Exotica (Shaman King #27) ★★★☆☆

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Title: Exotica
Series: Shaman King #27
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 200
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Ryu is about to go berserk when he realizes Sati has killed Yoh but she reveals that she did it so Yoh would become one of the 5 Warriors, beings able to control the Five High Spirits, which are needed to defeat Hao.

Yoh is confronted by the giant ogre demon that he slew helping Anna several years ago and he senses the presence of Matamune, who is hiding in the shadows. The ogre tells Yoh he now serves Sati and that Yoh must think of Anna to make through all the levels of hell. The ogre leaves and Yoh's first opponent shows up looking like his dad. Turns out to be his distant ancestor who defeated Hao 500 years ago. Yoken eventually uses his ultimate power, that he used to defeat Hao, against Yoh and Yoh stops it cold. During the fight Yoh realizes Yoken isn't evil but just guilty about killing Hao, which is why he is still bound in hell.

Back in the real world, the Patch Officant for Gandala overhears Sati talking and confronts her. He states that the 5 High Spirits belong to the Patch and them alone.

Yoh and Yoken are talking and Yoken reveals that there are only 2 options for defeating Hao. One is total dissolution, which means no reincarnation and Yoh states he'll try the other way. Then a giant hammer kills Yoken and another giant ogre climbs up onto the battlefield. Yoh kills that ogre but the a whole clan shows up.

Team Ren is confronted by the Wisdom Kings, who tell them they know all about the 5 Warriors. However, the Wisdom Kings tell Team Ren that'll they will never leave the bathhouse alive.

Then 3 of Hao's minions show up to confront Sati and Ryu while the Patch Officiant makes snide remarks about how neutral he is. Sati knows that the X-Laws have been wiped out.

The story then moves into a shot story from which this volume gets its name. A story about 2 young street racers using “exotic” cars, ie, a lamborgini and a ferrari.

Then the manga-ka spends 15 pages illustrating his time doing the aforementioned one shot.

My Thoughts:

Ok, this was going along strong, definitely into the 3.5star territory. We finally get to see Yoh be really serious when the Ogre kills his ancestor. The fights with Yoken were pretty cool but since I am an experienced connoisseur of fighting shonen manga, having watched every single Yu Yu Hakusho episode, it didn't blow me away. I was impressed though.

The whole 5 Warriors/Spirits thing seems to be the manga-ka's way of shaking the story out of any potential ruts. I guess I can deal with that.

Then the whole stupid one shot story happened. I've read the Initial D manga so the whole japanese street racing thing is old hat. Considering this took place at least 3+ years after Initial D was released, it felt like he was trying to ride the coat tails of its success. And to be honest, I haven't given 2 figs about cars since I was 16. I drive them and I earn money to pay somebody else to fix them. That is it. And the icing on the cake was the manga-ka then illustrating how he came to do the one shot. He basically ran out of ideas for the one shot and so padded it out with the “how to” of it. Completely took me out of the Shaman King world. I feel like I'm being very generous with only dropping this to a 3. If there is another instance like this in any of the future volumes I'll drop it to at least a 2, if not lower.

Only five more volumes to go. I feel like I'm in some kind of weird book marathon or something. And I have no one to blame but myself! Well, except maybe you. Yep, I'm definitely going to blame you this time. Bad you, go sit in the corner! Sit!

★★★☆☆

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