Kajika

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STORY:

Kajika is the story of Kajika and his quest to return to being a normal boy. As a Fox-man Kajika is extremely strong and has special powers. One day he runs across a girl and saves her from a gang of bad guys. After defeating the bad guys, Kajika then uses a special power to remove all of their evil. Kajika learns that the girl he saved is named Haya and is told that the bad guys were after her because of the Dragon Egg she posseses. The Dragon egg is extremely rare and was stolen by the gang leader Gibachi from Ronron Island. Haya ... then went and stole it from Gibachi and is on a quest to return the egg. Now Gibachi is out to kill Haya and recover the egg. Upon being saved, Haya asks Kajika to help her on her quest.

As a child Kajika was a very evil child. One day he killed a fox for no reason. Upon being killed, the spirit of the fox cursed Kajika and Kajika was turned into a fox-man. Kajika was then kicked out of his village and the only way to break the curse was to save the lives of 1,000 life forms. The spirit of the dead fox, named Gigi, decided to accompany Kajika on his jouney and upon saving 1,000 life forms, Kajika will go back to being a boy and Gigi will once again get its body back. After 5 years of saving life forms, the team only has 10 more lives to save. Kajika is an extremely strong boy, but it is also revealed that being turned into a fox-man is holding down his true powers.

As the three go to Ronron island we are told why Gibachi wants the egg so badly. There is an old saying that says if you drink the blood of a baby Dragon then you will gain incredible powers. No one is sure if this is true, but the baby dragon does have Dragomin in its blood which allows it to mature extremely fast. So, if this were to enter a human body you can only imagine what could happen.

As the three set off, though, Haya makes up an excuse as to why she can not continue, but it is really because she fears Gibachi. So, now it is up to Kajika and Giri to return the egg, but it won't be so easy now that they are being hunted down by the world famous assasin known as Isaza.

VERDICT:

Another Akira Toriyama work that gets a thumbs up. Once again Toriyama was able to create a story that captured the mind of the reader. It was a very touching story which was able to keep my interest throughout the whole story.

To a certain extent it is clear that Toriyama stuck with his Dragonball roots when it came to creating the characters powers and skills. No, they aren't some super power full people, but they have powers that remind you of DB. I thought the characters were done extremely well and each character fit into the story very well.

As with all of the Toriyama manga's I have read, he still is able to get a message across. If you pay attention you can learn some ways that will help you to live your life or atleast help you to be a better person.

This manga did a very good job of keeping my attention while entertaining me, and that is why I recommend that you read this manga.

Kajika is a pretty interesting little one shot by Toriyama. Coming so soon after Dragonball you can still strongly feel the influence of Dragonball in this manga, which is not a bad thing at all. His story telling is probably stronger from the start than Dragonball was at the beginning, but there is very little here to actually compare.

Overall it's probably too short, and could do with another 2 or 3 volumes. Story feels a little rushed towards the end, and the world isn't clearly fleshed out like Dragonballs was, which is something that came with time.

I feel like if Toyirama had written ... more for this it could have been quite an interesting story, and would have loved to see this tie into Dragonball, even though realistically Toriyama is pretty sick of that world.

Kajika is Toriyama's interesting little short story.

Story - 5

The story isn't that special or amazing, but there's nothing wrong with that. It's just Kajika trying to get stronger and rescuing some girl. It will definitely remind you a lot of Dragonball.

Art - 8

The artwork is great and all scenes are very clearly and beautifully drawn.

... Character - 5

The characters are not amazingly deep, but they are by no means terrible either. Most of them are a bit generic, but i can get over that.

Enjoyment - 7

I enjoyed my read of Kajika quite a bit, despite its fairly generic plot and characters. It had some interesting twists in it and it captured my attention without any boring scenes really.

Overall - 6

If you like the way Dragonball was before the Z era, then you will also like Kajika, so its a definite recommendation from me.