Review – Deva Zan by Yoshitaka Amano (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 300 pages
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Release Date: February 5, 2013
ISBN-13: 978-1616550301
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Bought
Rating: 4/5 stars

This is a stand alone book done by the artist Amano who has contributed art to both the Vampire HUnter D series as well as Final Fantasy (among a million other things). He is one of my favorite artists, so when I stumbled upon this in Half Price Books I was excited to pick it up.

This book deals with the mythology of Japanese Buddhism. In this book the twelve Juni Jinsho stood guard over the cosmos, each guarding a point on the zodiac…now they have vanished leaving humanity to fight against the forces of darkness on their own. Enter Deva Zan, a samurai with no memory who ends up journeying through time and space to find the Juni Jinsho and help restore their memory.

This book contains some amazing artwork, which I absolutely loved. The art pretty much makes this book. The book is amazingly well put together, it is a large volume with huge color plates and very high quality.

The story was decent and focuses mainly on Japanese mythology and one samurai’s quest to find the Juni Jinsho and help them remember themselves. The Juni Jinsho themselves end up being pretty stereotypical characters who vary in quality; some of them are incredibly interesting and some are forgettable.

The story is decently done, but can be a bit confusing and ambiguous at times. It jumps around some in space and time, but in the end everything came together nicely. The story does lag a bit at some points and, to be honest, it was the awesome art rather than the story that really drove me to keep reading the story.

Overall this book had some amazing art and a decent story. I enjoyed learning some about the Juni Jinsho and enjoyed some of the characters throughout. The art, more than story, was what made this book engaging. I would recommend for fans of Amano’s art and also for fans of the Vampire Hunter D series (the story has a similar tone to it).

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Graphic Novel Reading Challenge
– Mythology Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge