving Dracula’s father kidnaps both Dennis and his best friend Wendy and when she tries to defend Dennis, she’s injured. Seeing her unconscious, Dennis tries to fight the bat himself and, during the fight, gains access to all of his powers at once, turning into some kind of super vampire. Earlier on, Dracula and his posse visited a summer camp for young vampires and we see how hard it is for them to control their powers - as we see in the first movie that it took Mavis ages to learn how to turn into a bat and fly. Not only does Dennis have vampire powers, he gets control of them all at once, which completely destroys the message that he’s okay the way he is, even if it’s not what other people - in this case his grandfather - wanted him to be.

 

The movie actually delivers a lot of subtle hints that both sides - Mavis’ and Jonathan’s families - have not yet fully accepted the couple. While Dracula wants a vampire for his grandson, Jonathan’s parents display the ‘I have nothing against X, some of my friends are X’ mindset behind which many people hide general prejudices.

Up to the battle, there are far more subtle ways this is turned around by Jonathan’s family meeting more monsters and by Dracula learning that his grandson is fine the way he is. Prejudices are laid to rest - when confronted by Dracula about his own hatred of humans, even Dracula’s father relents and accepts that his great-grandson is fine as a human, even joking that his own fangs are no longer his own now (fangs being one of the things Dennis should be sporting at five). This is such a nice way of tying everything together and the birthday party where humans and monsters have fun together could have served very well as the end of the conflict.

The battle wasn’t necessary, nor did it add to the story. It was merely someone thinking that there should be more action (although there was action before) and that a fight between huge bats and a team of humans and monsters was the best way to deliver it.

 

Learn from this and other bad stories. If you want to have a character learn something in a story or if you want to deliver a message, make sure the plot serves to highlight that, don’t let the plot actually destroy the message or undermine it. No matter what cool scene you can think up which would be great, if it interferes with the story you’ve told before, don’t add it - save it for another story where it fits better.

Thoughts on Albert Campion

 My first thought when I discovered Albert Campion via the 1980s TV series was ‘Why was I never told about this?!’ As a big fan and avid reader of crime novels in general and Agatha Christie (and her era) in particular, Albert Campion was right down my alley, yet it took 46 years for me to find stories written decades before my birth.

 

While Agatha Christie likes to start stories slowly, Margery Allingham, the author of the Albert Campion stories, likes to start them off with a bit of action. I do enjoy Christie’s approach, but getting a good head start and having a bit more immediate action is also very nice.

While both Hercules Poirot and Miss Maple have become staples in crime literature and are well known, Mr. Campion can’t claim the same fame, which is a shame. He is a very understated hero, a man who gives the impression that he’s a harmless, even ridiculous figure with his high-pitched voice, pale skin, and thick glasses. Yet, he’s certainly able to hold himself in a fight or another dangerous situation - as soon as he packs up his glasses, things tend to get dangerous.

There is a mystery to Albert Campion, too. It’s said early on in several of the novels that the name ‘Albert Campion’ is an alias (and he employs several more in his work) and that he belongs to a high-ranking family. His wide range of acquaintances, from high society down to the underworld, also speaks of a man who has a History deserving of the upper-case ‘H’. Not to mention he has one of the most amusing man-servants I have encountered so far.

The characters are distinct, not only the recurring ones (as Albert’s valet or his friend at the police), but also those created specifically for one story. There are some racist stereotypes, but the books were written in the 1930s - and the same problem with stereotyped non-British characters goes for Agatha Christie as well, as much as I love her work. You will never have the problem of reading a name and not being able to connect it to a character you’ve encountered before - unless, of course, it’s the first time the character appears in the story. In this case, you will have a clear picture of them afterwards.

The stakes are introduced early, so the reader knows what it is about and why it is important for this murder to be solved or this object to be found. Stakes are raised in most cases, but there’s already stakes high enough to invest in from the beginning, which is always good. “Look to the Lady”, for instance, starts off with a man being chased through London while down on his luck.

Margery Allingham doesn’t quite do the quaint English town which is so typical for half of Agatha Christie’s work (her independent novels and most Miss Maple stories). While the stories might play out in small towns and villages (or the manor homes nearby), there’s little quaintness about it. Murders are never quaint and Allingham doesn’t pretend they are. Instead of slow-moving investigation, there is action. Unexpected things happen to raise the tension and give Mr. Campion something new to react to. This doesn’t mean he’s never proactive, though - he doesn’t just have a lot of acquaintances, he also makes a lot of use of them. Yet, the suddenly changes in the situation keep the reader’s attention, which is never wrong.

I would go so far as to say that the Albert Campion novels are, to a degree, pulp stories. They have a lot of action, more so than the stories by Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers, they have high stakes in many cases, they have a rather interesting cast, and they keep you reading by keeping the action up and making sure you’re not going to be bored.

