Tag: manga

Review: Solo Leveling Volume 1 (novel)

On By E. A. SolinasIn reviewsLeave a comment

In the world of “Solo Leveling,” inter-dimensional gates regularly open up to “dungeons” crawling with strange and dangerous creatures. The only ones who can kill the creatures are hunters, who have awakened powers that let them take down the big bosses.

And out of all those hunters… Jinwoo is the weakest.

Needless to say, there’s plenty of room for improvement for the protagonist of Chugong’s “Solo Leveling” – and even in the brief space of the first volume, he makes quite a bit of improvement. The story thus far is bloody, harrowing, but also somewhat wryly funny – especially when the System intervenes to make life more complicated for the hero.

As mentioned before, Jinwoo Sung is the weakest of the lowest-ranked hunters, able to tag along on only the least threatening missions – and even then, he gets badly hurt. But he has no choice, because he needs the money for his family. When the party he’s with finds a rare double dungeon, Jin-woo is determined to explore the vast, eerie stone chamber filled with statues – and ends up in a nightmare that leaves him alone and dying.

Which is when the System intervenes, healing his body and saving his life. While he recovers, the System gives Jinwoo daily quests (mostly exercise) and the opportunity to level up and acquire new items. Just like a video game. He’s achieving the impossible: becoming steadily stronger, with apparently no limits.

Unfortunately, he soon discovers that even his increased power won’t keep him safe from potential harm in a dog-eat-dog profession, especially when he and another young hunter, Jinho Yoo, sign up for a freelance job posting. The problem is, the guy who’s hiring them, Dongsuk Hwang, is not the genial figure he pretends to be, and the biggest danger may be the other hunters rather than anything inside the dungeon.

The world of “Solo Leveling” is a pretty standard urban fantasy setting. It’s the modern world as we know it, except some people have magical powers and inter-dimensional gates allow them to hunt goblins, giant spiders and snakes, statue-gods, and so on. The most interesting aspect of it is the System that effectively turns Jinwoo into the protagonist of his own personal video game, with all the problems and benefits of that status.

The writing is pretty standard for a light-novel/webnovel’s style, spare and lean with lots of onomatopeia. It feels like Chugong is still building up the plot threads in this volume, since the majority of the story is just devoted to Jinwoo ending up in a nightmarish and life-threatening situation, and then spending a lot of time grinding (which is a bit tedious) and building up his strength. But Chugong has some talent at depicting the raw, wild, desperate interiors of the dungeons, and the monsters in them.

Jinwoo is kind of a mixed hero – at the story’s beginning, he’s courageous, unselfish and quick-witted, but still petrified of dying and acutely aware of his almost comical weakness. However, he becomes a lot colder and less likable as the first volume winds on, after he comes to the conclusion that all people are cowardly backstabbers. Hopefully the presence of Jinho – a golden retriever of a rich boy who constantly addresses him as “boss” – will mellow him out in subsequent volumes.

“Solo Leveling Volume 1” has some growing pains, but it’s an entertaining foray into a series with plenty of promise, solid writing, and a hero who wobbles on the edge of antihero. At the very least, it inspires me to check out volume two.

Review: Solo Leveling Volume 1 (manhwa)

On By E. A. SolinasIn reviewsLeave a comment

In the world of “Solo Leveling,” inter-dimensional gates regularly open up to “dungeons” crawling with strange and dangerous creatures. The only ones who can kill the creatures are hunters, who have awakened powers that let them take down the big bosses.

And out of all those hunters… Jin-woo is the weakest.

Needless to say, there’s plenty of room for improvement for the protagonist of the manhwa adaptation of Chugong’s “Solo Leveling.” The first volume mostly devotes itself to introducing us to the world of hunters and the hideous events that lead to Jin-woo’s chances to improve himself, with a terrifying and bloody series of challenges at the center of the story. The artwork is half the reason to see this – dark, gloomy and beautifully detailed.

