Beck (manga): Difference between revisions

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[[File:Beckx_1950.jpg|frame]]

[[Ordinary High School Student|Ordinary Middle School Student]] Yukio 'Koyuki' Tanaka wonders if his life will ever be interesting enough to write an autobiography. This all starts to change as he steps in to rescue a frankenstein-looking dog from a bunch of pestering kids. The dog, Beck, turns out to belong to Ryuusuke 'Ray' Minami, a Japanese kid with a checkered past that was largely spent in New York in the company of [[No Celebrities Were Harmed|a currently world-famous singer/songwriter]]. Ryuusuke introduces Koyuki to rock music and lends him a guitar.

Ryuusuke is also setting up a band, which eventually gets named Beck, after the dog. After Koyuki has learned to play the guitar to a somewhat passable level, he gets accepted into the band. There he impresses everyone with his fantastic voice. From then on, the whole story is mainly about Beck's struggles to become famous, both nationally in Japan and internationally. Well, that and Koyuki's romantic troubles with Ryuusuke's sister, Maho.

The other members of the band are:

* Ryuusuke Minami: The lead guitarist and front man for BECK. Raised in America, he and his sister Maho often stick out because of their personalities. While in America, He had befriended Eddie Lee, a prodigious guitarist who goes on to be famous in his later years. Ryuusuke vows to Eddie that he will make a band worthy enough to play alongside him, and goes on to learn guitar. Ryuusuke himself is rather talented, and has a bit of an ego.

* Yoshiyuki Taira: The bassist of BECK. As the oldest, he is the most mature member and has a large history of music (his father was the bassist of a jazz band.) He has no problem with staying in the background, but will speak up if he feels he needs to. His play style is based off Michael 'Flea' Balzary of The Red Hot Chili Peppers fame. He also has bleach blonde hair and doesn't wear a shirt on stage.

* Tsunemi Chiba: The lead vocalist of BECK. His rougher vocals suit the band's faster songs, but he raps for the majority of the songs. His brash and hot-blooded nature usually gets him in trouble, but he's just passionate about what he does. In his spare time he participates in rap battles, and apparently he knows some martial arts. His look and rapping style is a shout out to Zack De La Rocha of [[Rage Against the Machine]].

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* [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]: The boys meet a few along their career. Ran, Leon Sykes, Victor Slater... It gets to [[Sorting Algorithm of Evil]] levels in the manga.

* [[Downer Ending]]: Averted. Especially because, in the anime, it does ''not'' happen in the final episode, but in the penultimate. And the story moved on in the manga.

* [[Egocentric Team Naming]]: When the main characters are trying to come up with a name for their band, lead guitarist Ryuusuke spends a moment on the floor writing ideas. When he's finished, he holds it up proudly, and every suggestion contains his name, like [[Jimi Hendrix|"The Ryuusuke Experience"]] and so on. Of course, no one was impressed, though the fangirls that hang around them were amused.

* [[Eyes Always Shut]]: Saku. Naturally averted in the movie.

** Lampshaded when Saku justifies not showing his driver's license to Koyuki: he says the photo didn't come out good because he had to open his eyes. But since said photo is neer seen, the trope's still in effect.

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* [[Gratuitous English]]: The lyrics to Beck's songs are full of it, though not completely ("Spice of Life", for example, does have verses in Japanese).

** There's also Koyuki singing in English without knowing the language. To be fair, he sings well, it's only his accent that sucks (for example, his "gently" in "Moon in the Water" sounds like "gent'''r'''y").

* [[Hollywood Pudgy]]: Koyuki, with no sense of sarcasm chides ''Maho'' of not eating so much or she'll get fat. Unfortunately, that's [[Values Dissonance|Japan for ya.]]

* [[Hot Teacher]]: Momoko, for whom Saitou falls.

* [[Ho Yay]]: A bit between Koyuki and Ray in the beginning.

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* [[Never Learned to Read]]: Maho can't read kanji, making her almost completely illiterate.

* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]:

** Particularly weird when it results in a band that [[Ink Suit Actor|the anime uses actual The Pillows songs for the performances of]], but it's not actually supposed to be [[The Pillows]].

*** Actually that band is called "the Heroes" which when written in Japanese katakana is almost the same as the "the pillows" except for an accent mark, so its more of a [[Captain Ersatz]] situation.

*** Does Koyuki's dream (which the others also had) count here?

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* [[Scary Black Man]]: Gordie (or [[Spell My Name with an "S"|Goldie]]). Not just in terms of appearance, he's legitimately dangerous.

** And Leon Sykes isn't too far behind his own henchman. He might as well be ''scarier''.

* [[Scary Shiny Glasses]]: [[Big Bad|BigBads]] Ran and Leon Sykes have these. Overlaps with [[Sunglasses At Night]].

* [[Scary Shiny Glasses]]: [[Big Bad|BigBads]] Ran and Leon Sykes have these. Overlaps with [[Sunglasses at Night]].

* [[School Festival]]: Koyuki gets roped into helping organise a choir for one and performs with his guitar at another.

* [[Sex as Rite-Of-Passage]]: Heavily implied with all the times Maho slipped into Koyuki's room. Doesn't help that she also averts [[Not Staying for Breakfast]].

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* [[Squee]]: Koyuki has something of a guy version when he sees Eddie from Dying Breed in the crowd at a gig.

* [[Start My Own]]: Both Ryuusuke and Eiji, disbanding Serial Mama and starting Beck and Belle-Aime, respectively.

* [[Sunglasses At Night]]: Dying Breed's frontman Matt Reed is almost never seen without his shades.

* [[Sunglasses at Night]]: Dying Breed's frontman Matt Reed is almost never seen without his shades.

* [[Supporting Leader]]: Although Ryuusuke started the band, Taira, as a [[The Leader|Type II leader]], functions as this. He's involved in all of the important decisions made for the band, especially whenever Ryuusuke goes AWOL.

* [[Surprisingly Good English]]: The voice-acting of some of the extras in the anime. The main characters, unfortunately, not so much. It could be a lot worse, but Ryuusuke and Maho supposedly grew up in the US, and their grammar and pronunciation really don't show it.