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howlingmoonrise · 3 years

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Thoughts on Petshop of Horrors: Wandering Ark volume 3

(crossposted from dreamwidth)

me realizing a whole-ass 25 pages of the last volume of the papa series are just sensei's travel logs:

what did i do to deserve this, honestly? sensei i love you and all but THERE WERE SO MANY OTHER THINGS TO COVER ABOUT PAPA. AND YOU DIDN'T TOUCH THEM. AT ALL.

To start with, there's only two actual chapters in the volume, keeping in line with the previous volumes. A whooping total of 103 pages out of a 128 page manga - except, a good portion of one of them is pretty much just rehashing the events of the last volume of the original manga, so it's not exactly like they're overflowing with juicy new content. Vesca and Victor fans will be pleased at a new glimpse of them both though, with emphasis on Vesca.

Oh, you wanted an explanation for the ark? For why Papa was going around supposedly through "space and time", with a reason other than "well, I wanted to draw stuff from other eras but I don't want to write a whole new manga with a D from back then"? There's none. N-O-N-E. Zilch. Zip. Nada. Niente. Nothing about his relationship with Sofu (though they do briefly meet on Victor's funeral - and wow, am I surprised Sofu deigned to show considering how much he loves humankind), nothing about D or Papa's relationship with him beyond an outsider's point of view on the events of the last manga, nothing about the D species in general or glimpses at previous Ds that were likely alive before our D came into being.

Another bad point: what the hell was up with the cover art?

The top portion of it is fine, but why does the rest of it look like whoever painted it forgot how to shade things? Look at that belt. Look at those sleeves. That's all I have to say on this subject.

On to the chapters themselves!

First chapter:

Papa D helps with The Bachelor. No, really. It's literally a Bachelor-style show, recorded for TV, with one single man and twenty ladies competing to become his wife. Trigger warning for almost-rape in this chapter.

I'll be honest, I liked the main character for this chapter. She's a go-getter, and a survivalist, and prefers stuffing her face with food instead of flirting away the night. Honestly? Mood. I really liked the butler too. I was going on a "oh, is he going to be the actual love interest?" line of thought since he looked interesting, and then went "nah, they're not focusing on him at all beyond that one (1) scene where they were dancing, guess he's just a side character after all", only for him to actually turn out to be the final love interest. That was. Hm. To say that it was majorly underdeveloped is to put it lightly, but the "prince" wasn't great either. The attempted rape felt as if it was shoved in because they were running out of pages though, since the rest of what we saw from his personality seemed a lot mellower than that.

The ?prostitutes? were an unexpected bright spot, even though they only showed up for a couple of panels, but it was nice that they gave her food (however dismissively) and tried to get the other guy to leave her alone, and that they were simply described as "beautiful" instead of anything else.

OH BUT. Papa hitting the would-be rapist over the head with an oar was great, it actually gave a bit more dimension to him since the Ds are usually so unwilling to dirty their own hands when it comes to violent business: at most they would usually let their pets do the work for them.

Which actually brings me to another question.

I've already said before that Papa is at most a side character on his own series, and that he actually barely gets involved at all apart from a few nudges here and there - but it's kind of jarring that he almost never "sells" a pet in this series. On all volumes including this one, there are only two chapters where he gives away a pet that was already with him and that didn't initially belong to someone else that he was just returning: the dogs from the Austria chapter, and the bird from Empress one (who was actually said to be given by Sofu, but I'm calling bullshit since he had long hair and this is supposedly a time-travelling ark). It's definitely a weird choice for a manga whose title is, quite literally, "Petshop of Horrors".

Also, for a FLYING ark there sure seem to be a lot of water-related incidents.

Thoughts on the family thing down on the general thoughts section. Also, WHY IS IT AN OAR AGAIN? WHERE DID THE BUTLER FIND AN OAR, SINCE IT SEEMED LIKE IT WASN'T PAPA LENDING IT TO HIM? I can't say the penguin thing was a huge twist considering previous chapters, but it makes me wonder that so many of Papa's stories are directly about either humans or animals, but rarely the conjunction of both apart from brief exceptions.

