Gestalt 1

Yun Kouga – Viz – 2010 – 8 volumes

This is actually a series I’ve been curious about for years.  I had no idea this was even licensed until it showed up at my house, and I couldn’t be more pleased.  I’m always a sucker for fantasy-themed shoujo series, and this is a pretty old-school one.  Plus, I haven’t picked up Earthian, and this volume gives me a chance to try out a Yun Kouga series aside from Loveless.

Now, I’ve heard this series described as “RPG-like.”  Normally, this description is applied by people who have never played an RPG, and I have yet to run across a series described as such that lived up to the promise.  But this series… yeah, this one is “RPG-like.”  In fact, it’s almost a chapter-by-chapter telling of an RPG.  All characters are introduced with a panel detailing their class, what level they are, and what level spells they can cast.  Much time is spent discussing the mechanics of spells and what different classes could do, and a lengthy fight at the end of the book deals with summoning spells and how to kill certain elemental creatures.  There are even items with stat bonuses.  Hilariously, a shopkeeper at one point offers the greeting “Welcome.  May I be of assistance to you?”

If nothing else, it made me want to play Dragon Quest V really bad.

The basic story is that a Sage named Olivier has escaped from his order (which appears to be some sort of monastery) in order to seek the truth about a forbidden and supposedly evil southern continent named “G.”  There is some setup involving the mythology and creation of the world to go along with the whole “evil” label.  Along the way, he meets up with Ouri, a mysterious sorceress that is very obviously more than what she seems.  The two of them take on an evil Queen and her Carrion Worm, camp out in the woods and dodge some vampires and some sort of old God, and wind up fighting one of Ouri’s siblings at the end of the book.  Among the many mysteries of Ouri, there appears to be a contest between her and her six siblings to see who can kill everyone first and be the last one standing.

There’s actually a lot of awesome stuff going on.  The obvious RPG framework would normally have me rolling my eyes, but the story progression here is pretty steady and the events are all fairly interesting.  Again, I really like fantasy series, so I take a great deal of pleasure in characters casting protective barriers and summoning Frost Salamanders and the like.  The contest between Ouri and her siblings, along with Ouri’s true nature, are also pretty tantalizing mysteries.  She seems to be a pretty strong magician with a serious handicap, so I’m also looking forward to when her gloves come off.

Now, the reason I wanted to read something else by Yun Kouga is because of the love/hate relationship I have with Loveless.  The plot of Loveless is pretty awesome, but it is also extremely incoherent.  Gestalt is already a more well-told story than Loveless, and aside from one or two panels of confusion, I could easily follow absolutely everything in this book, and I liked pretty much all of it.  I’m not going to tell you the story is better than Loveless, because Loveless does have one of the most interesting stories/premises among the series I’m reading and Gestalt is just a few steps above generic fantasy, but Gestalt does make a great deal more sense than Loveless.

The other thing that drives me crazy about Loveless is the art.  I love Yun Kouga’s art, but her character designs in Loveless are often impossible to tell apart, especially for minor characters.  Somehow, the art is even better Gestalt as far as backgrounds and compositions and character designs in general go, which is amazing considering this is so much older.  There are still some problems with the blond male characters resembling each other, though.

Overall, I was pretty happy with this volume.  I’m easy to please when it comes to shoujo fantasy, and this has all the important fantasy elements along with some pretty fantastic art and a promising direction for the plot.  It’s also only 8 volumes long, which is another huge plus.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.