Customer Reviews

Dragon Head, Vol. 10

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

SPOILER ALERT!

Right, so, this is a bit like The Drifting Classroom with less students and teenagers rather than gradeschoolers. What that means is something has gone horribly wrong with the world, and the young survivors are trying to survive and find their way home (despite the fact that there obviously is no home to go to). There are also blantant "Lord of the Flies" ripoffs, which I can handle because William Golding was pretty much dead right on how humanity, particularly children, ends up handling itself in disaster.

Overall, I found the series interesting enough, though the comparison to Battle Royale was a decided stretch. At least there was actual movement and an attempt to figure out exactly what happened. The thing that cheeses me off is that the back cover of this last volume in the series pretty much promises to explain everything and let you know what happens to the two main protagonists.

Not really. There are numerous suggestions regarding what might have happened, covering everything from natural disaster, government conspiracy, and even so really excessively insane idea from a brain research center. As to the characters, everything really starts going to hell at the very end and... the end.

I don't mind books that leave you hanging to decide what might have happened, but when I'm told by a book that I will have all my answers and a firmish conclusion and I DON'T get that, I get snarky.

Much like the Manga Old Boy, the build up is so intense that when you finally hit the end you feel a little, "What? That's it??? Are you kidding me???"

It's still an interesting series, worth reading for those who like this post-apopolytic manga style, but don't expect a powerful and/or clear ending.

Minetaro Mochizuki, Dragon Head, vol. 10 (Tokyopop, 2000)

And the saga of Dragon Head comes to an end. As with most manga I've read, that end feels quite abrupt, but it's still a somewhat satisfying conclusion. We finally find out what caused the disaster (it's probably not what you're thinking... but the idea has since been ripped off for a silly comedy film), what happened to Teru's family, and we get some resolution with the Iwada/Seto storyline, which disappeared for a couple of volumes. I would have liked to see a more concrete final few pages, but it's forgivable. A solid series all the way around. ***

Minetaro Mochizuki's sprawling, epic, post-apocalyptic series, "Dragon Head" comes to a close with this book, Volume #10. While vol #10 serves adequately as a wrap-up volume the actual amount of story density doesn't quite do the series full justice and falls just short of receiving a bonafide '5 stars' in my opinion. The 5-star rating I've given to this book is more of an extended rating to this series in general. For 10 straight manga volumes Mochizuki has crafted an engaing storyline with plenty of mayhem, intrigue and horror alongside some truly fantastic artwork filled with panels crammed full of detail. For fans of post-apocalyptic fiction this is certainly a series not be missed out on.

On another note, after recently completing the videogame 'Fallout 3,' and reading through this series I have a very strong suspicion that the designers of the game took plenty of inspiration from this series. The whole imagery of traversing through the underground metro tracks (Fallout) seems pulled directly from these books along with other visual touches such as decayed cities with corpses hung from street lights.