07-Ghost Review or Why I don’t read Shonen
Here’s the basic plot of 07-Ghost volume 1, or as much of it as I could figure out: There’s a kid, Teito who was once a slave but is now an elite student at a military academy. He’s got his best friend Mikage and that’s pretty much it. He overhears something he shouldn’t and ends up having to hijack an aircraft. He crashes into a mountain but is saved by four (hot) bishops who take him to the church where he’s granted sanctuary and nuns give him a bath. Then, he has flashbacks and other stuff happens and a demon tries to eat his soul by giving him his one wish? But thankfully the bishops are skilled fighters and finally a mermaid shows up. Yay, a shape- shifting mermaid! He and the mermaid fall in love but he also has confusing feelings for Mikage. I made that last part up. But that’s what I wanted to happen once I got to the mute mermaid.
I realized then that I am not this book’s reader. I should probably not be its reviewer either but here I am. The problem with 07-Ghost is not that it’s a conventional shonen manga but that I’m not a conventional shonen reader because:
1 There’s about a million characters in a shonen manga and practically all of them are male. There’s only so many hairstyles you can use to differentiate the enormous testosterone driven cast and, inevitably, a few thousand of them are going to look alike. In 07-Ghost I have lost track of who’s who and it’s only the first volume.
2. The fight scenes give me vertigo. I have to hand it to the Japanese. I had never seen fighting like this until I opened a manga. It makes Batman look downright lethargic. There’s extreme close ups, fast action lines, panels crossing each other and blood splatter everywhere, it’s amazing. Unfortunately, there’s extreme close ups, fast action lines, panels crossing each other and blood splatter everywhere. I can’t keep up and usually end up flipping to the end of the battle and hope I can tell who won by who’s left standing. If the main character is in a battle that makes it easier since he’s almost certain to win.
3. The storylines are plot driven and therefore somewhat convoluted. In 07-Ghost Teito is a slave raised by a Father in the church and is a the true son of the King of Raggs. (Yes, the kingdom is actually named Raggs.) And they are protecting the Eye of Mikhail which is now in Teito but the neighboring kingdom broke a treaty and on and on and on. I can’t even get into the demons and church politics which are actually somewhat interesting. Now, if you’re a regular shonen reader you’ll probably love it. If you’re used to all the clans in Naruto then two kingdoms with about 10 Districts seems simple, I’m sure.
I have the other two volumes – thanks Go!Comi sale – so I’m going to be a trooper and stick with it. My final assessment is that it’s a conventional shonen series. It’s lacking the heart and humor of better series like Yu-gi-oh but for regular readers there is probably a lot to enjoy. Goodreads shonen readers certainly seem to like it so I trust there’s something there that I’m missing.
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Comments
Your comment about the fight scenes is spot on. These are not done very well. A lot of shounen fight scenes don’t make sense in a cinematic sense, but more of an impressionistic or even gestalt sense. There isn’t even that here; these are a visual mess.
I read a lot of shounen and I rather like this series. But I’m not sure it’s all that much like shounen series – too many attractive males. There something about a lot of attractive characters running around in weird religious garb that’s so appealing.
Not a bad read so far – just don’t dwell on the action scenes.
This is considered Shonen? I’ve read up to volume 3 and never thought of it that way…As a Fujoshi, I always felt like this title was geared towards a female reader (especially given the cover of the first volume). I also think the amount of male/bishounen characters is mainly for eye candy purposes. Of course, many fujoshi read shonen manga, so I suppose that wouldn’t really change anything,haha. However,as a 20-something female reader, I really couldn’t see an 8 year old boy gravitating towards this…
Haha, there is a lot about good looking men in religious garb. I picked up this series because it looked like a fantasy manga geared toward women but there were so many shonen-like aspects that I got hung up on and that got me thinking about why I don’t read shonen series. That’s what I focused on. I was using shonen in a really broad sense, from younger boys through teens. I can really see this appealing to a teenage fantasy reader.
Teito acts and looks very young. I know that’s not necessarily the case…any ideas how old he is? I was thinking 11-12.
I’m going to give the last two a try because I am curious about the bishops and the demons.
As kel aka gandy mentioned, this runs in a shoujo magazine.I think the reason this comes off as a shonen manga is due to the fact that it runs in Monthly Comic Zero Sum, which has a lot of titles that aren’t stereotypically “shoujo”. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s the same magazine Saiyuki Reload, Dolls, and Loveless run in. Zero Sum has more variety genre wise, and it’s definitely geared towards female readers–I’d also say that it’s a bit fujoshi friendly too, hehe. There’s also other genre crossing titles like Wild Adapter and Banana Fish…
As for Teito’s age, he’s definitely a teenager…I always assumed he was between 15-16 years old.
[...] Sesho devotes two podcasts (part 1, part 2) to Shonen Sunday. Sadie Mattox’s review of vol. 1 of 07-Ghost turns into a critique of shonen manga in general, which makes for interesting reading. Other [...]