Hoshin Engi 2
Posted: September 24, 2007 Filed under: Hoshin Engi 1 Comment »Um. I know there are more things I read this weekend. Right now, my pile suggests there’s only Black Sun Silver Moon and Saint Seiya to write about. I KNOW there are others, though.
It took me a little bit to get re-acclimated with the terminology for this series again. I know after a few volumes I’ll get used to it, but the separate names for all magical objects still really throws me.
Taikobo decides he would like a group that will help him beat Dakki, so this volume features him going about recruiting members. There are two stories surrounding future members of his group. This series gets serious points for not having said group travel around with Taikobo right away. Such large groups of characters just run out of control with wacky comic hijinx that usually cause a series to crash and burn. The group is going to reconvene at a later date to beat Dakki, and currently things are still focused on Taikobo and Supu. It runs a risk of having too many characters, and it probably will have this problem later on down the line, but it’s pretty easy to keep people straight at this point since they all have really unique quirks and character designs, if not names I can remember.
There’s also a nice part where one of the rulers from Taikobo’s original land prove that Taikoko is a born leader and better at said job than a more powerful and skilled magic user than he. It was kind of a nice test that this person put him through, and it went like the others where Taikobo turned it around at the very end where you could see he wasn’t just being a jerk and was actually helping everyone out.
So yes, it’s starting to grow on me. I think it’s gradually picking up steam, and I like it well enough, but I think it’ll take a couple more volumes at least before it’ll be able to turn itself into something which could be considered a classic… especially since it’s currently moving at a pretty nice, slow pace that leaves a lot of room to breathe around the stories.
[...] At Slightly Biased Manga, Connie reviews vol. 1 of Le Chevalier d’Eon, vol. 2 of Hoshin Engi, vol. 7 of Saint Seiya, and vol. 2 of Black Sun, Silver Moon. Borderline Hikikomori likes vol. 1 of [...]