As mentioned before, Sung Jin-woo is the weakest of the lowest-ranked hunters, able to tag along on only the least threatening missions – and even then, he gets badly hurt. But he has no choice, because he needs the money for his family. When the party he’s with finds a rare double dungeon, Jin-woo is determined to explore the vast, eerie stone chamber filled with statues, in the hopes that he can scrounge up a little money.

But then the statues come to life and start killing the party members, including a vast “god” statue that has a very specific list of demands. Unfortunately, those commandments are difficult to decipher, and more and more hunters lose their nerve – leading to them being vaporized or squashed into red smears. To survive this nightmarish scenario, Jin-woo will need more than his wits. He’ll need a System, and he’ll start grinding like a pro if he ever wants to get stronger.

The first volume of “Solo Leveling” is dominated by the adventure in the double dungeon, and the entire eerie, bloody adventure is explored in great detail. It’s genuinely nerve-wracking to watch the hunters dwindle as the adventure goes on – especially as some of them turn on each other, lose limbs or panic and try to escape on foot. The fact that it’s overseen by a creepy, sadistic stone “god” with a toothy grin makes the whole thing even more eerie.

And the story is brought to life by the artwork of Jang Sung-rak (aka Dubu), who used color exceptionally, painting the god’s chamber in stark, ghostly, cold blues and the regular world in warm, sunlit tones. The artwork is also very detailed and expressive, lingering on the characters’ faces to show their terror, tension, eagerness and apprehension, and even brief bursts of action (like the murder centipedes in the desert) are wonderfully dynamic.

We also have a good introduction to Jin-woo, who seems like a vividly realistic character – he’s courageous, unselfish and quick-thinking (he unravels all three commandments without help), but still petrified of dying and acutely aware of his almost comical weakness. But after the System accepts him as a player, we see him starting to branch out into becoming stronger, whether it’s racing laps around the hospital or venturing alone into a new dungeon.

The first volume of “Solo Leveling”‘s manhwa adaptation is a nail-biting experience that flies by quickly, before introducing you to the central conceit of the series – and it promises to get more interesting as Jin-woo levels up.

Review: Jungle Juice Volume 1

On By E. A. SolinasIn reviewsLeave a comment

Disclaimer: I received an advance copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Suchan Jang seems to have the perfect college life – he’s popular, lots of friends, straight-A grades, and girls adore him. The only problem is that he’s a human-insect hybrid.

And that’s the premise behind “Jungle Juice Volume 1,” the opening salvo of Hyeong Eun’s Webtoon manhwa about people with insect body parts, complete with a kind of insectoid Hogwarts. Fortunately, JUDER’s artwork won’t trigger discomfort in people who hate bugs – like me – and the first volume is somewhat reminiscent of a slightly offbeat shonen manga. Expect lots of bug-people fighting, some bloody deaths, and plenty of scholastic mayhem… sometimes involving chainsaws.

Suchan Jang was a perfectly ordinary boy… until he used a can of Jungle Juice (a pesticide spray) to kill a dragonfly. The next morning, he awoke with a full-sized pair of dragonfly wings on his back. Despite his popularity, he has to keep his abnormality a secret from other people, and he’s pretty successful… until a mantis-man attacks during a movie date, and Suchan has to publicly expose his wings in order to save his girlfriend.

Needless to say, everyone now treats him as a freak, including the girl he likes. Devastated, he tries to kill himself – only for Huijin Park, a girl with antennae, to usher him to a place where he can fit in. NEST is a college town for people who are also insect-human hybrids, and Suchan’s only chance of finally returning to normal is if he graduates at the top of his class. It sounds simple enough, right? As if life at a fictional school for strange/special people has ever been that easy.

The chaos starts on registration day, when Suchan immediately discovers that signing up for classes is very competitive… and physical. At this college, survival of the fittest is key. Even if he can manage to get into the college, his scholastic path won’t be the easy one he hoped for – especially since the mantis-man is roaming on campus, along with an insectile femme fatale who has nothing but bad intentions towards NEST and everyone in it.

