Front Mission: Dog Life & Dog Style

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Front Mission: Dog Life & Dog Style is a rather special manga that I enjoyed discovering. There are a number of interesting points in this manga that deserve to be introduced to the general public.

First of all, the manga is a spin-off from a video game series. Having never played these games, I'd be hard pressed to tell you whether the game fits in perfectly with the series. Nevertheless, the author manages to develop aspects of this futuristic universe. The technologies, political conflicts and geopolitical stakes are coherent, which will delight fans of the franchise.

In terms of storytelling, I found the manga a pleasure to ... discover. The storytelling is skilful, and character development is equal to the stakes. The author, Yasuo Ootagaki, succeeds in creating a dark and realistic atmosphere, where the protagonists' motivations are brought to the fore. Complex interactions and relationships add depth to the plot. The manga doesn't hesitate to show us the horrors of war in all their forms.

I found Yasuo Ootagaki's style impressive. His detailed drawings capture the essence of mecha combat. The action scenes are dynamic and well-choreographed, offering a thrilling visual spectacle. There are double-page spreads I won't soon forget. I also found there to be a lot of technical detail. There's an attention to mechanical detail and the anatomy of the fighting robots that leaves no one indifferent. The battle passages are intense, thanks to the author's sense of movement and visual clarity. This makes it easy to gauge the aggrandizement of the battles and follow every exchange of blows. The plates are well arranged, highlighting the impact of the battles and reinforcing immersion in the universe.

The manga is also interesting because it explores deep themes linked to the consequences of war, politics and interpersonal relationships. The author deftly addresses the personal sacrifices that characters must make in a world plagued by conflict. The story raises complex moral issues and prompts readers to reflect on the place of these conflicts and their management. The themes are universal and topical, making for an engaging and memorable reading experience.

In short, I found the manga really interesting. The only thing I can fault is the pace, which is sometimes a little too fast. The story begins with a series of small independent stories, and then struggles to hook us in with a real red thread outside that of the conflict. However, its solid narration, impressive drawings and deep themes make for a fairly immersive reading experience in a world torn apart by conflict. It's a topical manga worth discovering.

As someone who considers Front Mission 3 to be one of his favorite games of all time I am very disappointed in this manga adaptation.

Story:
Because this is a Front Mission manga I was expecting plenty of awesome Wanzer (Mecg) on Wanzer action but instead the story follows a reporter from Japan who is sent to the Hauffman islands (a key subject in the games) to cover the ongoing territorial disputes between the 2 super power the USN and the OCU both of which are claiming sovereignty over the new island. The story had the potential to be good and interesting but it as a Front ... Mission manga you are expecting lots and lots of awesome metalic mayhem but what we are given is a psychological drama that follows the characters' quick descent into madness.

Art:
The art is pretty good although there are plenty of titles that have arguably better artwork than this it does get the job done, it is however rather difficult to tell the Americans from the OCU (mostly asian) citizens. The Wanzers may look good but you can't really tell them apart from each other without the insignia of whichever country they are from. Finally there are plenty of nudity and gore so if that which is definitely a step away from the video game adaptations.

Characters:
This is where it really fails, the characters are terrible they are all sadistic bastards. This title is obviously saying that war brings out the worse in people however it doesn't show that it also brings out the best in some people (people like those who end up helping strangers such as those people who aided the Jews during the Nazi purges).

The soldiers are insulting to their real life counterparts or even their video game adaptation counterparts because they have absolutely no ounce of honor in them, there was this scene where an enemy helicopter destroys an ally Wanzer and when the helicopter is shot down and the crew surrender the allies of the fallen wanzer executed the pilots not because they were angry but rather they killed for the sake of killing. Another example is that the soldiers commit such atrocities such as raping innocent civilians and hanging the severed heads of their fallen enemies on the barrel of their guns all in the presence of media personnel which in real life would have resulted in some serious court marshals. Compare that to the characters from the game where common ordinary enemy soldiers show signs of remorse such sa saying lines like "I'm sorry it had to end like this" and the soldiers were clearly fighting for what they believed in not for the opportunity to commit mass murder.

Enjoyment:
The manga barely shows any mecha action, at most it shows a few panels of Wanzers shooting at things and blowing up but they hardly play a large role, the manga mostly focuses on bombarding the reader with gruesome scenes of severed limbs and all kinds of innards littering the half the panels of some chapters.

Overall:
This is a missed opportunity the mangaka could have made a great action title but in the end they focused on using the shock factor of war and nothing else, I did not see a single character in this title that was remotely honorable save for the nurse at the reception but other than that everyone else is evil

This is a very well constructed manga. Rather than getting into detail on why it's so great, I'd rather just discuss the major critique of it I had.

