Manga Review – Drifters Vol 1 by Kohta Hirano (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy/Manga
Length: 216 pages
Publisher: Dark Horse Manga
Release Date: September 13, 2011
ISBN-13: 978-1595827692
Stand Alone or Series: 1st volume in the Drifters series
Source: Bought
Rating: 3/5 stars
“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!”
Series Info/Source: This is the first volume in the Drifters series. I bought this book.
Story (3/5): The concept here is an interesting one, if not fully fleshed out in this volume. Basically, heroes from human history are thrown into this one fantasy world where they become Drifters. The Drifters fight in a giant battle with a number of magical creatures. It is a cool idea but completely confusing in how it is presented.
Characters (3/5): At first it looks like we are going to get a solid group of characters to interact with but then more and more and more characters are rapidly thrown at the reader. By the end of it all I had no idea who was who or what they were doing or where they were from. It started out with some pretty kick-butt characters but dissolved into complete chaos.
Setting (3/5): Again, this was a neat idea but ended up confusing. This seems to be set on a fantasy world that warrior humans are teleported to. It started out pretty engaging but then dissolved into a mess.
Writing/Drawing Style (3/5): This is all drawn in Hirano’s trademark illustration style (It’s overly characterized and bloody.) which I love. There are lots of pages of battles which were a bit hard to follow because of all the characters thrown in and all the scene changes. I feel like Hirano tried to do too much too fast and kind of lost everything on the way there.
My Summary (3/5): Overall I loved Hellsing and wanted to love this as well but it was just too chaotic and messy. By the end I wasn’t even sure what was happening here or who the main characters were. Ugh, this is a series I am setting aside because it is just so poorly done and I am soooo disappointed. I hope for the sake of fans who continue to read this that future volumes are better.
