|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||
|
|
Reviewed by Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane Sachie Wakamura just lost her mother, and her estranged grandfather has shown up to take care of her. The only problem is that Grandpa is the head of a yakuza gang! Sachie tries to continue living her normal life, but she can't run far since Rakuto, one of the most popular boys in school, is part of her grandfather's gang and her new protector. Rakuto's got an unlikely rival for Sachie's affections--little Koh, the son of a yakuza leader from Osaka. Seeing Sachie's positive effect on his son, Koh's father proposes that Sachie return to Osaka with them. Will Rakuto simply let her go? The fourth volume of Wild Ones begins in the middle of a storyline, which should have made it tricky for me to follow, not having read the first three volumes. However, the back cover copy had enough information for me to follow along with no problem at all (until the last two chapters, which are each single-chapter stories that include characters I knew nothing about). Whether this is good or bad is up for debate. I prefer manga stories with enough layers to keep me really engaged, but this does make it easier to review individual volumes when review copies come along. This strikes me as a hit or miss series; I think it might work very well for some readers, although it didn't make much of an impression on me. Most of the book focuses only on the two main characters, Sachie and Rakuto (and Rakuto's "rival", Koh), and it was coasting a little on the assumption that readers already know and care about them--a perfectly reasonable assumption, sure, but their development here felt very formulaic. The volume's basic plot relies heavily on the trope of a young male character engaging the heroine's sympathy and milking it for all it's worth. Koh sweet-talks Sachie into coming to Osaka with him (and why he or his father thinks she should be his bride is beyond me, since this isn't presented as a case of a very young adolescent having actual romantic feelings), while Rakuto, the genuine love interest, anguishes about whether to a) stop her or b) go after her. Visually, Fujiwara uses two distinctive types of character designs: the main characters and students are drawn with a fairly typical shoujo look. while the supporting yakuza characters look much more realistic. The contrast isn't sharp enough to be really jarring, but I was aware of it every time one of the yakuza guys made an appearance. Verdict: a perfectly readable series, but not terribly original. Volume four of Wild Ones includes two pages of translation notes. Review copy provided by VIZ Media. Think you could have written a better review of Wild Ones v4? Write us and we'll probably let you give it a shot! --EiC PC |
12 March 2010 10 March 2010
|
||||
 |
| home | reviews | news | features | about us | advertise | privacy policy | contact us |
