About the Mangaka

Nothing on Yoshinaga Yunosuke, this series appears to be his first. Though it’s been successful enough to be given an anime adaptation as well.

About the Manga

This is a new series only just recently released by CMX, and on the one had I found myself drawn to it. However on the other hand it does have a few faults. Overall though it’s an enjoyable start to a series.

First thing you need to remember is that this is an a-typical shonen series. As such it has all the pitfalls a typical shonen series has.

I bought this volume purely on a whim, along with the other titles I’m going to review (Angelic Runes and Praetorian). I literally just flicked through previews and picked out some titles that looked interesting.

Art wise, this volume was hit and miss. The cover is interesting, and if I saw it on the shelf would be enough for me to take a gamble (this title is shrink-wrapped for some reason) on it. I liked the looks of the guy on the cover, And, it’s not everyday we get a sword that’s literally in bits apparently being wielded as his main weapon.

The colour panel is sweet as well, gotta love bikes!!

Sadly my initial impression for the art was ‘urgh’ it’s bad, in a really bad way. Though it does have it’s moments of interesting designs.

The aspect that annoyed me the most was inconsistencies in the character designs. If you look at Zess when he’s first introduced, and then again at the end of the volume, the difference is huge. Though the path Yoshinaga used to get there is subtle.

The only characters who have a fairly consistent design were Sigyn and Hodr, though Sigyn did have some minor changes. I did like the mecha designs, though I can already hear the cries of fandom screaming that they stole Gundam designs. Lets face it, there’s only so much you can do with human styled mecha. So yeah if you go looking for a specific type in it you’re going to go find it.

However unlike in other mecha series where riding one makes you a god, this time it’s more like a larger human. The way Yoshinaga handles the mecha really appeals to me, which is something since I’m not a huge mecha fan.

Story wise it’s fairly generic, to the point you can spot the cliché’s and story line within the first few pages. To be honest though, I didn’t mind that. Rather because it’s so generic it makes for a nice easy read. I’d read the full volume before I’d even realised it.

However I think that generic flow is also going to hinder it. Since it lacks anything to make it stand out from the crowd, it’s going to be easily forgotten. The introduction to volume two sounded interesting and full of potential, so here’s hoping

Unfortunately, I do have a feeling this has been rewritten a bit. After reading the volume through a few times I noticed that every expletive had been replaced by ‘dung’ which at times really doesn’t fit well. I’m guessing CMX did  this so as to get it into a lower age category, thus boost sales.

The other thing against it is that it feels and looks small for a manga.I’ve noticed this with a lot of CMX titles, they tend to look compact as though they’d been put in a vice or something.

This volume also suffered from cramped editing and some very severe guttering at times. Also, perhaps the worst downside of all, edited SFX’s *shudder*

I think I’ll wait a few more volumes before deciding on if it makes my list or not. However I do think it will, and can recommend it for shonen fans.

Where to Buy

• Brits: Play.com or Amazon UK
• Yanks: Borders or Amazon US
• Canadians: Chapters or Amazon CA