Slightly Biased Manga

I continue to be surprised by how entertained I am by this title.  It’s an all-ages title and really quite wonderful.  I don’t like it quite as much as +Anima, which makes me forget that it is an all ages title, but I still found myself caught up in the story.

This volume has only a chapter or two of the characters on the road before everyone gets to the Book Depository.  One of the early chapters explained the mechanics of bringing the characters from books to life, and also explained who could do it and why.  There was a really sad story involving a mother and her little boy that played out, and we also find out why it’s necessary for the illustrations to stay dry once they leave the book.

Once at the depository, Kiichi winds up staying behind with a terrible headache.  At this point, he’s no longer wearing a hat, which is surprising.  He himself has come to terms with being an oni, but it seems like the sort of thing you’d still want to hide in a crowded area soas not to draw unwanted attention to yourself.  The message is a positive one, in any case.  He winds up by himself while Mototaro goes inside and finds some medicine for him, but outside he makes a friend and shows off some super-human feats of strength in the process.  Nobody seems that impressed by his ability to control a rather large illustration gone wild, but Mototaro seems to see the significance of it.

Inside the depository, Mototaro meets up with a scholar who offers to meet up with Kiichi and tell him about onis, but his intentions don’t seem to be that… er, pure.  We find out why so many people are gathered at the depository, what the role of the establishment is, and a little about the mythology of the world as well.  The mythology we get to hear about is a creation myth for that world, which I kind of liked, but the present customs are somewhat linked back to it as well.  I liked finding this level of detail here, and I was even more pleased when the myths started basically coming to life by the end of the book.  The story ends on a pretty epic cliffhanger, and I’m really looking forward to the next volume.

I mentioned that this doesn’t quite make me forget it’s an all-ages title while I’m reading it, and I think the main reason for that is probably just the fact the characters are a bit flat.  Granted, every single one of them is interesting and very well done, a detail you don’t often find in stories like this, but they’re just not developed that much yet.  The nature of the series being what it is (about the characters from books coming to life and the mythologies from the books coming to pass and all), it also feels like this is the way it should be, because you’re more aware of the characters being… well, characters in a book this way.  It doesn’t bother me, and the story is compelling and detailed in a way that makes it fun to read, so I’m pretty much in for the ride at this point.

I think I mentioned this before, but I really like finding all-ages titles like this every once in awhile.  The kind that you wouldn’t hesitate to give to an 8-10 year old and are also really fun to read.  The story’s gotten very serious as of the end of the volume, and I’m really looking forward to seeing the next one.  I’m surprised there’s four volumes, because what happens here is pretty… climactic, so I’ll be interested to see where the story goes once that is resolved.

Also, I got an arc of this from CMX, but I decided to wait a couple weeks to review it until the full version came out.  Then the company I ordered the full version from didn’t ship it until a week or so ago, so now I feel really bad for waiting so long.