|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||
|
|
Reviewed by Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane Yuu Watase's name isn't one I ever expected to see on a shonen volume, but there's a first time for everything: her Arata: The Legend appears under VIZ's Shonen Sunday imprint. Watase's work isn't generally on my "must read immediately!" radar, but I found the first volume of Arata fun and charming. (I'm also quite fond of Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden, so either her style is growing on me or her newer work is just more to my taste. My suspicion is that it's the latter.) Arata is the story of two boys, both named Arata, who hail from very different worlds. Arata Hinohara lives in modern Japan, where his unusual athletic skills draw the kind of attention he'd very much like to avoid. Another Arata lives in a world where the power of the gods is very real, and he's in the unfortunate position of having to disguise himself as a girl in order to take on the responsibilities that should fall to a daughter of his family--a daughter his family doesn't have. And that's just the beginning of his problems, which get far worse when he's the only witness to a horrible crime. Either boy could be the subject of an interesting story, but their lives are further complicated when they somehow switch places and land in each other's worlds, with the people around them unable to tell them apart. (They're drawn very distinctively from each other, so I'm unsure whether they're actually meant to look identical underneath the different hairstyles and clothing and are simply drawn with different hair colors for readers' convenience, or if there's some sort of magic in play that makes people mistake them for each other. It puts me in mind of the way the girls in Sailor Moon are never recognized.) Each of the Aratas has plenty to deal with as they suddenly face life in the other's world, but the first volume skews heavily towards Hinohara's experience after he lands in the other Arata's world; that said, there's enough set-up of his situation in the "real" world that I'm guessing there'll be more equal treatment as the story unfolds. This is a straightforward story so far, but it's very enjoyable, and I'm looking forward to reading more of it. An interview with Watase-sensei about the series is currently available on VIZ's Shonen Sunday website. Volume 1 of Arata: The Legend includes bonus comics by Watase-sensei's assistants. Review copy provided by VIZ Media. Think you could have written a better review of Arata: The Legend v1 ? Write us and we'll probably let you give it a shot! --EiC PC |
30 March 2010
|
||||
 |
| home | reviews | news | features | about us | advertise | privacy policy | contact us |
