Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President, Volume 1

Having been born and raised in the Texas that Kawaguchi attempts to capture in his portrayal (done fairly well, IMHO, if a bit stereotyped), I think I can safely say that if Yamaoka really had walked into a Texas bar and given that pitch on gun control, he never would have walked back out again. Well, he would have, but only on a stretcher. Other than that, it's good book, and that ends on a cliffhanger, no less.

The mangaka (manga creator) of Eagle is Kaiji Kawaguchi, who is famous for his manga The Silent Service, which English language critics have called "reminiscent of Tom Clancy", because it utilized the rogue submarine premise of The Hunt for Red October. Eagle is a both a commentary on politics in modern America and a somewhat soap-operatic story of relationships. At the beginning of the story, reporter Takashi Jo is called to his boyhood home on Okinawa, a small island in the Japanese archipelago, to identify the body of his mother. While he is going through his mother's apartment, he notices that the picture of his father, an American soldier who he never knew, is missing from its customary place. Shortly after this, he learns that he has been assigned to go to America to cover the campaign of Kenneth Yamaoka, a Democratic senator from New York who has recently announced that he will campaign for the Democratic nomination for president. The reason for his selection is baffling to Takashi, and to his colleagues and superiors - he has never covered politics or international affairs, and he admits to himself that his articles were merely filler for the local editions of the paper he works for, the Maicho Shimbun.Takashi learns, not long after arriving in America, that the reason for his selection was personal, not because of his professional qualifications. As a reporter, he has to struggle to maintain his objectivity in the face of ambivalent feelings about Senator Yamaoka, animosity from the Senator's wife Patricia, his love for the Senator's adopted daughter and press secretary, Rachel, and the shifting political currents around the charismatic senator. The first four volumes of Eagle (about 100 pages each) have been released both individually and as part of an omnibus edition which combines the four volumes into one paperback. Kawaguchi traces the senator's personal history, telling the story of his transformation from enlisted soldier to influential lawyer to politician, and reveals enough of the behind the scenes story and the public events - fundraisers, debates, and primaries - of Yamaoka's campaign to make the reader want to know more.Kawaguchi's drawings are more realistic than those of most of the manga which have been translated and released in America; they couldn't be called superdeformed or kawaii (cute) by any stretch of the imagination. The artistic style goes well with the story and mood of this manga. I'm definitely hooked, and I can't wait to read the four forthcoming volumes of this series, to see what happens next.

If you've read my review on the first volume of the "Eagle" saga, you know that I wasn't particularly impressed with it. Well, I have to say that this volume had me truly enthraled. Particularly the "debate" between Yamaguchi (? sorry I can't quite keep his name straight) and Albert "Noah." The whole buisiness of 'is it better to train the sheep or the sheepherders?' really had my attention. I found my self arguing with both men. I'm still not absolutely certain that this book is a keeper, but the fact that I was internally debating the characters is a good sign (for me, anyway) that this novel is going somewhere. So far, this has been the best novel in the series. I'm looking forward to reading more. I won't make any other comment than that - I have to read more of it before I can say yea or nay to it.