Manga Review: Black God Volume Two

[Jason]

Title: Black God
Volume: Two
Author: Dall-Young Lim
Artist: Sung-Woo Park
Serialized In: Young GanGan (Square Enix)
Genre: Action, Drama, Fantasy, Seinen, Supernatural
Publisher: Yen Press
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Price: $10.99/US

Black God, volume two, continues in the grand tradition of all fighting manga stories: the main character meets a friend and then ends up having to fight that seeming friend over the course of several chapters. Keita continues to act like a selfish jerk until cornered, and we meet the next opponent (probably) for our little Kuro.

Kuro meets Mikami, a tall, stylish woman who has been hired by a mysterious woman to kidnap Akane. The reason for this seems to be that Akane is one of the two other "doppeliners" to this woman. The only thing that stands in the way of Mikami completing the contract is little Kuro.

How many times have we seen this kind of pattern to a plot? Fight, rest, meet someone friendly but odd, end up fighting them, etc etc, ad infinitum. It's just that Black God manages to do this typical shounen kind of plot -- and draw out the fights for several chapters too -- without boring us to death. There are several reasons for this:

Firstly, the writer (Dall-Young Kim) doesn't let a single opportunity go by without giving us, the audience, more dribs and drabs of the back story to this whole thing. We, being as ignorant as Keita, find out slowly and piece by piece the whys and wherefores of this world.

Secondly, the artwork is consistent and consistently good. Unlike a shounen story, there's no over-the-top characterizations, just interesting people to look at, especially the girls (of course).

Finally, there are too many story elements that push this story firmly into the seinen category, most notably in the last chapter of this volume where Kuro meets a cute little girl who has seen one of her doppeliners. Kuro knows for sure that this darling little girl is going to die and there's nothing she can do about it; heavy stuff for a mere fighting manga, where most often if the main character tries really, really hard, nobody ever has to die.

Yen Press continues to impress me with their physical processes, however, there was an unexplained shift from the term "Terra" to "Tera" partway into the book. I'm not comparing this manga with the scanlations that were done, but I wonder if this volume might not have been a bit too rushed to print. Still, Yen is doing well for a freshman publisher and I, for one, am going to keep reading and watching them.

Reviewer: Eric Turner
Proofer: Jason Punda
Editor: Lissa Pattillo