I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus.

[READ: June 2023] Super Trash Clash

This graphic novel reminded me of Scott Pilgrim, but more for the drawing style than for the video game connection.

I have to admit I was a little confused in the beginning.  A young woman is walking down the street and she sees a video game in the window of…a pawn shop?

I misunderstood the jump cut.  Obviously, the woman is now opening a chest, but I read it as a dumpster–that she had found this video game in a dumpster.  This seemed further confirmed when she plus the game in and her initials are there.

Okay, so I misunderstood, but that’s more on me, I think.  Because the entire rest of the story is the flashback to her having the game in the first place.

We see Dul (for that is her name) saying she can’t go to the arcade wit her friend Misa because her mother needs her.  When he mother gets home, Dul reminds her (again) that it is her birthday coming up and she really wants a new video game because she mastered Italian Bros like a thousand times.  Her mother reminds her that she is not made of money.

But later that night, her mom does the sweetest, worst thing.  She looks at the page in Video Game magazine that Dul has earmarked.  There’s two games in the spread: Super Encounter Champions 2 and Super Trash Clash.  Her mom decides to buy her the game.  But she picks the wrong one.  Super Encounter Champions is supposed to be the greatest game in history, whereas Super Trash Clash is supposed to be the worst game ever.

She is willing to try out the game, but it is terrible–both players killed when only one should have been, bombs killing them when they weren’t even close to it.

They go to Misa’s cousin’s house–he has Super Encounter Champions 2.  But he’s already bored of it.  When they joke that he should play Super Trash Clash he gets excited.  He heard it was so bad he wanted to try it.

Dul trades and loves playing Super Encounter Champions until she imagines her mom’s face when she learns that Dul traded her gift.

Now Dul is on a real quest–for the original game.  She must battle nerds and turds, but the truth is that someone has already sold back the game to the store.

How can she face her mom, and what will her mom do?

The flow of the dialogue is solid.  It never occurred to e that this was a translation (by Eva Ibarzabal).