300th BLOG + Manga Review + Giveaway

Holy Blog-O-Sphere, I never thought I would make it this far. But here I am doing my 300th blog and still cranking more out. I should do something cool for this post, so here is a Manga review & Giveaway!

Manga Review:

Manga: WaqWaq
Story: Ryu Fujisaki
Art: Ryu Fujisaki
Distributor: VIZ Media
Number Volumes: 4
Price Point: $9.99/volume USD

Ryu Fujisaki is better known for his work under the Manga title Hoshin Engi. I remember reading WaqWaq in a recent issue of my son's Shonen Jump and thought it was interesting enough to pickup.

General Plot (from the back of the 1st volume):

In the ultimate battle of man vs. machine, all hope lies with a teenage girl. Living in constant fear of attack from machines, mankind depends on the cyborg corps known as the Guardians to keep them from harm as they await the arrival of the Kami, a godlike savior with mystical red blood who can grant only one wish to one person. Now, Shio, son of a Guardian, thinks he's found the Kami - and all the Guardians are at war to get that wish!

SPOILER ALERT

Let me start off by saying I like and dislike these short series volumes. The good part is that I am not waiting years to complete the series. On the other hand they usually leave parts out that would be interesting (like back fill on the characters).

The easy part of this review is that the artwork. It is stunning, highly detailed and a joy to view. I like his style a lot and will probably be checking out Hoshin Engi soon. I love his color work as he is not afraid to drop every color in the rainbow into the art. A great example is the cover to Volume 1. This differences in the Guardian is well orchestrated and shows deep thought to what was needed. I love how he drew the machines as he gave them some nice depth and detail to each one. The smaller machines are "cute" and ad a softer touch to the devastating killer machines.

The meat of the story itself is intriguing as we have black blooded "humans" who see anyone with red blood as gods. There are no red bloods here on this world, so when Kami shows up, all hell breaks loose. The only bad part for me is how a she shows up in the story. It is often over done in stories now a days - teenager girl is kidnapped and taken to another world/dimension/time to help people. The interesting part of this however, is how she actually needs to spill all her blood to make things right again - ouch.

We have the young (thrown into everything) hero named Shio as he takes over his father Guardian because he gets killed in action. It seems that Machines on this world are out to kill all humans. Each Guardian has the ability to take all the dreams and memories of the other suitors it had and impress them into there new suitor. Talk about a mind dump - damn! SO what has to happen is that each Guardian must battle and assume the loosing Guardian - until there is only One (is this HIghlander?). Then the remaining Suitor of the Guardian can make one wish that will be granted by the almighty machine (no matter what it is). No pressure on our hero here.

Of course we have some sinister people behind all this that cause distress on our characters through out the series. How can you not have a evil villain (or three) in a series to cause heart ache to our hero and damsel in distress. I have to say there is some drama shown in the dialog between the characters. Kind of corny to me at times, but I managed through it. There is come comic relief by a ninja wanna-be named Fran when you get to Volume 2.

Needless to say after some very epic battles between everyone, we finally have a wish fulfilled and the world is a better place or is it??? You need to read it to find out.

Page Inserts

Giveaway:

I am going to be giving away the entire 4 volume series of the Manga I just reviewed of WaqWaq. I have also decided to open this up internationally, so everyone has a chance no matter where in the world they live.

Giveaway Rules:

1. Leave a comment > Everyone who leaves a comment will be entered into the drawing
2. Only 1 comment post per person will be allowed (so no leaving 10 comments to stuff the ballot)
   
3. See above as it is really that simple
4. On May 31st, I will announce the winner
   

btw: I want to thank the girls for holding those lovely numbers up for me :)