Its a story that is on par with any of the anti-war greats, something that never holds back its critique and depicts its subjects unflinchingly. It has beautiful art, well-composed plots, and realistic character development throughout. It is a true realization of many staples of the mecha genre. Each arc is its own story- with the setting being one of the only shared traits throughout (more on this later)- that explores different themes and perspective. It would be ... too hard to summarize each one, so its best explored for yourself. Much of it strays from romanticization, though thats an inescapable byproduct of the format and its definitely present. Whats important is that it does not overly try to rehabilitate its subjects. Its a war story done quite right.

Yet, disappointingly, what threw me off was one central aspect of the entire series- the gimmick that would serve as the "connecting thread" between the disparate stories and characters of each arc. I am talking about the character of Kenichi Inuzuka, the deviant war correspondent who chronicles everything thats going on in the war-torn Huffman Island.

He serves as an important character in-universe who's actions have ostensible political weight- he is a rogue wartime filmographer who takes pictures of the various conflicts as well as all sorts of war crimes and brutality and then uploads them to the internet free of any government regulation. His work serves as an expose of the horrors of war and an important framing device for many of the messages of each arc. His own motivations are far less scrupulous however- he is an unabashed pervert, a total hedonist and self described war otaku who just wants to film all the mechas and soldiers.

This character is incredibly annoying both as a distinct personality and a plot device. Of course this is a futuristic mecha anime about a global conflict that has absolutely no basis in actual geopolitics. Yet the suspension of disbelief involved with this character often serves a gigantic plot hole in what is otherwise so well constructed. He is seemingly omniscient because he is an "information broker" and journalist, somehow seeming to know everyone and everything on a very personal level. He can appear everywhere at once, with no sense of scale as to the distance hes traveling between each location or time that has passed. He is seemingly indestructible, running around live gunfire and explosions that is shown brutally dismembering armed soldiers. He appears to exist almost as a godlike figure in this universe, and its unbearably corny when scenes that have emotional weight are interrupted by this nerd showing up in front of soldiers inside giant mechs and somehow communicating with them. The scenes where he appears in front of characters as a sort of messiah, offering them gifts of super deadly military ordinance are awful. It almost feels like the editors forced the writers to include him more. Or theres maybe the off chance they actually felt this guy was some sort of clever mysterious figure. Either way it sucks.

Because of the tangential nature of the arcs, nothing is really explained about the logistics of Inuzuka's operation by about 3/4ths of the way through the series. He is shown to be receiving equipment from a disheveled looking journalist in Japan, who obviously has money and connections. But how much? How much of this is funded? He's shown looking dirt poor and needing money for bus fare at some point. Yet at other points he's just cavorting around with top military brass and offering weapons to people like he controls every financial channel within these governments. The wild inconsistency is perhaps meant to contribute to the mystique of his character, but it feels juvenile when juxtaposed against much of the grounded content of the rest of the manga.

Inuzuka's personality and perverted disposition isn't in question here at all, though he gets old 30 chapters or so in. He is still as layered a character as any other- and the arc that focuses on him is perhaps one of the best in the entire manga. I'm sure theres a statement to be made on his character- that its kind needed to be a journalist in that situation, and more generally, its probably the kind needed to survive at all. If he was as powerless as he looked or perhaps wasn't give the seemingly infinite resources he had, I would definitely have enjoyed this sort of brunt appraisal of journalism. As it stands, he feels to much like a product of a mangakas attempt to make a noteworthy character more than a sincere piece of storytelling.

The manga is not fully scanlated, so I cannot give an overall appraisal of the work at this time. Please read it for yourself, I think whether or not you agree with my evaluation of Inuzuka, you will thoroughly enjoy this manga if you are anti-war and a fan of the mecha genre.

It is safe to say that this manga definitely is not for everyone. If you are a fan of militaria and real-robot mecha, you should give this manga a try, but if not, go read something else. It should be noted that even though this takes place in the Front Mission universe (during the events of the first game to be exact), you do not need to be familiar with the Front Mission series to enjoy this manga. I think everything you need to know about the setting is explained very well to newcomers.

I think what holds this story down the most is the author's ... reliance on shock value. He wants to show you how horrible war can be: youre seeing civilians getting mowed down, women being raped, torture, and other warcrimes. But after so many tragedies youre just like "oh come on". And its grating how the USN in this story acts nothing like how they did in the games. In the games, neither side was completely good or evil. It wanted to show you that both factions had good people and bad people within their ranks, and how war was rarely just good vs evil. In DL&DS, the USN faction seems to be completely filled with subhuman ogre men who think of nothing but murder and rape, where Nanking is just another Tuesday.