 

The novels also play fair with the reader. Instead of uncovering an important piece of information very late (the “Murder, She Wrote” syndrome, I’d call it), all clues come out in time and the reader learns about them as soon as Mr. Campion (or even earlier, since Albert is not the only point-of-view character). The cases are sometimes odd (like in “Police at the Funeral” which has a very strange solution), but they still make sense. There’s no sudden pulling a culprit out of nowhere.

The writing does need a little getting used to these days - but the same goes for other novels from the same era, since languages evolved for as long as they are spoken. Yet, once used to the writing style, it’s not hard to read for a long time. The story keeps moving, there’s adequate action, new situations, new clues, and new suspects turn up. The stakes are raised a little here and there and the tension is handled well. I have been more bored with an Agatha Christie novel than with Allingham’s so far.

 

Personally, I like the way Albert Campion in presented, too. Authors have a tendency to show their main characters - their heroes, if you want to use that word - in a very good light. Sometimes, they even make them look too perfect, which is not good. Allingham presents her hero as a harmless man - even more harmless than Father Brown, who certainly is among the most harmless on the first glance. Unlike the good father, however, Albert isn’t only a man of the mind - the pulp style of the stories means that there is adequate danger and daring-do in his stories as well, so he has to be an action hero to a degree.

The basic description of Albert is that of a rather short, slim man with pale skin, hair, and eyes, wearing enormous, thick-rimmed glasses and speaking with a high-pitched voice. Not only that, though. Albert makes a point in appearing just as ridiculous as his description sounds. He usually makes jokes, talks about insignificant topics at odd times, and seems preoccupied with unimportant things while something horrible is happening. Yet, once you’ve read one novel, you know it’s at least partially a show.

Albert does have a high-pitched voice, that’s mere genetics. He doesn’t seem to be very short-sighted, though, since he takes off his glasses before getting into a fight, climbing away from an enraged horse, or doing other more action-related things. His mind isn’t weak, either, he usually puts together a plan on short notice and he does put the clues together very well, too. How much of his usual habits are due to eccentricities and how much is calculated to keep other people at ease around him and make him easy to underestimate is hard to say.

 

If you are a fan of the 1920/1930 setting found in novels by Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers, but want something a little more action-oriented and with usually higher stakes, take a look at Albert Campion. I would suggest, however, not to start with the first novel he’s in, as he’s more of a side character in that one. “Look at the Lady” or “Police at the Funeral” are two interesting ones you might want to look into instead. I can also recommend the audio books in this case, the speaker does do Albert’s voice justice. Or watch the two seasons of the TV series based on the novels.

Gender-Flipping

 What is ‘gender-flipping?’ Well, simply speaking, it means flipping the gender of a known character (making a male character female and vice versa). Sometimes, that can lead to interesting results, which is why I want to talk about it here.

 

A long while back, while I was just getting into e-books, I stumbled over a gender-flipped version of “Dracula”. It was bad, really, really bad. Essentially, the ‘author’ had uploaded the whole text of the novel to some word processor (which might have been the hardest part) and then simply used the ‘find and replace’ feature to exchange the pronouns for every character. That’s not really gender-flipping, of course. Female Jonathan Harker still shaved, for instance, and the now male wife of the innkeeper still wore dress and apron.

Yet, a gender-flipped version of “Dracula” could be interesting, nevertheless. What would one change about the story to fit it with the new gender of its main characters? Why would a female Dracula keep three attractive men in her castle? (Well, why does the male one keep three women who are never referred to as ‘brides’ in the book? Dracula clearly has no more sexual urges the way humans have them, so what is he doing with his harem?) Would male Lucy still bemoan the fact that he can’t marry three women and has to break the hearts of two of them? What would a female Quincy Morris be like? As you can see, there’s quite some interesting things you could do with the story just by flipping the genders of the main characters (I wouldn’t even flip everyone’s gender in there).

 

Gender-flipping works with every kind of story. You can flip genders in a superhero movie. You can flip genders in a fairy tale. You can easily flip genders in a mystery story. Yet, if mainstream media does it - like a comic special where all heroes are gender-flipped -, it’s often done to make fun of all the proud male characters who have now become women. That is where things get annoying. For what is so bad about being a woman? Female Thor would still wield her hammer (there was, after all, a female Thor for a while). Female Tony Stark would still be the most intelligent person in most rooms (unless female Bruce Banner is there) and build useful stuff. Female Superman would still be the strongest being on earth by far. Female Batman would probably be no less brooding than her male counterpart and still a great detective.

It’s also a good way to check your own characters and story. Flip a character’s gender and ask yourself if you would write this character the same way if they were a girl instead of a guy or a guy instead of a girl. If the answer is ‘no’, you might want to look into that character or the plot or both again. Quite some stereotypes can be caught just by flipping the gender of the character, because you’d never write one of the opposite gender that way.

