In Which Criminal Secrets Are Revealed

So I finally got through the final volume of the reprint of Crying Freeman. And after all this violence, double-dealing and two-fisted Triad-on-Yakuza action, I'm really left with one thought over everything else:

Holy crap, that's a lot of naked people.

Seriously. Imagine, if you will, a collaboration between Martin Scorsese, John Woo and Russ Meyer. You can pretty much guarantee any name character mentioned more than twice will be naked at some point, if not actually having sex.

Freeman? Naked all the time; I don't know why the man even owns clothes.

His wife? Oh yeah. Big time naked.

His morbidly obese adopted sister? That's a whole lotta woman, and you get to see every last square inch.

Now I'm not entirely opposed to the sex and nudity in and of themselves, but it really comes off as gratuitous and a little distracting at times. Especially in a combat sequence. When he faces off against an opponent, Freeman's thought process seems to flow along these lines:

1) Remove as much clothing as possible
2) Stand in dramatic pose to show off sweet dragon tat*
3) If opponent is female, make with the sweet sweet lovin'
4) If opponent is male, hold a knife between two toes and stab him in the head.
5) If female opponent is not swayed by the SSL, see step 4

See, right at step one you've lost me. Maybe things are different when you're the greatest assassin in the Pacific Rim; for me, if I'm in a fight for my life, I'd want all my dangly bits securely tucked away. Preferably with some Kevlar in there. But nobody in Freeman's world seems to find this behavior the list bit noteworthy: "What? All the great underworld figures fight buck naked. No, he won't try to grab me by the wedding tackle. That's just silly."

Ultimately the comic was enjoyable enough for me to keep reading, in spite of the distractions. The artwork is a huge departure from the typical manga styling, with very realistic character design. For all those out there who decry the "big eyes small mouth" standard, it can be a welcome change. The violence is appropriately hyped, of course. While it may seem odd to carry on about the sexual aspect and only give the buckets of blood a passing mention, that's kind of my point: this is a story about an underworld assassin and the people he fights with and against. Violence is an inherent part of the package. I expect to see Freeman make with the stabbing. What throws me is that he seems so driven to do it with his wing-wong hanging out for all the world to see.

*-OK, I'll admit, if I had to go through what he did to get that tattoo, I'd be showing it off every chance I got, too.