#disguises
Manga Review: Lady Snowblood Vol. 1: The Deep-Seated Grudge Pt. 1
Manga Review: Lady Snowblood Vol. 1: The Deep-Seated Grudge Pt. 1
Manga Review: Lady Snowblood Vol. 1: The Deep-Seated Grudge Pt. 1 story by Kazuo Koike, art by Kazuo Kamimura
It is the Meiji Era, and Japan is rapidly modernizing. Some have even suggested abolishing the Japanese language in favor of one easier to communicate in! But some traditions are more deeply rooted than others, like revenge. If you can find her, and pay her exorbitant price, the assassin…
Book Review: The Pocket Book of Adventure Stories
Book Review: The Pocket Book of Adventure Stories
Book Review: The Pocket Book of Adventure Stories edited by Philip Van Doren Stern
In his introduction, the editor talks about the thrill of adventure stories, how often they are churned out as cheap entertainment, and that he has selected twelve really good ones for the reader. This 1945 book was designed to be easily shipped overseas to soldiers, after one finished it oneself. I like to think…
More favourite tropes:
- Disguises with very little effort put into them, which inexplicably work anyway
- Disguises with a lot of effort put into them, but in a way that completely fails to conceal the wearer’s most distinctive features
- Disguises that very effectively conceal the wearer’s identity, but are wildly incongruous with wherever they’re trying to blend in
- Disguises that are intended to impersonate a specific individual and get a single conspicuous detail extremely wrong
- Disguises that perfectly impersonate a specific individual by sheer accident
- Disguises that use inconvenient, failure-prone mechanisms to approximate a creature with a very different body plan
- Disguises that need to be operated by more than one person
- Disguises intended to avoid a hostile reaction that instead provoke an inconveniently “friendly” reaction
- Disguises intended to avoid a hostile reaction that instead provoke a completely different hostile reaction
- Disguises based on an incomplete or mistaken understanding of the thing that’s being impersonated
- Disguises that present a living creature as an inanimate object, or vice versa
- Disguises whose effectiveness depends on a skill the wearer absolutely does not have