If you flip a character’s gender, there will always be some details which are no longer working, as the shaving of the female Jonathan Harker (although there are women who shave, too). Yet, those are minor details and can be replaced without destroying the story or the plot. Whether Johanna Harker shaves or brushes her teeth, both can be used to show that Countess Dracula doesn’t turn up in a mirror, which is weird to say the least.

Sometimes, gender-flipping happens by accident. Ripley from “Alien” was originally written as a man, but since all characters only had one name, the producers assumed that Ripley was a woman and the screenwriter had no problem with it, thus the last survivor of the alien encounter became a woman - and one of the first ‘final girls’ in horror movies.

 

Gender-flipping is an interesting way if you want to retell an old story, especially something like a fairy tale. This can also be especially telling - a lot of fairy-tale princesses are very passive, seeing that in a male character can drive the point home very well. On the other hand, a lot of the common women in fairy tales tend to be active, anyway, so flipping them won’t make things that much different. It will demand changes to the story, but you can still preserve the core. Sometimes, it’s a good way to find out what the core of the story actually is.

 

A while ago, I wrote a gender-flipped version of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson for my own amusement. I’m not sure whether I’ll publish it, but the story was based off “A Study in Scarlet”, giving me the chance to rework the revenge story, too. Since I wanted for the Jefferson Hope stand-in in this one to be a woman, too, I needed to change things. The story became different, a woman taking revenge for the repeated rape of herself and her grandmother and the murder of the grandmother and attempted murder of herself. Watson’s plight became a different one, too - instead of having come back injured from Afghanistan (not that I couldn’t have worked that in), she was now working at a hospital where she wasn’t appreciated and later on joined the employee ranks of the Scotland Yard morgue where she was appreciated.

I wanted for her and Miss Holmes to be women in the Victorian era, not living in an alternative reality where women had a different social position at that time. I preserved the basic characteristics of both Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, but I changed the story so they fit better with female realities of the time (I have a second story plotted where the killing of a young woman to take her baby will feature). Sherley Homes is no less intelligent than Sherlock Holmes, yet she has a different way of dealing with some people and getting some information. Joanna Watson is no less of a good doctor than John Watson, yet it doesn’t take a war to get her into a difficult financial position. Being fired because her superior doesn’t want a woman on the payroll was enough.

I guess it would be interesting to do the same with “Dracula”, but I don’t really feel like writing a whole novel in diary entries, so I would also have to change the style. I’m not sure whether I’m up for that - it’s a long-term project. I do have a lot on my plate already, have plotted quite some stories which need writing. Yet, there are interesting aspects to that…

 

No matter whether you do it as a writing exercise, to check your character design, or because you want to retell an old story with new faces, gender-flipping can be a very useful tool in a writer’s toolbox and I can only suggest trying it out every now and then. It can lead to a few really interesting characters and help you understand how not to write in stereotypes. In the long run, it may make you a much better character creator and thus a better writer.

Review: Moriarty the Patriot

 

A little disclaimer: I have read the manga up to volume 8, I know the series isn’t finished yet and certainly not for me. I’ve also not seen the anime and can’t say what might be different there. This is a review of the manga only and only of the volumes 1 through 8.

 

I’ve not been reading manga for quite a while - stopped going to the bookstore where I bought them for many years, stopped being very interested in them. I was slightly aware that there also were e-book versions of some manga (and I do have a mental list of manga I’d love to have in digital form, such as the complete Hellsing series). Then The Mary Sue, one of my go-to sites every day, posted an article about the anime series and a commenter mentioned the manga, so I checked them out and found that volume 1-5 were out in e-book format, too. I got the first one, devoured it basically in one go, and went back to buy the others. Then I found out that volume 6-8 were going to be released as e-books on the 22nd December and pre-ordered them. Then they came out and I spent another day devouring them. That’s how much I’ve enjoyed the series so far.

 

I do have a thing for villains, so I did enjoy looks into Professor Moriarty even while he was kept strictly villainous (as in Kim Newman’s “Moriarty - The Hound of the D’Urbervilles”) or made into an anti-hero (as in Michael Kurland’s Moriarty novels). Yet, if someone will play loose and wild with any kind of canon, it’s Japanese manga creators. Therefore, if someone could come up with a series that makes Moriarty a criminal mastermind and the hero at the same time, it would be one of them. And I was right - they did it.

Ryosuke Takeuchi did, to be more precise, releasing “Moriarty the Patriot” and starting it off not with the adult professor (who, in this series, is a true prodigy, being a professor at the tender age of 21), but with a young boy who is clearly too smart by far and does mathematics in his head for fun - so everyone knows he has to be evil (just kidding). Then things get a lot darker as we learn about his background (he and his younger brother are simply part of the Moriarty household, despised by the lady of the house and the younger son, although protected to the best of his possibilities by the older son). They finish off very dark before a time jump when things escalate, the older son of the family and the two boys killing basically everyone in the house in a fire and emerging as the only surviving family members (which is when the two boys take the Moriarty name for good).