“Jungle Juice Volume 1” is a pretty solid opening to a shonen-style manhwa series – we have the relatable male lead who finds himself with special abilities (including a signature power he only learns about later), and ends up at a special, action-packed school with other people with similar abilities. Except since various characters have different insect hybridizations, they have different abilities – stingers, immense jumping, explosions, and Suchan’s agility, flight and ability to foresee attacks.

So while the school-for-special-people is in full effect here, Hyeong Eun keeps things fresh by introducing different insect-people and abilities, including one whose abilities are still a mystery. But the story is set in. a dark, brutal environment, and there’s no telling who might get eaten by a cannibalistic mantis-man or chased by Jun Ju, a giant muscular grandpa with a chainsaw. The author doesn’t shy away from the survival-of-the-fittest aspects of life at NEST, but at the same time, doesn’t depict it as a bad thing to be compassionate towards others.

Suchan is a little bland, but fairly relatable – his misery over being socially ostracized has left him desperate to become fully human again, but he also is beginning to learn about the benefits of being a dragonfly man. Huijin Park is a kind, stalwart girl who seems earmarked to be the love interest, and Hyeseong Cha is introduced as a kind of friendly rival character to Suchan – rough around the edges and blunt to a fault, but an overall goodhearted guy, it seems.

JUDER’s artwork is a little rough around the edges, but very striking – it glows with light and vivid colors without becoming too overwhelming, or losing the simplicity of the manhwa artwork style. Furthermore, their artwork seem to be improving as the first volume goes on. The biggest problem is that the action scenes are often hard to follow; it’s not very easy to see exactly what is going on if people are really beating the stuffin’ out of each other.

“Jungle Juice Volume 1” is a solid first volume to a promising series – and with a powerful antagonist and a cliffhanger, there’s sure to be more intriguing developments to come. Even if you hate bugs, this is worth a read.

Review: Jujutsu Kaisen Volume 1: Ryomen Sukuna

On By E. A. SolinasIn reviewsLeave a comment

There are a lot of ways that shonen manga heroes get their powers or abilities… but I don’t think anyone before Yuji Itadori gained them by swallowing a decayed finger.

But it definitely allows “Jujutsu Kaisen Volume 1: Ryomen Sukuna” to stand apart from the pack. Gege Akutami’s breakout fantasy/horror manga series doesn’t stray too far from shonen tropes here, but it does distinguish itself with some nimble humor, a likable protagonist, an intriguing villain, and a promising supernatural world of curses to explore.

Supernatural occurrences in our world are caused by curses (which look like weird, very imaginative monsters) manifested by cursed energy. The most powerful of these was the malevolent Ryomen Sukuna, whose twenty fingers are capable of causing all kinds of chaos. The only ones who can destroy these curses are jujutsu sorcerers, who use their own cursed energy to exorcise harmful curses.

Which brings us to Yuji Itadori. When his friends accidentally unwrap one of Sukuna’s fingers, they’re attacked by powerful curses that first-year jujutsu sorcerer Megumi is unable to deal with. To save his friends, Yuji swallows the finger. Not his brightest moment. But surprisingly, he turns out to be one of the rare people who can control Sukuna, rather than being killed or possessed.

So the eccentric Gojo manages to get a deal for Yuji: the jujutsu sorcerers will allow him to live until he consumes all twenty fingers, which will allow them to kill Sukuna once and for all. Yuji transfers to the Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School, where he’s in the same class as Megumi and the pushy Nobara. But none of them are prepared for just how nasty things are about to get.

“Jujutsu Kaisen Volume 1” has various familiar tropes of an urban-fantasy shonen series – you have the secret magical organization that fights evil stuff, various monsters needing to be slain, an eccentric but powerful teacher, a tough but big-hearted teenage hero and his complementary friends, and so on. None of this is bad, mind – it’s more important for a story to be good than to be wholly original, and Gege Akutami’s opening chapters are pretty solid work.