Another thing to be aware of is it seems the author was very horny when writing this. Almost every arc has a sex scene in it, or at the very least a character doing something weird and pervy. Now, some people like their stories to be full of sex. But if you are like me, seeing two characters who don't even love eachother have passionless sex will keep you rolling your eyes over many pages.

Now lets talk about the good things in this manga.

As stated in the previous paragraph, this manga is separated into arcs; each arc being its own self-contained story that gives you different perspectives on the Huffman conflict. So its not just about the mech pilots, but also the grunts, the civilians, the media, and others. The quality of each arc wavers between being great and kinda sucking, but none of them are so bad that it would warrant skipping. Besides, there are a few reoccurring characters throughout the manga, so it is worth seeing how all these connected stories culminate, especially for one specific character.

But If there is one thing that is consistent, it is the art. The mechanical designs of the Wanzers and other military vehicles and gear look great, and the battles are epic. Its the type of manga that has certain pages where youll catch yourself looking at them for minutes, admiring all the detail put into it. The character designs are good too. You can totally check out this manga for the art alone if thats the type of person you are.

Good Lord, this manga is disgusting. Quite possibly the most degenerate piece of military fiction I've ever consumed. It's a shame as what started out as a great story which showcases the naivety of the public and how the world treats distant wars along with a strong Korea parallel with great foreshadowing to Ukraine, ended up into a messy and perverted slog that absolutely killed all interest I had in moving forward.

The greatest flaw of this manga and what turned it from a strong 8-9 in the first arc is its obsession with shock storytelling. The manga is littered with scenes where something sexually degenerate ... or a bunch of gore happens with absolutely no benefit to the story, but just for the shock value. The first sign of this is the conclusion of the first arc where the love interest whose sole character is being "slutty" and whining about wanting to be at home with her daughter, dies in a Looney Tunes fashion where a pistol's bullet bounces off a mech, travels several hundred yards and perfectly penetrates bulletproof glass to blow her head off. I straight up hollered when this scene happened because it was just so ridiculous I lost all investment, and it went downhill from there.

At first the story does a good job at showing the horrors of war, how innocent people suffer in a conflict started by greed and the consequences of a nation being divided for artificial means. Then after the first arc, the enemy faction the USN, the America expy, basically become Nazi rapists, and I am not exaggerating at all. One arc has the protagonist fight against literal genocidal squads like the SS who exterminate civilians, for no reason, and all the villains and like half of the extras and side characters for the "good" faction are rapists or horny degenerates. Even worse is that the sexual violence is not treated as a horrific crime that it is and one of the many brutal horrors of war, but presented as a sexy ecchi scene meant to get the readers hard.

This was what ultimately caused me to quit the manga. There were two super long arcs which were a combined quarter of the entire manga that emphasized this and just utterly disgusted me. In one of them, a cyborg super soldier unconsciously grooms a prostitute with a child-like mentality and takes advantage of her after she was assaulted by a squad of the enemy, and said prostitute is taken advantage of by the cyborg's officer who was presented as a stern and competent leader yet when she meets the prostitute, becomes a lustful degenerate because of the author's lesbian fetish. The second arc is basically a loser Incel murdering his best friend to get in bed with his hot wife. I'm not joking, that is the entire arc from start to finish and all of volume 4.

When a writer puts sex into their story, it has to be done tastefully. This manga is so raunchy and degenerate it makes The Boys show look like Veggietales. There is also an incredibly annoying protagonist character, a war otaku journalist who just wanders across the battlefield in each arc and takes as many gory and action pictures as possible and never is injured or suffered despite being in the heaviest fighting. At first, it seemed like he was an excellent critique of military otaku culture and the obsession some develop with war, but then he becomes a literal Deus Ex machina who teleports around the battlefield and is able to move around literal mechs and heavy military equipment with no issue while never coming under harm because he has an "invisible face".

Even if one were to ignore the trashy story and characters, you can't even find fun in the military fights because literally every single fight is a one sided massacre where one faction wipes out the other troops completely without any losses. There's absolutely zero nuance to the battles, it's just massacre after massacre.

The only redeeming quality of this manga is the artwork. The art is beautiful and highly detailed and the mechs are excellently adapted from the video games. It's just a real shame that the action sucks and the author has a strong habit of making most of the characters ugly as sin like the most awful of hentai, which in many respects this manga is, a glorified hentai with mechs.

Overall, this manga is garbage and it's a shame because if you read Gundam Thunderbolt, you can tell that the author improved dramatically with Thunderbolt being a legit grounded war story with nuance. For anyone who likes this manga, please watch any Hollywood war movie or a documentary, do not delude yourselves into thinking this is an accurate portrayal of war.