Years later, Albert James Moriarty (the oldest and only Moriarty by blood) is in the military (explaining the Colonel James Moriarty turning up in another Sherlock Holmes story), William James Moriarty (now the middle son, replacing Albert’s real younger brother, and the professor) has just started teaching at a college, and Louis James Moriarty (the youngest and officially adopted) is taking care of the household. Having all three of them share the middle name ‘James’ is clever, because it means that ‘James Moriarty’ can be either of them, depending on the situation.

The three brothers have a plan: to boost crime in Britain and especially in London until the lower classes finally rebel and the class system which keeps everyone locked in the class they were born in, no matter how clever, resourceful, or despicable they are, is destroyed. For this, they find people with a grudge against nobles or other members of the Ton and assist them in taking revenge. In some cases, though, they also act on their own, killing people who deserve it themselves. In this endeavour, the brothers have help from several people within and without the canon. Within the canon are Fred Pollock, Sebastian Moran, or the engineer von Herder. Without the canon are newly-created or displaces characters like Jack Renfield (the original Jack the Ripper who doesn’t take well to that serial killer taking his nickname), Miss Moneypenny (who is attached to the MI6 here, too, but more further down), or even James Bond (okay, that one is kind of a cop-out).

No James Moriarty without Sherlock Holmes, though (and Mycroft has a bigger role to play in this series, too), so soon enough, in the middle of the second plan to see a nobleman with outrageous hobbies dead, William and Sherlock meet and a certain chemistry comes to the forefront (honestly, this is a ship which is clearly supported by the creator, as is Holmes/Watson). Yet, to make things a little more interesting, Sherlock can be a bit of a buffoon in this one. He’s clever enough, but he doesn’t take many things seriously.

 

The series isn’t much attached to the canon. Several characters (especially the victims of the Moriarty gang) are changed severely. Those who were not nobles or rich in the original stories are elevated to that rank. Quite some are given a new, disgusting hobby to put them on the list of the gang. Yet, that doesn’t matter much to me - I’m very much into the stories as a such and thus I don’t mind all the changes.

It’s also not attached much to actual history. An early volume of the series sees the proper birth of the MI6 and Albert manages to manoeuvre himself into the leading position there, leaving the army and becoming ‘M’. ‘Q’ is no other than the canon-mentioned blind engineer von Herder (who doesn’t seem very troubled by his blindness). Miss Moneypenny, however, is not only Albert’s secretary, she also goes on a mission with Moran at some point.

 

Which brings me to one story which I found especially interesting and well-done. Spoiler Warning! “A Scandal in Bohemia” is the only canon story featuring Irene Adler (she gets married during it and leaves for the US at the end). In the “Moriarty the Patriot” version of the scandal, it’s not just about a picture that could cause problems for the next king of Bohemia, here Irene stole damning documents from the Buckingham Palace and Mycroft Holmes (being Albert’s superior) wants the documents back and the thief dead.

Needless to say that Albert and his brothers have different plans. So does Irene, who tricks Sherlock into burning down her house so she can move into Baker Street for a while and be protected. She gets into contact with Albert (acting as the mastermind in this case) and he offers her protection for the information in the documents, not the documents themselves.

In the end, they fake Irene’s death and she, who has proven to be good at disguising herself as a man already, takes a new identity: James Bond (‘James’ after the brothers’ middle name and ‘Bond’ for the new bond she’s formed with the gang). Not only that, but she’s attached to the MI6 as agent number 7. Spoiler finished!

 

By volume 8, the last one I’ve read so far, the story is well on the way, but far from over (although Mycroft is now aware of the gang and Albert’s private use of the MI6). William and Sherlock have met several times and even solved a crime together (not one instigated by the gang). The gang has been fleshed out well, many people have been punished for their life choices, and things can still be surprising. Personally, I’m looking forward to more.

 

As far as the manga’s style goes, it is rather close to manga like “Black Butler” - a style I like very much. The style is clear, but the line work mostly fine. The characters aren’t overly bulky, unless it’s a plot point of sorts. The coloured pages (covers and some additional pages) are done very beautifully. The page setup is clean and easy to read (once you remember to read ‘the other way’). A warning, though: murders can be bloody and shown in detail, this is an adult story, not something for kids.

 

I’m very much in love with “Moriarty the Patriot” and am looking forward to the next volumes, no matter how long it takes until they are out in e-book form. I’d also be happy to get my hands on the anime one of these days. If you enjoy crime stories and stories about people who commit crimes without being caught, this is definitely a series to look into.