Of course, the introductory chapters are a little rough, but still very effective, and Akutami has a knack for tugging the heartstrings, comedy (the punching stuffed animals) and bloody fight scenes. He has a real talent for generating creatures that are grotesque and unnerving, such as the grinning fish-man or the stretched-face creature asking about receipts. Whenever a curse appears, even a weak one, there’s a sense of grinding dread that can only be dispelled by its exorcism.

The art is similar to the writing – it’s a little rough, but effective. Akutami’s style is lanky and angular, with lots of detail and greater realism given to his fight scenes and monsters. The guy has talent, and it should be rewarding to see how his art evolves over the course of the series.

Yuji Itadori is a pretty classic shonen hero – he’s a teenage boy who isn’t the brightest, but is ridiculously strong and has a will of iron. He’s also given a personal goal (to make sure people have good deaths), but isn’t unchallenged in his goals: one of his fights has him freaking out and lamenting that he doesn’t want to die, which is painfully relatable. The rest of the main cast is also pretty solid – Megumi is reserved and uptight, but has a more compassionate side; Nobara is brash and capable; Gojo is the weird and cheerful mentor figure.

For those who have enjoyed series like “Bleach” or “Kekkaishi,” “Jujutsu Kaisen Volume 1: Ryomen Sukuna” is a solid beginning to the hit series, leaving you hungry for the next volume.

Review: My Hero Academia, Vol. 1

On By E. A. SolinasIn reviewsLeave a comment

In most superhero movies and fiction, people with exceptional powers are a tiny minority. But imagine for a second that there’s a world where superpowers – called “Quirks” – are a part of life for most of the population. What would it be like to be one of the minority who have no powers, and what would it be like if somehow that changed?

That’s the premise behind Kohei Horikoshi’s “My Hero Academia,” a vibrant and quick-paced manga series that takes place in just such a world, and which follows a steadfast underdog that wants nothing more than to save others. The first volume is still a little rough around the edges, but it overflows with energy, enthusiasm and raw potential, as well as some clever examinations of how such a society would work.

For his entire life, Izuku Midoriya idolized heroes. When he was small, he was found to be Quirkless in a world where the superpowers are commonplace. But rather than giving up, he dedicated himself to following and observing the superheroes – especially the beloved All Might, a seemingly invincible hero overflowing with positivity and heroism. And despite being bullied for his lack of a Quirk by his powerful classmate Katsuki Bakugō, he dreams of being a hero.

One day, he is saved by All Might and learns the superhero’s rather undignified personal secret. And after All Might witnesses the weak, Quirkless boy dash into danger to save his bully, he makes Izuku an offer: he will pass on his power to Izuku, allowing him to attend the hero-training U.A. High School. After months of training, of course. Can’t have a shonen series without training! But the training is only the first step — he has to get into UA, which involves a terrifying entrance exam, even as he tries to use a power he has only just obtained.

“My Hero Academia Volume 1” is entertaining in multiple ways. On the one hand, it’s a shonen manga in the classic mold, though it moves substantially faster than many of its brethren (the training begins and ends within one chapter). On the other hand, it’s also a rather quirky (pun intended) examination of the Japanese take on the superhero genre, with superpowers ranging from the ordinary (floating, explosions) to the more eccentric (belly-button laser, engine-powered legs).

The story whips by at a pretty fast pace, and things are kept energetic and colorful through the constant use of Quirks. But Horikoshi also doesn’t hesitate to pluck at the audience’s heartstrings whenever they have the chance, mostly focused on Izuku’s teary-eyed struggles to realize his dreams against all odds. At times, it’s really heartbreaking. Horikoshi’s artwork is still pretty rough here, with the characters’s expressions sometimes looking too cartoony, but he clearly has skill.

