Quick review: Otogi Zoshi

[telophase]

A couple of weeks back I picked up Otogi Zoshi, a manga made from an OVA apparently, when I made a manga run to the store. It's set in Heian Japan, and features a feisty younger daughter^[TM] who chafes against the restrictions of her social position and who idolizes her brother. Her brother is a military commander-type person and was sent to raze a village that harbored bandits. The few survivors of the village naturally have a grudge. One day the girl sneaks out and follows her brother, and starts a chain of events that theoretically lead to plot, but I'm not sure because I was so bored by all of it. None of the characters really stand out as unique, and none of them are interesting. I picked it up because: hey! Heian Japan!, but that's not interesting enough to carry the story. The art is inconsistent - some parts of it I really like, such as profiles, but the mangaka is incredibly inconsistent when it comes to things like head sizes, which can be seriously small, and it bugs me. I may flip through book 2 when it arrives on shelves to see if anything interesting happens or any of the characters gain personality beyond the broadly stereotyped, but for now: not recommended.

(I suppose I could use the new Vox account to post book reviews: you can easily post images of books from Amazon.com there.)

P.S. Watch this blog. I may have something to tell you in 24 hours or so. XD

Comments

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I just added it to my Netflix queue, to see how much better the anime is than the manga. :D

[forvrin.livejournal.com]

I just clicked through to the Tpop site. The art in the anime is leaps and bounds better than on that site. Its drool inducingly better. It makes me weep. Even the second arc is beautiful, but it is set in Tokyo, so doesn't quite have the same hold on me that the Heian arc does.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

OTOH if you've ever lived in Tokyo ohmygod YES that's it that's Tokyo finally a Tokyo series that doesn't think the Tokyo Tower and Harajuku are all there is to Tokyo. Though of course the Tokyo Tower is in it.