Second chapter: Nice callback to the original PSoH on the first page: I'm extremely fond of that description of the Ds, and it's fitting for a final chapter of a PSoH series.

This chapter is a cameo for Victor (from the Sofu series which I haven't read yet but know some things about), and a full appearance for Vesca. Victor seems to have chosen the same path as Leon, though arguably he'd actually have the money for it since he's a baron. Travelling the world following rumours and sightings, in search of someone they considered to be dear to them? Sign all three of these blonds up, because it seems to be a tradition at this point. The Ds really have a type, huh? Truth be told, from what I heard of Victor I didn't think he'd be the adventure-seeking sort, so this was a bit of a surprise. He looks cute and happy piloting planes and running from rhinos so I guess that's all that matters though.

BUT WHY DID HE HAVE TO DIE POOR. He looks like a huge cinnamon roll so I feel super bad for him, I bet they all resented the money he spent trying to chase Sofu D across the globe once the Great Depression hit :/

And then, bam! Sofu cameo. This is the chapter where EVERYONE gets a cameo, copy-paste of the last chapter of OG PSoH or otherwise. He's cryptic as usual, and I REALLY didn't expect him to remember Victor's name, much less show up to his funeral. Not that he even looks like he's grieving; he pretty much only speaks of Hitler and Eva Braun's kirin, to Papa's seemingly frowning disapproval (I haven't complained about the round art style on this volume's commentary yet so consider this to be it: the only reason why Papa even looks put out is because he has a Very Clear Frowny Line, because otherwise he just looks normal... and round).

And then finally, some actual Papa content! Or, er, Vesca content. Both. Let's go with both. I don't want to make myself sad thinking about how little we saw of Papa on his own series. Here we see once again mentions of extinction and of resurrecting species, and finally a throwback to why the ark is an ark: "Noah's Ark". It took me RNS' translations of OG PSoH to understand the reference back on the original, because on Tokyopop's mangled translation the ark is merely a flying boat.

It's nice to see that Vesca has a strong sense of justice similar to my dear boy Leon Orcot, since it was a bit iffy on the original manga. He's righteous (and right!) about the other Professor using Papa's research, and how Papa should have the benefits of it for himself since he was the one doing the studies. Papa, however, cares little about money or glory: even now his focus is on recovering the blind bird species from their trip to Greece (see: Shin PSoH), and here we see once again his hopeful view that one day he may be able to help them see again. Parallel to his own family much? Honestly, I feel for him.

WHAT IS IT WITH PEOPLE SHOOTING PAPA? At this point he's trying to reach for Leon's record - and failing, because Leon gets shot and mauled a frankly unholy amount of times during the original PSoH, so no one else can ever really compare. What really breaks my heart here is that he actually asks why. Sofu and D would both have simply taken it for granted, but Papa (seemingly, up until this point) doesn't automatically assume the worst of every human being he comes across. That pained why kills me a little bit, here, and soon after he grows cold and allows the more murderous side of that contract to go loose.

That page with Vesca going into the FBI really throws me back to the panels on the original PSoH right before/right when Leon decides to chase after D. Part of the background is blank, the other part a faint image of the city and Chinatown, with a sense of detachment associated with them. I could probably take the time to place them side by side and compare fully, but uh. I may or may not be stretching my workday bedtime a little too much to finish writing this, oops.

Also, an echo to the original PSoH with Papa's death, called back with him nearly being shot in the middle of the forehead. The actual event is brought in shortly after Vesca gets to mind-rant about the Ds and his search for a few pages, and then flashback flashforward time! A whole six pages which are just portions of OG PSoH's last chapter redrawn from another angle. It's implied that Vesca was able to board the ark like Leon did due to a similar scene with lying in the clouds and sighting the ship amidst them, though whether he was able to stay or not is a whole new story. This is where the actual story ends.