The character of Izuku reminds me a little of Marvel’s Captain America – he’s a weak, ordinary boy with a powerful, courageous heart and a real desire to save others, who is given superpowers artificially. He’s also shown to be quite bright, since he has to think strategically when “Kacchan” tries to actually harm him. The supporting cast is pretty likable but not very developed just yet – all we know of Katsuki is that he’s violent and almost pathologically proud, Uraraka is the perky and kind love interest, and Ida is dutiful, composed and extremely conscientious.

“My Hero Academia Volume 1” is a bold, colorful and energetic start to this entertaining series, and its likable protagonist makes it easy to get invested in his superheroic journey. Smash!

Review: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Part 1 – Phantom Blood, Vol. 1

On By E. A. SolinasIn reviewsLeave a comment

You expected another review, but it was me, Dio!

I came into the famed manga series Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure more or less blind – I had seen a few memes and GIFs of the anime adaptation, but knew nothing of the actual story. All I knew that was that it presumably involved someone named JoJo, and that it was allegedly bizarre.

So how bizarre is the first volume of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Part 1 – Phantom Blood? Less bizarre than the title would have you believe, presumably so that author Hirohiko Araki can gently lower you into the strange stuff rather than flinging you into the deep end and letting you drown in undiluted bizarre. It starts off fairly normal as the tale of a psychopath infiltrating an aristocratic family… and about two-thirds of the way through, weird things start to happen.

The story follows two young boys, the aristocratic Jonathan Joestar and his foster brother Dio Brando. They are raised together by Jonathan’s kindly father, whose kindness apparently doesn’t extend to keeping his son – or his son’s unfortunate dog, or his son’s girlfriend – away from a violent psychopath. Yes, Dio is pretty much pure evil, and is scheming to destroy Jonathan and steal the Joestar fortune for himself. Why? Well, because he’s a violent psychopath.

The two boys somehow manage to grow up and flourish despite their hatred for each other, and Dio being pure evil. But when Lord Joestar becomes mysteriously ill, Jonathan becomes convinced that Dio is responsible, and sets out to London to prove it. Dio pursues him with the intent of killing him, using an ancient Aztec mask that shoots giant spines into the brain of its wearer when it ingests blood.

And then things get weird.

Yes, that’s when things get weird. That’s when we encounter a strange man named after a rock’n’roll band, who spins a razor-brimmed hat on his arms like a top. And there are vampires.

Fortunately, the first volume of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Part 1 – Phantom Blood is actually a pretty compelling read even before it spirals into the crazy stuff. It’s not a very complicated story – it’s more or less a clash between the ridiculously noble and idealistic Joestars, and the ceaselessly corrupt and evil Dio. There’s not really any shades of grey here, just a clash between darkness and light.

And Hirohiko Araki doesn’t really bother beating around the bush with showing us how evil Dio is, since literally the first thing he does when he meets Jonathan is to abuse the kid’s beloved dog. It’s pretty frustrating to watch, since Lord Joestar just sort of lets Dio do whatever he wants, rather than recognizing how despicable the boy is and getting him out of the Joestar family’s life. It’s actually a huge relief when Jonathan takes control of the situation, and fights back against Dio’s attempts to kill his father and crush his spirit.

And it’s all so wildly, wonderfully dramatic. Characters strike powerful poses and shout grandiose statements at each other, especially Dio’s openly narcissistic question of how “scum” like Jonathan could hurt him. The action scenes are relatively rare, but they are full of rough raw kinetic energy that bursts off of the page, lots of muscled bodies swinging and crashing with the power of collapsing Titans.

Although if cruelty to dogs bothers you, there are… certain scenes to be skipped.

The first volume of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Part 1 – Phantom Blood is still a little rough around the edges, and it takes a little while to get to the weird stuff, but it’s a bombastic and entertaining ride. And one can only assume Hirohiko Araki has more bizarreness to come.