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Reviewed by Michael Aronson “In a world of powerful celestial being, an epic contest is being held to select the next king! Each Celestial selects a kid in junior high to be his champion and grants him special power. The kids battle it out – losers are eliminated and winners are granted new talents! Seemingly ordinary Kosuke Ueki has been chosen to be a contender. Granted the power to change trash into tree, Ueki has two disadvantages to overcome – one, he doesn’t know he’s a participant in the tournament, and two, how the heck can anyone win a battle with the power to turn trash into trees?” I know what you’re thinking: another manga where a young teen inherits the power to turn trash into trees. When will manga creators stop jumping on this bandwagon and try something original? Actually, the core concept, trash-to-tree transforming in addition to the fact Ueki will lose one of his other ten powers each time he uses them to harm someone, is pretty ripe for exploration. On top of that, the story includes a lot of preset rules, which appeals to me since I’m just coming off of the rule-rampant Death Note. Oh, if only all this potential were explored. Instead, the plot is quite off-the-wall in a bad way, and while the translation doesn’t do a swift job, I blame the original script for the hyper-action style of jumping ahead in dialogue and action in each panel far too quickly to let anything sink in. The characters are also overly hyperactive, or at least the aggressive Mori is while Ueki seems to be in a permanent state of lingering four pages behind. The repercussions of losing powers, much less using the ones already in possession, are hardly explored since each new status quo is quickly glossed over for more rivalry and fighting. Law of Ueki isn’t part of Viz’s Shonen Jump line, but it should be as I suspect fans of hyper action series like One Piece and Dragon Ball will feel at home here. Anyone else will merely glaze over and out. Comment on this review of The Law of Ueki v1 on the Manga Life Forums. |
2 December 2008
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