Plot
See also: List of Gravitation charactersThe story surrounds an aspiring singer, Shuichi Shindou, and his band, Bad Luck (formed with his best friend Hiroshi Nakano, who is on guitar). Shuichi wants to become Japan's next big star, and follow in the footsteps of the famous idol Ryuichi Sakuma, lead singer of the now-disbanded legendary group Nittle Grasper. One evening, Shuichi is looking over lyrics for a song he was writing when his paper is blown away by the wind and picked up by a tall, blond haired( light brown in the manga)stranger. The man dismisses Shuichi's hard work as garbage, which hurts Shuichi deeply. Despite his anger, he is intrigued by the stranger. This will be their first encounter as Shuichi becomes fascinated by the stranger, who soon turns out to be the famous romance novelist, Eiri Yuki (real name: Uesugi). Both the manga and the anime follow this plot.
The manga is a quirky blend of over-the-top humor (Reiji's giant panda robot destroying parts of New York, Shuichi's explosive nosebleeds and ridiculous declarations of love, K's machine gun wake-up calls, Touma's half-teasing come-ons, etc.) and gay love. The storyline is just serious enough to be compelling, but also contains elements of parody. The characters are often thrown into insane situations and in some scenes the art style is dramatically overdone for comedic effect, one of many of Murakami's well known traits and characteristics in her manga styles.
The art style of the manga is notably different in volumes 1-5 than it is in volumes 6-12. The first half of the series has a more "old-fashioned" style that slowly changes and becomes noticeably different by volumes 6-7. The second half features cleaner lines, and more polished and stylish appearance. This also appears in the sequel, Gravitation EX, where each character's drawing style is drastically changed.
Read more about this topic: Gravitation (manga)
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“If you need a certain vitality you can only supply it yourself, or there comes a point, anyway, when no one’s actions but your own seem dramatically convincing and justifiable in the plot that the number of your days concocts.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)