Manga rec: Majin Devil
Jan. 14th, 2009 09:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soc_puppetWoo-hoo, finally got the second one done! This is one of my favorite shorter shounen series (labeled when I downloaded it as "ecchi", which is not quite correct, I think), and definitely deserves a glance, though the story doesn't really pick up (IMHO) until halfway through the first volume.
Majin Devil
by Oh! Great
Plot: The manga starts off telling the story of Tetsu and his adopted younger sister Satomi. Tetsu's a punk biker in a big city, and all he's really wanted is to protect Satomi from the evils of the world. Then one day, they're targeted by a hugely powerful vampire.
Two chapters later, cut to an entirely different character in an entirely different setting!
Idetora Kazuya, called Dekoppa by absolutely everyone to his intense displeasure, is a teenager with the maturity and fashion sense of a man closer to his thirties. Weird things have started happening in town, and when Dekoppa comes across them, a strange wound opens in his forehead, prompting him to take action. Along for the ride are Ashihara Tomoe, a fellow student Dekoppa has just met and fallen in love with (but is being surprisingly practical about, for a manga character), who on their first meeting is pregnant with a monster's child, and Dekoppa's aunt Hayasi-sensei, the school doctor. Dekoppa ends up facing off against a number of disturbingly powerful supernatural monsters, and mostly winning through brainpower alone - but will his skills be enough when he goes toe to toe with the vampire that turned Tetsu and Satomi?
My thoughts: A good percentage of you will probably recognize the manga-ka from such hits as Air Gear and Tenjou Tenge (of which I have only read the former as yet), so you already have a good idea of what the art will be like. For those who haven't, it's something to experience. While not all of it is 100% tasteful, it is pretty much all good art, and does a nice job of carrying the story. The style itself seems very organic to me, which enhances the realism and general creepiness factor of the monsters quite well. The characters all end up very distinct from one another, and that's not just because of the art.
The first storyline seemed to be reasonably standard shounen fare to me, even with the pseudo-incest vibe. There was the bleedingly masculine main character, the hot girl he was interested in but wouldn't take a chance on, the best friend who's also interested in the hot girl, the town full of people who think the main character's no good... I wasn't really expecting any surprises. But Oh! Great turned around on me and pulled some fabulously plotted twists out of his hat, not to mention some reasonable sounding sci-fi science explanations. Still, when it reached the end of that first arc, it didn't feel right to me; too many loose ends, but at the same time, too many ends tied up neatly. It felt like a somewhat ambiguous end, where the main character issues are solved, but the plot engendered in the first chapter had a bit of a, "And what happens now? No one knows...!" kind of feel to it. I was unsure where it was going, since I hadn't even gotten more than halfway through the first of two volumes yet. Calculating off the plot points from the first arc, I assumed the story would continue from Tetsu and Satomi's POV as they faced down various "monsters of the day" on their way to confront the big bad.
Imagine my surprise, then, when upon reaching the next segment, Dekoppa is introduced to us. Bit by bit I fell in love with him, as we followed him through the start of his first unrequited love, his crazy aunt's antics, Tomoe's background and growth, and their drive to survive. I especially love how Dekoppa's power was one he'd already had at the beginning of the arc - his intelligence - and how the monsters didn't actually give him any sort of power boost. In fact, since his first reaction is terror, it even slows his forebrain a few seconds while underneath his thoughts are still buzzing to come up with a solution.
The science Dekoppa eventually comes up with, and uses to defeat the various monsters, reads very clearly and even plausibly to the non-initiate. I find myself assuming most of his solutions have real world chemical and physical basis, though I certainly can't say for sure, and there's probably many people out there who could correct it. Still, the believable (pseudo?) science actually gives this manga an edge of plausibility I wouldn't have expected. And while the translation and adaptation could have used footnotes in a few places (the "wash your neck" part, for example), it doesn't detract too much from the story.
In regards to his relationship with Tomoe, I initially expected to get an air of Nice Guy-ishness off of him on my most recent re-read, but examining things closely, that doesn't seem to be the case to me. Dekoppa doesn't feel he's deserving of romantic love simply for being there for Tomoe, and simply feels grateful to spend time with her. While he does dislike the boyfriend she has at the beginning, it's with good reason, as he really is a jerk. Given the circumstances, I find I really can't blame him for not really making a move on her in the manga, since it would be difficult for anyone to tell how she felt about her boyfriend after everything that went down. Additionally, his attraction for her actually seems to stem from her as a person, and not just as an object of lust. It's not love at first sight - it's budding love after first conversation.
Tetsu and Satomi continue to make cameos throughout the manga, and everything ties together nicely in the last few chapters. Over all, I found it a gripping storyline with a main character whose principal appeal and weapon both is his brain, which is really something you don't see very often in manga at all, let alone pulled off this well. If you've ever wanted to read a story about a brainy kid taking on flesh-eating monsters and stomping them with his intellect, this is definitely the manga for you.
You can get the manga here: Volume One Volume Two, or probably at SnoopyCool (the scanlators) somehow.
Previous recs: Toiki Youho no Koibito
Majin Devil
by Oh! Great
Plot: The manga starts off telling the story of Tetsu and his adopted younger sister Satomi. Tetsu's a punk biker in a big city, and all he's really wanted is to protect Satomi from the evils of the world. Then one day, they're targeted by a hugely powerful vampire.
