About the Mangaka

Not a lot of info available on Fujisaki Ryo, however his latest piece of work is called Shiki, which is based on a novel by Fuyumi Ono, of Twelve Kingdoms  fame. So it could be a good one to get.

About the Manga

hoshin engi 01

I had high expectations for this series, given what it’s based on. Sadly it fails to live up to even the basic hopes I had.

Hoshin Engi is based on Chinese Mythology and to a degree Chinese History, so with all of this information to work with you’d thing they’d come up with a great series. Sadly it fails big time.

I guess I was hoping for something along the lines of Saiunkoku Monogatari, or Chronicles of the Cursed Sword; sadly what we get is a pokemon wannabe.

Everything about this series screams lame clone, from the art to the story to progression.

For me a big factor in manga is getting into the characters, and for the leads this is essential. Taikobo however doesn’t appeal on any level. I’ve seen a lot of flat characters over the years, but this one is so flat it’s practically transparent!!

He’s been training for revenge for sixty years, and is still so immature I’m surprised he’s learnt to tie his shoe laces, never mind battle demons.

This wouldn’t be to bad if his character design was appealing, but every time I see his face I wanted to throttle him myself. I mean talk about crappy concepts, not to mention the stupid inconsistencies that littered the volume. For someone who’s supposed to be an established mangaka already he did a piss-poor job of it.

For me though the lowest point of the volume was when he was given his own pokemon to ride, and a police baton to beat up the bad guys with. There’s so much cheese in this volume alone you could feed a nation of mice for a year.

What’s worse is that he took a rich history and mythology base and crapped all over it. What we get is a pointless story that is only good for sending you to sleep.

The first volumes story is all over the place, one minute Taikobo is a spoilt brat, and the next he’s a super hero with special powers. Come on!! you can’t have him swapping and changing like that unless he’s got a split personality for crying out loud.

*sighs* well, Viz did a not to bad of a job, though admittedly they did do their usual rewrite, which could attribute to the lameness of the story, though I doubt it though.

Of course it does have that annoying “<<<read this way<<<” on every other page. They still seem to think that people will start to read it, right to left, then suddenly swap to left to right for no reason.

If this was a short series (less than 6 volumes), I’d keep going to give it a try. But since it’s twenty-three volumes long there’s no way I’m going to even try getting further volumes. I’d much rather spend my money on other volumes. Needless to say this goes in my Junk Pile. It’s so crap I wouldn’t even use it to wipe my……:D

Where to Buy

  • Share/Bookmark