It’s time again for you to choose among three dubious debuts in the new Previews catalog! I’m not saying all of these candidates sound awful, but each has enough of a “not for me” vibe emanating off of it to make me suspicious. Let’s begin!
Drifters vol. 1, written and illustrated by Kohta Hirano, Dark Horse: First he pitted the Catholic church against vampires, Nazis, and Great Britain, bathing London in a flood of blood. But Hellsing creator Kohta Hirano still had something crazy up his sleeve when he created his new series, Drifters.
Imagine a world of magic, full of elves and hobbits and dragons and orcs. Inside this world of magic and wonder there is a great war being waged, using warriors from human history as chess pieces in a bloody, endless battle. Hirano’s new concept gathers famous warriors throughout history and puts them on both sides of good and evil, and then turns them loose in a bloody melee of madness.
Okay, I might have been unable to resist a little copy editing in that blurb. For instance, “new concept” sounds like a rather generous turn of phrase for what sounds like a mash-up of at least five existing properties, so maybe “current concept” would be more apt. I’m not a big fan of body-count balderdash, though the series does sound like it could have some amusing distractions. And it’s a nominee for the current round of Manga Taisho awards, reasonable predictors of manga that could be much worse, at the very least. Drifters is running in Shônen Ganosha’s Young King OURs.
Kannagi vol. 1, written and illustrated by Eri Takenashi, Bandai Entertainment: Nagi’s a strange young girl – and not just because she popped out of a tree! She tells Jin (who’s a perfectly normal high school boy) that she’s a goddess. But is she really? As a matter of fact, she is! Normal girls, even strange ones, don’t come from trees, you know. And soon, the odd pair start living under the same roof together. Thus begins the first volume of a bizarre manga tale that wends it way through both the comical and serious! More or less.
I almost dozed off halfway through typing that paragraph, so generic is the description it provides. Also, that’s less of a skirt than it is a flared cummerbund that’s slipped. Kannagi is running in Ichijinsha’s Comic REX, though it’s apparently on hiatus.
The Diary of a Crazed Family vol. 1, written by Akira and illustrated by wEshica, Tokyopop: A thousand years ago, Enka, the god of destruction, died vowing that its “child” would one day destroy the world. in order to prevent this, “Operation Cozy Family” is implemented in which the children who are potentially prophesied as the “Child of Enka” are forced to live together. This impromptu family contains all children, human and otherwise, as well as an official of the bureau and a self proclaimed goddess who act as the parents of the household. The goal of “Operation Cozy Family” is to discern who the prophecy applies to, as well as to teach them all about the love of family in hopes of convincing the “Child of Enka” not to destroy the world. but with all families, there’s bound to be mishaps and adventure – especially when the fate of the world is at hand!
I confess that my objections to this one are pretty arbitrary: I think the character design of the girl on the cover is annoying, and I’m not a fan of dippy pen names. The plot actually sounds like it could be kind of fun. The series is currently running in Enterbrain’s FB Online.
So which of the above would you like me to order and endure? Please vote in the comments!
