In a Tokyo that seems identical to our own, people have been dying and turning into red sand. Izumi Yui has the ability to foresee when someone dies, and one day she sees more sand-death – except this time, the dead bodies turned into black sand. The rumour surrounding the black sand death is that everytime it happens, two youths, a middle-age man and two pigs are always seen at the scene. When Yui meets these people on a subway, and see the monsters called ‘Solomon’s Children’, her fate becomes inextricately entwined with the Kamishiro twins.
So guess what was my first thought when I saw that Fujisawa Tohru has a new serialisation? In my infinite wisdom, I forgot Tokko and Rose Hip Rose and thought: “Yay! More GTO-like goodness”, but what greeted me was yet more Tokko. It’s like Fujisawa thought “I’ve conquered the shounen-comedy-drama market with GTO, now I’ll move onto the shounen-fantasy-action genre!”
That would be great, if he was good at it. But unfortunately for Fujisawa and every one of his fans, he’s not. Tokko wasn’t great, and Reverend D’s premise isn’t a very interesting one either. The ‘secret sect fighting evil monsters hidden from the public’s view in a modern city’ thing has been done to death, and Reverend D doesn’t look like it’s about to bring anything new to this well-used table. Not even talking pigs are new in the world of manga.
There really isn’t anything to look forward here for me. Even the drawing, which was so slick in GTO, seems to have deterioated somewhat. Everyone’s face seems too wide, and Fujisawa seriously needs to work on his character designs. They’re either overly familiar, archetypes or just simply boring. Gotodo looks like Onizuka after gaining weight and growing a goatee.
This deficiency extends to their characterisation, if this chapter, Tokko and Rose Hip are anything to go by. There’s some faint hope lying at the bottom of my dark, dark heart though, that GTO’s memorable characterisation will make its way here. So far, Yui is making me very, very disappointed.
Maybe GTO was simply too great, but it seems that nothing Fujisawa has done afterwards can hold a torch to it. It feels like he’s trying to break out of his gangster-comedy/drama mould, but so far all his attempts have ended in what I would call miserable failures. I’m not putting my money down yet, but I cannot keep my hopes for Reverend D very high.
9 Comments
hmmmmmm, no wonder the feeling of GTO came through in the drawing. I do not read much manga and the shounen genre is really something i dislike, i guess >_< Oh yea, lupus, do u have msn or yim. If you have YIM (please sign up one T_T), do tell me via thatblog @ gmail . com k ? :O
Easier to talk then
Yeah I was quite disappointed by Rose Hip Rose and Tokko when I read them. I wasn’t expected another GTO but their plots were just kinda dull so far. But his debut series “Jun’ai Shounengumi” is a great series!
Kamen Teacher (( another new Fujisawa manga )) is somewhat lame as well. I had minor hopes with it’s ~teacher~ attachment to the title…
Kamen Rider Mask wearing teachers literally owning and pwning schools where 99% of all students are stereotype-dick-gangster-hats is NOT how one deals with ass kicking teachers and problematic students. 4 shame.
Hm, I disliked Tokko while I liked Rose Hip Rose. But that’s 3 years ago so maybe I’m having a different opinion on that now. Actually yeah, I’m surprised to see another Tokko-like manga. Iirc, Tokko turned out as a total flop and was stopped after 2 volumes.
Reverend D also exists as english scanlation, by the way *g*
Tokko got cancelled? I thought they were coming out an anime series for it or something
Migs: Sounds lame… I want some more GTO goodness!
Sasa and Alkanphel: There IS an anime series of Tokko… and I think it’s shit. The Tokko manga has 3 volumes (well, I have 3 volumes).
Well if the manga was bad I can’t say I expected anything more from the anime
Well i read chapter 0, i know chapter 1 has been scanlated but i cant find it…
As for Lupus, he’s most likely going to do something involving Onizuka later but for now hes burnt out on him…got done with 31 volumes of SJG, 25 of GTO, and 2 of Bad Company…It does look a bit like tokko’s story line but i hear that tokko was pretty popular in japan so it might be somewhat like it…
As for Rose Hip Rose, most people didnt like it due to the fact that it had too much “Girl Power”…but im guessing nobody has seen Rose Hip Zero which is pre-RHR
As for tokko, dunno bout the manga (since im torrenting it now) but i liked the anime, it had a great ending but i just wish there was a longer final battle and there was more of a love connection between the main dude (been a while since ive seen the anime) and the blonde chick or the girl from his past (ditto)
Yay more GTO ^^.. i love GTO it my fav manga Ever :3