Before I say anything else, I'll warn you all that this is all
IMHO. It's not my intention to be harsh, and if I appear to be it's all
due to poor communication skills. I liked this enough to C&C, after all
:).
I liked the stories; they were well written, and did a good job
of presenting most of the characters. There were a few minor "jumps" in
style in the first chapter, but that's probably the consequence of it
having two authors :).
I did have a problem with them, tough. From what the authors say
and the way the plot goes, it's apparent that Keiei will be a recurrent
villainess that will stick around for a long time, but IMHO she was
portrayed in a way much more appropriate for a short term antagonist.
Nearly all her words and deeds seem to be aimed at eliciting
quick dislike from the reader. By the middle of the second chapter I
wanted to see her dead _right_then_, and was disappointed to see she
survived the final battle.
This seems to be a tactic typically used by movie writers, who have a
limited time to tell their stories and need the final confrontation to
be exciting. Since the bad guy doesn't show up much until them, have him
be as hateful to the audience as possible in the few scenes where he
appears. The most extreme example I saw was in "60 seconds", where the
villain says loud and clear that he hates all that is American (there's
no better way to enrage an American audience :)).
Since "Duet" is a longer story, I think it really goes better
with another kind of antagonist. Keiei showing up again and again,
acting the same way (or worse, now that she's Irredeemably Evil), will
eventually get very annoying. The best kind of antagonist for this kind
of story, where you have time to flesh them all out, is the one whose
motivations the readers can understand, and with whom they almost
sympathize. I like stories where I find myself "cheering for the villain",
as it were, much better than the ones that tell me to hate him or her.
It seems to me some steps were taken in this direction, but not enough.
Despite what Keiei says, she couldn't really be friends with the other
characters (or anyone else) if she didn't "have" to fight them, and her
few introspective scenes didn't provoke sympathy in me (quite the
contrary).
Besides, her appearances were a bit repetitive. Keiei enters the
story, beats the snot out of the secondary cast, gets her snot beaten
out by the main protagonists, disappears for a few months and comes back
stronger, beginning it all again, but with more fireworks this time. If
she was a threat in fields other than "grand-slam" fighting, more
interesting situations could arise. It may be just me, but I don't like
fireworks very much :).
You don't have to listen to me, of course :). Just felt I had to
comment.