This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Return of Faust
Series: Shaman King #13
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 200
Format: Digital Copy
Series: Shaman King #13
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 200
Format: Digital Copy
Synopsis: |
This volume starts
out with a nearly naked Yoh drifting through a bizarre landscape and
eventually entering an ocean. He then wakes up in the Patch village
where Silva explains that Yoh had a vision from the Great Spirit. Yoh
looks outside and sees a massive column of souls, all of which make
up the great spirit. All the contestants who made it through the maze
have to face the great spirit and have a vision. If they survive the
vision, they move on in the competition. All of Our Gang survives but
Lyserg has gone off on his own after seeing “something” that
involves Yoh's father.
Yoh runs into Anna
and everyone runs into another shaman named Joco. He reveals that the
next step in the competition is a tournament of 3 man teams competing
against each other. With Lyserg gone, Our Gang can't form the
requisite 2 teams and Joco wants to join Our Gang.
Joco has done a ton
of research and monologues to Our Gang, and us the readers. Hao's
team is being opposed by the X-Laws, but there is another group of
Shamans banding together to oppose Hao, a group of Buddhist monks.
Each group is being led by a Shaman in the Kami Class. Joco is a
terrible punster and has named his spirit ally Mic the Jaguar, ie,
Mick Jagger.
Ren takes this time
to create his own team of 3 from Our Gang and Horohoro and Joco are
the “lucky” ones chosen. Manta goes looking for Yoh and runs into
Faust. Faust brings Manta to Yoh and asks to join Team Yoh. Ryu
rejects his request out of hand but Anna, as Queen Shaman to be,
makes an executive decision and puts Faust in play. Of course, Anna's
choice springs from her desire to open a hot springs in the future
and having a shaman doctor indebted to her will be a great attraction
for the hot springs.
2 months go by and
the 3 man teams are all transported to a deserted island named Tokyo
where an Arena style fighting tournament is going to take place.
There are 21 teams and they must battle each other in a ladder style
order. First up is Team Ren. They are fighting Team Earth, one of
Hao's sub-groups. Team Earth consists of the 2 monk team Boz along
with a mysterious masked man. Ren and Horohoro leave Joco to deal
with Boz and Joco shows what he's got.
While Joco easily
defeats Boz, that was Tecolote's plan all along. He uses bones as his
medium and begins using the bones of Boz to fight Joco. Joco won't
attack Boz, as another attack will kill them. We then get a flashback
into Joco's past about why he has vowed to never kill. Joco's parents
were killed and he ended up becoming the head of gang. One Christmas
he tries to kill someone who turns out to be a shaman and Joco can
see his spirit ally. This decides the shaman to take Joco on as his
protege, even if Joco doesn't want it.
My Thoughts: |
Ok, this volume brought the game back. It did feel like there was a
missing volume, since Yoh wakes up in the Patch Village and everyone
else is there too but hey, if the manga-ka wants to mess around,
that's his business.
Lyserg's desertion wasn't unexpected but he sure was replaced quickly
with Joco. I didn't care for Joco upon his introduction as I hate
puns, but once the fighting started, he was solid. I also liked his
backstory and introduction to being a shaman.
The further along this series goes, the more and more it adapts the
fighting shonen stereotypes. Tournaments inside a ring is such a
staple that it is now a cliché. In the anime Yu Yu Hakusho (which I
highly recommend if you want fighting shonen out the wazoo) the ring
tournament takes up almost half the series and since we're only on
book 13 of 30+ here, I fancy we'll see about that same ratio. Expect
lots of shenanigans and cheating by Team Hao.
The beginning of the book, with the vision of the great spirit being
nothing but a collection of the total souls ever in existence or ever
to exist, was a cheap knockoff of the philosophy of nirvana. Not a
big fan of that line of thought at all. Obviously the manga-ka is
enamoured of the idea though. I expect to see more buddhism-lite
ideas to trickle forth over the upcoming volumes.
However, overall, this got me excited again. I'm going to go read the
next volume right away!
★★★★☆
No comments:
Post a Comment