 | | ▪ | RELEASED BY: | | VIZ MEDIA | | | ▪ | AUTHOR / ART: | | TAKESHI OBATA / TSUNEO TAKANO | | | ▪ | FORMAT: | | JAPANESE / B&W | | | ▪ | PAGES: | | 216 | | | ▪ | RATING: | | M | | | ▪ | RELEASE DATE: | | 01/29/2008 | | | ▪ | REVIEW DATE: | | 05/20/2008 | | | ▪ | REVIEWED BY: | | SCOTT CAMPBELL |
During a bloody war, a child is born at the cost of his mother’s life. From this baby comes forth a huge and powerful dragon born of shadow that lays waste to the landscape. A quick-thinking knight locks the baby in a cage of darkness, where he grows to be a young man, knowing only the kindness of his female tutor. That is, until the day the Shadow attacks… Okay, so Ral Grad comes to us from the same artist who did Death Note, so what else do you really need to know. This new manga series is flashy, really easy on the eyes, worthy of the hype, and of course is a little bit edgy just to round it all off. Fans of Death Note don’t really even need to question the purchase of this book, and it’s likely you’re already in possession of it if you knew it existed. Ral Grad is pretty cool, and it’s not all that much of a surprise – the story is strange and engrossing, and the style is to die for in terms of great manga art. The series can be everywhere from humorous, to heart-warming, to downright violent and action-packed. It’s well rounded and enjoyable – it appears to be worth purchasing and collecting so far, just like Death Note, as it has so much “re-read” potential. Trying to describe the artistic talent shown in this book in words is pretty difficult. A lot of art is moderate, or pretty good, but the art here just leaps and bounds and “lives” within these pages. The contrast between lights and darks is so cool and fresh – it’s everything anyone liked about Death Note, but with more demonic this and that, and magic galore. It’s more fantasy and fiction, and who doesn’t enjoy a bit of that? Character designs are really cool, but everything else shines exponentially and never lets up for a moment. The art is good okay? It’s just really, really good. The answer is really simple here people: Just check it out – you’d have a hard time not enjoying something about this series! If you don’t know any background on Takeshi Obata, here is your chance to catch up. Takeshi Obata is of course the artist, and he was born in 1969 in Niigata, Japan. He is the artist of the wildly popular Shonen Jump title Hikaru no Go, which won the 2003 Tezuka Shinsei “New Hope” award and the Shogakukan Manga award. Obata is also the artist of Arabian Majin Bokentan Lamp Lamp, Ayatsuri Sakon, Cyborg Jichan G, and the smash hit manga Death Note.
IN SUMMARY:
Ral Grad has “big deal” potential written all over it – from the story to the amazing art, this one is almost a no-brainer. Death Note fan or not, Ral Grad is a series you are going to want to check out!
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