Manga Review: Ral Grad

Ral Grad
Written by Tsuneo Takana
Art by Takeshi Obata
Serialized by Shonen Jump Advanced
Published by Viz Media
Buy it at Amazon
Rated T+: For Older Teen

Many years ago, the world of light was thrown into a bloody war with the world of darkness. The humans fought against malicious creatures known as shadows, beasts that latch onto humans in order to survive in the world of light as parasites. The shadows had been cast out of their world, Le Noir by the new queen of darkness, Opsquria. In the midst of this war, a child named Ral was born with one of the five shadows of legend, the delire monstre or blue dragon, Grad. When it first appeared it completely destroyed everything around it. To prevent this from happening again, the baby's father locked him in a cage of darkness that no shadow could escape from. The boy remained there for 15 years, knowing only of the things his female tutor, Mio, had told him. Then, a band of powerful shadows attacked the castle and the aid of the dragon became required. They easily destroyed the entire fleet of shadows in minutes. Now that the boy and the dragon are free, they plan to track down and kill the evil queen Opsquria so that all the shadows may one day return to the land of Le Noir.

I found this to be a very enjoyable series. The medieval, alter-earth feel of the landscape and setting really drive the story forward. The art styling of this series is a perfect fit for it's fantasy based story-line. I find the way the author turned something as trivial as a shadow into such a major story piece astounding. It's one of the most original concepts I've ever heard of to say the least.

There were really only two points of the story that I found truly arguable. The first of these being that the comedy is almost completely based on physical exposure, stupidity, and ignorance of the main character. Long story short, don't buy this series expecting to laugh more than once unless you're a teenager. The second point is that the series felt like it was gradually speeding up as the story progressed. It felt like it was being rushed into it's ending. Not in a sense that it was so good that I'd just wanted to keep reading (and I did), but that they could've separated certain encounters and fights into more chapters and given them more detail. The main reason I didn't give this series five birds was because I felt it lacked detail and that the ending was rushed. Don't get me wrong though, the ending in and of itself, was still one of the best I've ever read. I just don't like how they shoved the appearance and fight with the last of the five legendary shadows, the final confrontation with Opsquria, and the resolution of the story into the last chapter. My only true wish for this series was that it had twice as many chapters so it could thoroughly explain and show the story as it was meant to be seen.

As for the characters themselves, Ral provides almost all of the action and comical relief himself. Although Mio is his official guardian character, she actually provides very little to the story. Then again, I guess that's to be somewhat expected when your in an action adventure series and your only special ability is being intelligent. Her only real roles in the story are being a human encyclopedia on shadows, and giving emotional support to the main character. However, if it wasn't for her this story would never have taken off. As for Grad, he kind of lacks a 3rd dimension (pardon the pun). Other than his kinship with Ral and his hatred for Opsquria, he doesn't really have any emotion or personality to speak of. Opsquria needed more dialog and more than one fight scene. For someone who was supposed to be the main antagonist of the series, she didn't do an incredible amount of work for the story other than explain minor details every few dozen chapters.(Please note, there are only 29 chapters in total). Finally, there were way too many characters who were introduced once and never did anything for the rest story. If you're going to add a character, then give that character at least one chapter of their own to explain who the heck they are. Stop leaving loose ends to tie up later.

In closing, this series is great for teenagers and young adults. I recommend it to fans of such series as "Rosario + Vampire"; ".hack//Legend of the Twilight"; and "Shaman King". If you enjoyed the art, you should also try the illustrator's other popular series: "Death Note", "Hikaru No Go", and "Bakuman"

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