Warriors of Tao 1
Posted: January 4, 2008 Filed under: Warriors of Tao Leave a comment »I just… had to have this series. There were people I knew who raved about it as it was coming out, and I was always curious. I’m not sure what prompted me to get all four volumes, but here I am.
So far, I really like it. The main character is quite cheery and happy-go-lucky at the beginning, and while he is Better Than Everyone at something (since it wouldn’t be a manga otherwise), at least that something is Kendo, which is obscure enough to be a skill I can still respect.
There is a lot more fanservice than I was expecting, and a naked girl gets thrown into the mix fairly early on. After that, the thing turns into what appears to be a tournament-style fighting manga. Randomly, the main character is selected to be on a team representing Earth in a competition to figure out which inhabited planet gets to eat the beings on the other planets. The captain of the Earth team rejects him though, and the main character finds himself fighting people with powers in extremely violent and impromptu matches.
The one thing I can say good about this series is that it has kind of original character types at work. While there are quite a few generics wondering around, the main character is pretty unique, and later on he meets a big, happy fellow who is pursuing a career in professional wrestling. I liked him a lot, too.
The battles are pretty violent, but not particularly gory. While it hasn’t done anything particularly well or noteworthy yet other than have a couple good characters, I’m still compelled to read it. It’s just about as middle-of-the-road as you can get as far as tournament manga can go, and there’s a lot of stuff I can think of to improve on, but I’m willing to forgive these flaws for some reason, and I’m really enjoying it so far. I guess this genre is just more my thing, I suppose.
