Quick Reviews: Gyakushu and Recast

I have been doing some home improvement projects lately that require me to shift all my manga from one shelf to another. It’s a slow process because I keep getting distracted by … the manga. Anyway, here are brief reviews of two older titles from Tokopop, Gyakushu and Recast.

Gyakushu, vol. 1, by Dan Hipp: Boy, is this a depressing book. The plot is straightforward and not particularly original: A guy messes with the wrong people, and they kill his wife, kidnap his son, and beat him to the point of death. Years later, the guy—still swathed in bandages—comes back to seek revenge. This is a fairly grim and bloody example of the genre, with lots of cleavers and hooks and people getting their arms chopped off, plus a cannibal villain. It’s all made worse by the narrator, a little old man with a wooden nose, who keeps popping up and telling you it’s a grim story and it will not end well. Yes, thanks, that was obvious from about page five. With his mannered speech and constant repetition, this little man is more irritating than helpful. Hipp’s art is the strong point of this book; he works with strong lines and jagged swaths of black and white, with a single gray tone but little modulation. Flashbacks are the same only grayed out. The dramatic style serves the story well, but the story itself is so brutal and violent, and so lacking in any subtlety or redeeming features, that I ultimately found this book unsatisfying.

Recast, vol. 1, by Seung-Hui Kye: This is a solid battle/fantasy story propelled forward by lots of action. The hero, JD, is pretty much your standard shonen hero—he’s the son of a powerful magician, he has powers and skills beyond those of normal people, but he’s also something of a slacker who sneaks out of magic lessons to play soccer. Almost from the start of the book, though, he has to put his skills to use against increasingly serious foes. Kye creates a complicated universe but explains it well, so the story is easy to follow. The art is clear, although as in all manga like this, a lot of the fighting is indicated by speed lines alone, which I sometimes find hard to decipher. There are some nice stand-alone pieces of fantasy art in here, and the story is quite readable. Recast isn’t the greatest story ever told, but it’s a solid ten bucks of fast-moving fantasy action.

It’s strange that I would enjoy Recast, which is a pretty derivative title, more than the obviously literary Gyakushu. Hipp has good intentions, and you can’t argue with the quality of his art, but his story is too stark. There’s nothing there but violence. Recast, on the other hand, doesn’t try to be anything other than light-hearted fun. The art is standard issue, but the story is enjoyable, just the thing for relaxing after a day of moving furniture.