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Reviewed by Michael Aronson “When his clan was wiped out by a beautiful demon, young Taikobo finds himself in change of the mysterious Hoshin Project. Its mission: find all immortals living in the human world and seal them away forever. But who do you trust – and whose side are you really on – when you’ve been trained to hunt demons by a demon? Armed with his new weapon, the Dashinben, Taikobo seeks revenge on the demon Dakki and her sinister sisters. He finds out much more about the godlike Sennin – and what may have really happened to his clan. But looking for survivors only means falling further into Dakki’s darkness.” This isn’t cutting it. Hoshin Engi begins with a contrived quest premise the likes of which appear too often in manga. In order to complete his Sennin training, Taikobo has to vanquish a host of immortals from a long list. How many immortals on the list? 365. Well, 364 after the events of this volume, and I don’t plan to stick around and watch him take care of the rest. But even for such a straightforward direction, the story gets lost after the first hundred pages. Taikobo figures, why waste time fighting 364 more immortals when he could just take out the strongest of the bunch, which will bring him right to their ringleader Dakki? And then he figures, well, why not just infiltrate Dakki’s palace and do her in right away, saving himself such a prolonged quest? Makes some sense, right? Yet the way in which he goes after her and passive-aggressively confronts her doesn’t accomplish a thing. So, er, is he going to have to fight 364 dudes after all? The biggest problem with the story, though, is the flat characters. Everyone’s dialogue consists of either dry exposition to inform the reader or dry exposition of events that are simultaneously taking place on the page. And I really can’t stand Supushan, Taikobo’s mode of transportation, a weird talking hybrid between a human and a lemming who only ever criticizes Taikobo for his plans. Decent art makes Hoshin Engi perfectly kid friendly, but there are far more appealing series on the stands. Comment on this review of Hoshin Engi v1 on the Manga Life Forums. |
6 October 2009
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