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Reviewed by David Rasmussen Mind you this volume isn't the KAPLAN edition, but I can give you a brief synopsis of the differences between the two shortly (it's not much but what is added may shape your thoughts as to which version you'll want to buy). By Pseudome Studio's Mike Schwark and Ron Kaulfersch, past winners of TOKYOPOP's Rising Stars of Manga competition, Van Von Hunter is a non-stop comedic parody that actually works. That's rare, as often you end up with comedy titles that kinda sorta work, but not to this extent. This title takes it out of the ballpark on its delivery, which probably goes into why KAPLAN picked it as one of the few TOKYOPOP titles to get the Vocab Building treatment. An old man is telling a story of a great battle that took places hundreds of years ago… Only it wasn't hundreds of years ago, it was three years ago. Its chief hero is a legend of the distant past. Only he's not much of a legend, and he's still alive. And in this house, with this old man, is a young woman with the terrble RPG plot device affliction known as… AMNESIA!! Somehow she ends up in the partnership (filling in the official role as "sidekick") of one Van Von Hunter (the guy mentioned above who was supposed to be this great hero of hundreds of years ago though the incident in question only happened three years ago). Together they will quest to find a dark artifact, learn it's best not to touch mystical artifacts until somebody tells you everything about the artifact, learn that crazy women with odd accents who escaped from the mental asylum don't make great maids, that people don't usually forge thousand-year-old sandwiches of destiny (except in this story), and many many more things. The specifics are not important, what is important is that it's a nice rowdy mix of humor, humor and fantasy… did I mention it's a fun read? It is. From start to finish you'll enjoy the work of both Mr. Schwark and Mr. Kaulfersch. The writing is fresh and innovative, not falling back too heavily on the clichés of old comedic writing and fantasy comedic writing to deliver the funny here. The artwork is pretty, and the amnesia-plagued -- plagued -- wow, I don't remember catching her name during this story... Anyway, put it all together (great humor, good writing, solid artwork), and you have the basis of one of the best titles TOKYOPOP has which got picked by KAPLAN for their SAT/ACT Voccabulary Building Mangas… now if they only realize they can do the same with Dramacon we'll really be all set. Now, as for the differences… If you compare the two the first thing you'll notice is the print size difference. Place the non KAPLAN copy over top of the KAPLAN copy, now center it to the left so the spines line up… now move it up so the tops and left sides line up… perfect. This is basically what TOKYOPOP did to make the KAPLAN version: just tacked on a wide border around the original manga and used the empty space to tack on Vocabulary words/definitions, with an index of words at the back of the book. Yes, it's not much, but if you happen to be studying vocabulary for your college SAT/ACT anyway you might as well use these books… wouldn't hurt. So with that all said, Van Von Hunter (either in regualr or Extra Vocabulary Crispy) version gets an A. Now I need to get ahold of Volume 2 to see whatt happens next. Again, it's not the plot that's the point, but the humor… I'd like to see more of it. David Rasmussen Comment on this review of Van Von Hunter v1 on the Manga Life Forums. |
7 May 2008
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