The Crash Bandicoot games are near and dear to me. Everytime I play them, it's always a good time. However, I can't say the same for the manga adaptation.
Although it was created in the US, it's no secret that Crash was a very successful game series in Japan. So much, that a manga based on it didn't seem too far fetched. Although the concept could've worked, it just wasn't executed well.
The manga adapts the story of Crash Bandicoot 2. Basically, Cortex needs to gather 25 Crystals around the world, so he tricks Crash into collecting them for him. Many of the stages featured in the
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game, such as jungles, rivers and snowy places, are present here, and a good number of characters from it make an appearance. Doesn't sound too bad on paper, but several things were lost in the transition.
The biggest issue I have is that the tone of the manga fails to represent the feel of the games. While they were cartoony, especially during Crash's death animations, they never overdid that aspect and knew when and when not to use comedy, having a certain charm to them. On the other hand, the manga is very exaggerated; it's full of slapstick humor and constant jokes, one after another, that just fall flat. I admit that some of the gags were a bit entertaining, such as the Crystals being mistaken for other objects, but those were few and far between.
I am aware that the Crash games became more light hearted and comedic as they went on, but this was written during the Naughty Dog era, when there was a balance between comedy and seriousness. Not even Twinsanity, a game known for its emphasis on humor, went this far in the silliness scale.
Another big flaw in is the characters, especially Crash himself. In the original games, he was silent, which was done intentionally to make him more sympathetic to players. While I'm fine with giving him speech and more personality, they just made him dumb and selfish. Crash wasn't very smart originally, but he wasn't a jerk either. Here, he only cares about food, Wumpa fruits in particular, and he always forgets about his mission to gather the Crystals. Aku Aku has to remind him everytime, and even then he only wants them to scratch his ears with them. He's just unlikeable, and not a very good lead for this journey.
Aku Aku isn't that much different from the original, but he didn't exactly come off as wise or mature, he just has to put up with Crash's nonsense. And Cortex lost any menacing traits he once had, becoming a goofy cartoon villain. Granted, that is also true in the later games, but not in the ones this manga is based on. The rest of the characters were alright, I did like the portrayals of Ripper Roo and the Komodo Bros. at least. Coco and N. Gin's roles are reduced considerably, while Tiny and N. Brio are absent. This means that the subplots involving Coco telling Crash the truth about Cortex's plan, and Brio telling Crash to gather the Gems so that he can destroy Cortex's spaceship were also dropped.
I can't say much about the art, it was okay for what it was, certainly closer to the Japanese box arts than the in-game models themselves. The chapters were a mixed bag; some were entertaining, like the ones featuring Polar, Penta and the bosses, or the one portraying the jet ski levels. Others were just baffling; stuff like Cortex shrinking Crash and eating him by mistake, with Crash having to climb his way up and coming out of Cortex's nose, or Crash hitting his head and reducing his mental age to that of a baby, that kind of stuff was dumb, boring and unnecessary.
One aspect that I do find interesting is that the manga bothers to explain why Tawna disappeared after the first game; she simply left Crash for Pinstripe. Not the greatest explanation, but better than no explanation at all. This does have some impact on Crash, as he aspires to become attractive for women, and chooses to train in the year between the first two games, with the end result being that he learned the new moves he uses from Crash 2 onwards. Again, these explanations meant to fill in the gaps are not needed, but they're still welcome.
And lastly, I do find it amusing that the manga predicted the direction the series went in, in some ways. Apart from being the franchise debut of Penta Penguin, and having an early reference to Fake Crash as a costume that Cortex wears once, it's common to see Crash and Cortex fighting in a ball of dust, like in Twinsanity, and Cortex's portrayal is pretty close to that of said game. He even ends up being frozen at one point, similar to the intro. Most of these were probably a coincidence, but fans of the series will definitely get a kick out of them.
The manga was cancelled after the second volume and ends on a cliffhanger. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is up to you, as I was starting to get tired by that point. Crash and company barely collected a handful out of the 25 Crystals, that alone should tell you that more time was spent goofing around rather than getting to the point. If the author stuck closer to the game's tone and events, it could've at least reached the Tiny boss fight in the same amount of chapters. There were two more chapters released after the two volumes, they're just bonus chapters based on Warped, and at the moment remain untranslated.
Overall, this manga wasn't very enjoyable to me, as it's too far removed from the game series for my taste. I still think fans should read it as a curiosity. If you're not familiar with Crash, don't even bother with this, it might even put you off from playing a pretty good game series.
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Sep 11, 2020
The Crash Bandicoot games are near and dear to me. Everytime I play them, it's always a good time. However, I can't say the same for the manga adaptation.
Although it was created in the US, it's no secret that Crash was a very successful game series in Japan. So much, that a manga based on it didn't seem too far fetched. Although the concept could've worked, it just wasn't executed well. The manga adapts the story of Crash Bandicoot 2. Basically, Cortex needs to gather 25 Crystals around the world, so he tricks Crash into collecting them for him. Many of the stages featured in the ... |
