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A review by crookedtreehouse
Blade of the Immortal Volume 9: The Gathering II by Hiroaki Samura
2.0
The second half of this volume: the story of Rin trying to cross the border is well-written, clever, and shows quite a bit of character growth for Rin. On its own, I probably would have given it three or four stars.
Unfortunately, the beginning of this book: the continuation of a battle from the last volume is Potentially Interesting. I like the idea of starting a story in media res, almost as much as I dislike that the last volume ended in the middle of a battle. But the fight itself isn't depicted well. The sketchiness of Samura's style, which I usually love, just wasn't able to make the fight clear. It was like watching a fight scene from The Man Of Steel movie. The camera swings around wildly, you have no idea who is attacking whom, and what the results are. I had also lost all sense of the other characters by the time they showed up. It's only been a few days since I read the last volume but I couldn't remember where we'd last seen them, and what their current goals were.
This volume is about 1/3rd of the way through the series, so I'm going to continue to power through it, but I found both volumes of The Gathering a bit wanting. I think comic readers unfamiliar with manga will have an even more difficult time following the action and the story.
Unfortunately, the beginning of this book: the continuation of a battle from the last volume is Potentially Interesting. I like the idea of starting a story in media res, almost as much as I dislike that the last volume ended in the middle of a battle. But the fight itself isn't depicted well. The sketchiness of Samura's style, which I usually love, just wasn't able to make the fight clear. It was like watching a fight scene from The Man Of Steel movie. The camera swings around wildly, you have no idea who is attacking whom, and what the results are. I had also lost all sense of the other characters by the time they showed up. It's only been a few days since I read the last volume but I couldn't remember where we'd last seen them, and what their current goals were.
This volume is about 1/3rd of the way through the series, so I'm going to continue to power through it, but I found both volumes of The Gathering a bit wanting. I think comic readers unfamiliar with manga will have an even more difficult time following the action and the story.