Kaikei Saketen

Description

Two linked stories, both revolving around a deadly female assassin. In Hotel Harbour View, a Japanese expatriate in Hong Kong spends his time drinking whisky, photographing a high class prostitute and waiting for death at the hands of the assassin he knows is coming for him. In Brief Encounter, a notorious Parisian assassin is himself marked for assassination and his hunter is no stranger to him.

Viz published 2 stories.

Type

Manga

Related Series

N/A

Associated Names

Hotel Harbour View

Tokyo Killers (Italian)

Отель с видом на гавань (Russian)

海景酒店

Groups Scanlating

Manga-Sketchbook

Latest Release(s)

c.Oneshot by Manga-Sketchbook 20 years ago

Search for all releases of this series

Status in Country of Origin

1 Volume (Complete)
1 Volume (Shinsoban, 2015)

Completely Scanlated?

Anime Start/End Chapter

N/A

User Reviews

N/A

Forum

0 topics, 0 posts

Click here to view the forum

User Rating

Average: 6.4 / 10.0 (79 votes)

Bayesian Average: 6.37 / 10.0

14%

29%

22%

19%

Last Updated

April 7th, 2024 12:41pm PDT - 1 year ago

Image [Report Inappropriate Content]

Genre

Action Drama Mature Mystery Seinen
Search for series of same genre(s)

Categories

Log in to vote! Show all (some hidden)

Category Recommendations

Recommendations

Author(s)

Artist(s)

Year

Original Publisher

Futabasha (1985, 2015)

Kodansha (1983)

Serialized In (magazine)

Morning (Kodansha)

Licensed (in English)

Yes

English Publisher

Viz (1 Omnibus - Incomplete - 1990)

Activity Stats (vs. other series)

Weekly Pos #749

(-36)

Monthly Pos #1720

(-164)

3 Month Pos #2272

(-1113)

6 Month Pos #4628

(-309)

Year Pos #7773 (No change)

List Stats

On 35 reading lists

On 95 wish lists

On 204 completed lists

On 7 unfinished lists

On 68 custom lists

Note: You must be logged in to update information on this page.

Forum Posts Click to view the forum

User Comments [ Order by usefulness ]

Pretty but not really interesting.

by apsyda
5 years ago

Rating: 7.0 / 10.0

Some beautiful art here, with some strong atmosphere and expression throughout.
Exemplary in that way.

But the writing leaves a lot to be desired. Its fairly bland noir thats been done before, and while its fun to read that in the context of manga rather than film, otherwise there isn't much here to chew on.
Read it to be amazed at the art, but unless this is your first noir novel, there isn't a whole lot for you to latch onto from the writing.

Was this comment useful? Yes

Pretty art from Taniguchi, but a half-hearted echo of noir, crime, and assassin films

by roastedpekingduck
5 years ago

Rating: 5.0 / 10.0

I happened to remember about this one when mulling over out-of-print manga I should have not given away that are now difficult to obtain.

I read this years ago on the recommendation of a friend, maybe in 2006 or 2007 at this point. It was my first introduction to anything illustrated by Jiro Taniguchi. I would come to find that I much preferred works where Jiro Taniguchi was responsible for the overarching narrative.

Jiro Taniguchi's art was beautiful, and I much would have preferred this with no dialog. If this was a noir assassin version of "Walking Man" or "Furari," that would have been rad. I found Natsuo Sekikawa's two narratives graphene-thin and derivative. The narratives seemed like an attempt at a mish-mash homage to noir and assassin films and comics (I regard those to actually be somewhat different, though related genres; noir films can have assassins and assassin films can have noir-ish vibes, but the underlying atmosphere and vibe of each genre are very different). However, I felt that the writing lacked the energy and zest for promotion to homage and was at the level of corny, half-hearted pastiche. For me, "Hotel Harbour View" is a reminder that some individual variation and remixing is necessary to contribute the energy necessary for an entertaining homage-filled work (see "Murcielago" for a work that collages cliches, but does so in an energetic, fresh fashion. The Hotel Harbour View chapters lacked identifiable freshness, and maybe part of the reason for that had to do with the brevity of the stories. But perhaps this was just a short diversion for Sekikawa and Taniguchi from their other projects going on at the time, which is fine.

That said, I still wish I did not give this away those years ago. Taniguchi's art is always distinguished, and I think I would be able to enjoy flipping through the pages of the oversized volume as an artbook. This is something that will assuredly never be released again in English; out-of-print, translated manga just gets so scarce from the lower print runs.

Was this comment useful? Yes

well

by Doomroar
12 years ago

Rating: 5.0 / 10.0

the art, is absolutely not trying to be "artsy" that is the style of the 80's and this mangaka just draws like that, and when what you draw naturally can fool others then that's a plus.

as for the plot they where little short noir stories, nothing more. i liked the 1st one, and the 2nd one was as pointless as it gets, i mean the hell was that if you are going to kill him anyways?

... Last updated 12 years ago

Was this comment useful? Yes

bah!

by takitogr
16 years ago

Rating: 4.0 / 10.0

i'm sorry....but this is outdated and pretentious...stories don't have any depth or intelligence whatsoever

art is really outdated...it pretends to be something it isn't...it wants to be artsy but it fails miserably and comes out only as pretentious in the end

definitely not a must read

Was this comment useful? Yes