Two chapters later, cut to an entirely different character in an entirely different setting!
Idetora Kazuya, called Dekoppa by absolutely everyone to his intense displeasure, is a teenager with the maturity and fashion sense of a man closer to his thirties. Weird things have started happening in town, and when Dekoppa comes across them, a strange wound opens in his forehead, prompting him to take action. Along for the ride are Ashihara Tomoe, a fellow student Dekoppa has just met and fallen in love with (but is being surprisingly practical about, for a manga character), who on their first meeting is pregnant with a monster's child, and Dekoppa's aunt Hayasi-sensei, the school doctor. Dekoppa ends up facing off against a number of disturbingly powerful supernatural monsters, and mostly winning through brainpower alone - but will his skills be enough when he goes toe to toe with the vampire that turned Tetsu and Satomi?
My thoughts: A good percentage of you will probably recognize the manga-ka from such hits as Air Gear and Tenjou Tenge (of which I have only read the former as yet), so you already have a good idea of what the art will be like. For those who haven't, it's something to experience. While not all of it is 100% tasteful, it is pretty much all good art, and does a nice job of carrying the story. The style itself seems very organic to me, which enhances the realism and general creepiness factor of the monsters quite well. The characters all end up very distinct from one another, and that's not just because of the art.
The first storyline seemed to be reasonably standard shounen fare to me, even with the pseudo-incest vibe. There was the bleedingly masculine main character, the hot girl he was interested in but wouldn't take a chance on, the best friend who's also interested in the hot girl, the town full of people who think the main character's no good... I wasn't really expecting any surprises. But Oh! Great turned around on me and pulled some fabulously plotted twists out of his hat, not to mention some reasonable sounding sci-fi science explanations. Still, when it reached the end of that first arc, it didn't feel right to me; too many loose ends, but at the same time, too many ends tied up neatly. It felt like a somewhat ambiguous end, where the main character issues are solved, but the plot engendered in the first chapter had a bit of a, "And what happens now? No one knows...!" kind of feel to it. I was unsure where it was going, since I hadn't even gotten more than halfway through the first of two volumes yet. Calculating off the plot points from the first arc, I assumed the story would continue from Tetsu and Satomi's POV as they faced down various "monsters of the day" on their way to confront the big bad.
Imagine my surprise, then, when upon reaching the next segment, Dekoppa is introduced to us. Bit by bit I fell in love with him, as we followed him through the start of his first unrequited love, his crazy aunt's antics, Tomoe's background and growth, and their drive to survive. I especially love how Dekoppa's power was one he'd already had at the beginning of the arc - his intelligence - and how the monsters didn't actually give him any sort of power boost. In fact, since his first reaction is terror, it even slows his forebrain a few seconds while underneath his thoughts are still buzzing to come up with a solution.
The science Dekoppa eventually comes up with, and uses to defeat the various monsters, reads very clearly and even plausibly to the non-initiate. I find myself assuming most of his solutions have real world chemical and physical basis, though I certainly can't say for sure, and there's probably many people out there who could correct it. Still, the believable (pseudo?) science actually gives this manga an edge of plausibility I wouldn't have expected. And while the translation and adaptation could have used footnotes in a few places (the "wash your neck" part, for example), it doesn't detract too much from the story.
In regards to his relationship with Tomoe, I initially expected to get an air of Nice Guy-ishness off of him on my most recent re-read, but examining things closely, that doesn't seem to be the case to me. Dekoppa doesn't feel he's deserving of romantic love simply for being there for Tomoe, and simply feels grateful to spend time with her. While he does dislike the boyfriend she has at the beginning, it's with good reason, as he really is a jerk. Given the circumstances, I find I really can't blame him for not really making a move on her in the manga, since it would be difficult for anyone to tell how she felt about her boyfriend after everything that went down. Additionally, his attraction for her actually seems to stem from her as a person, and not just as an object of lust. It's not love at first sight - it's budding love after first conversation.
Tetsu and Satomi continue to make cameos throughout the manga, and everything ties together nicely in the last few chapters. Over all, I found it a gripping storyline with a main character whose principal appeal and weapon both is his brain, which is really something you don't see very often in manga at all, let alone pulled off this well. If you've ever wanted to read a story about a brainy kid taking on flesh-eating monsters and stomping them with his intellect, this is definitely the manga for you.
You can get the manga here: Volume One Volume Two, or probably at SnoopyCool (the scanlators) somehow.
Previous recs: Toiki Youho no Koibito
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-14 04:26 pm (UTC)Yeah, the whole change in setting was really strange, but it seemed to work out okay. I liked the art and was kind of disappointed that it didn't continue on for another volume or two. ^___^
no subject
Date: 2009-01-14 04:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-14 05:59 pm (UTC)Yeah, he draws really well; for eye candy purposes, there's always his more recent ongoing series, but I really liked the premise this one had. I could totally see Dekoppa and company going out and taking on bigger baddies for much longer ♥
no subject
Date: 2009-01-14 06:01 pm (UTC)Dekoppa icon, yay! /o/
no subject
Date: 2009-01-15 06:07 pm (UTC)But 4 volumes, to flesh out the story a bit more on Majin Devil, would have been excellent. ^^;;
no subject
Date: 2009-01-16 05:01 am (UTC)Ooooo, that would have been so nice. *shiver* I wonder if there's any fanfiction for it out there...