Dec 6, 2014
Okay, normally I don't write reviews but seeing the other reviews here praising this thing to the high heavens and what I feel about this in it being a lost opportunity for something that could have been great, I felt motivated enough to write a review.
Okay so why could this have been great? Well the underlying premise is simply an idea that offers a lot of potential. Fantasy magical Romanesque world meets modern earth with all it's high tech gadgetry and scientific insight, Hernán Cortés meets the Aztecs turned up to 11. In its larger overarching themes it has that "epic" dynamic of
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scale and potentially gravitas to the events that transpire.
Why then does it not work and why did I give it a 3 overall? Well the failure lies in the execution and in particular I think to challenge one word that's used to describe this would cover a lot of the problems that exist in the execution of this intriguing story premise. That word is "seinen", this is not seinen, this is shounen. The characters are no LotGH "realistic" multifaceted characters or anything like it, they are hammy, melodramatic and a constant buffoonish comedy is weaved throughout in combination with a really puerile sexual fetishism. It's a kind of Love Hina or some such thing meets LoTR meets Jackass and this is a really terrible juxtaposition.
This story would be so great in my view if it had taken more or less the same overarching story dynamic and adopted a more Rudyard Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King" approach focusing on some lone individual or small group of individuals who came across a portal to another world. Then follow them as they discover this world and change it with their scientific knowledge and technological gadgetry. As well as cutting out the more "shounen" elements and as for having it on the scale it is in order to include an "earth" side international political "intrigue". This side of the story is really terrible and downright quaint in its approach in the worst possible sense of that term. Had this been an actual seinen publication though rather than another slapstick adventure story it really could have been something. Instead it's more like a parody of a serious work which really seems to slow down, distract and detract from the story.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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