Sensei's travel logs: I'm not going to bother going into these. It was nice to see some glimpses of my son (forever a Leon stan here!) and a cameo for Taizuu also showed up a little later on if you're one of the people who liked him (personally, I would trade Taizuu in for a cornchip and a ball of lint). I'm going to make the executive choice of pretending that the D/Leon bits are what's actually happening right now after Leon caught up to D. It's lovely to see them on vacations, and Leon has mellowed out a little bit while D seems extremely comfortable and content with his favourite ex-detective's presence =v=

General thoughts: All the series so far seem to have some sort of theme, which kind of ties into the main character of it and their own arc. The original PSoH, for one, was focused a lot on family and greed and love and desire: our D, similarly, had plenty of unresolved issues surrounding his bloodline and things that he wanted but that he couldn't/was not allowed to have because of that very blood.

You'll have to forgive me if my interpretation of Shin is spotty since I only read around half of it (online scans only went up to volume 6 or so, physical versions of the Tokyopop translations were discontinued, and ruthlessnightsscans started scanlating it after I’d already read the available chapters for Shin), but from what I remember of it it seemed to bring in softer, more loving and lighthearted stories, usually tied around romance and being kept apart from things they want/love. The two non-Leon chapters that immediately spring to mind are the Romeo and Juliet Mafia AU, and the one where the lady got pregnant from her dead husband and was able to live on due to that renewed hope. D himself seems to have turned a new page: he hangs around humans on his leisure time (bless those drag queens), takes a vested interest in happy endings for others even if not for himself, and seems overall less inclined towards gruesome murder.

(You'll have to forgive me, but I actually haven't read the Sofu series at all yet so I can't analyse that one. I wasn't even aware RNS had scanlated it until recently, but then again I hold a lot of rage against that slimy bastard (Sofu, not RNS, RNS are baby) and so I'm putting it off indefinitely. Oops?)

And then there's this one. It's probably no coincidence that so many of the stories are about reproduction and birth and continuing a dying species: this is something that chases Papa all the way from his college days not even considering his childhood, which we don't actually don't know about but can make an educated guess at down to his issues with his son and the faint madness of his last years. Even his death plays into this theme, with it ultimately working as an way to keep the D line alive. It makes me think that Papa being kept from his position as a main character in his own series might actually be somewhat purposeful, though the decaying quality of the latest PSoH mangas makes me think this is not the case. I'll have to read the Sofu series to make a better judgement on this, depending on whether or not Sofu is or is not treated similarly.

Another theme: being haunted by the dead. I think this is actually present on almost every chapter of the Wandering Ark series, though we may disagree on the levels on which it was shown and how easily it is or is not divorced by my previous point. A reader that reads this series on its own will likely find Papa a very bland character and will not grasp onto the nuances of these themes and how they are connected to him, IMO. These conclusions and these hypothesis are drawn by virtue of the first manga alone; it's because of it that we're aware of how Papa himself lives for the species who are long gone, his own kind included. Most of the characters on Wandering Ark push through the suffering and the sorrow of their dead to go beyond their limits and become greater and independent, which is another parallel to Papa since he's the only one of the Ds who has an objective beyond simple (and inefficient) vengeance.

Overall, there's little else I can say that I haven't said already, either here or on my previous post for the first two volumes of the Wandering Ark series. There's a real sense of isolation and detachment on Papa's side (though he seems more benevolent than the other two Ds were), but as I said I'm not sure if it's meant to be purposeful or not, though Sensei's choice to not give him an actual companion thorough his series is also telling. The pacing was also better than in the first chapters of this series, though there was that issue with the ending of the first chapter of this volume. I also still can't say this enough, but it's really strange that Papa is such a side character on his own series??

Final thoughts: we were robbed.

At least Sensei hinted that her journey with the Ds might not be over yet, though if we get another Sofu manga I can and I will riot.

#petshop of horrors #pet shop of horrors #papa d #wandering ark #drifting ark #hyouhaku no hakobune hen #petshop of horrors hyouhaku #psoh wandering ark #psoh #howl rambles a lot

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