Customer Reviews

Dragon Hunt (Warcraft: The Sunwell Trilogy, Book 1)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Based upon the enormously popular PC, video, and role-playing games comes this first part in the Warcraft graphic novel "Sunwell Trilogy" from TokyoPop. "Dragonhunt" opens with a prologue detailing the rich history of the Warcraft universe in which the Titans go about creating worlds and breathing life into them throughout the universe. They create the Well of Eternity upon the world of Azeroth, leaving flights of dragons to protect their creation. Azeroth soon becomes a battle ground as the Titans former champion, the Dark Titan Sargeras, corrupted by evil and with hordes of orcs led by the Lich King, seeks the Well for his own. The cataclysmic battle sunders the world into fragmented landmasses. The story begins as the Lich King, Arthas seeks to rebuild his citadel and humans and orcs enter join in an uneasy alliance to battle Arthas' undead Scourge.

An injured blue dragon, Kalec, now in human form is assisted by a young girl Anveena to escape those who are hunting him. Kalec explains that the dragons are seeking a great source of power and he was sent by Malygos, the Lord of the Blue Dragons, to find this power. But he's not the only one searching for it. An evil elf, Dar'khan, servant of the Lich King is also seeking the power which he reveals as the Sunwell, source of elven power, created out of the destruction of the Well of Eternity. Dar'khan captures Kalec and Anveena and only the intervention of another blue dragon, Kalec's mate Tyrygosa, allows them to escape. They soon learn that Anveena's home houses a secret...an egg which a tiny dragon hatches from. Could this be the source of the power that everyone is searching for? Where will their journey lead them from here?

Dragonhunt was an outstanding start to this trilogy. Having not been overly familiar with the Warcraft Universe, I found the history rich, colorful and detailed. There certainly seems to be some Tolkien influence, particularly in the prologue, but it still cuts a nice, unique world, all its own. A lot of action was tossed at you very fast and there wasn't a great deal of character development so hopefully we will delve into these various characters in the succeeding volumes. It's interesting to see the blend of heroic fantasy done with a Manga style. Since Warcraft is a known commodity with legions of fans, people may be predisposed of how it should look, but I thought the art of Jae-Hwan Kim was superb and fit very well. Kim is one of the best artists in Manga today, having worked on the terrific "King of Hell" series, also from TokyoPop. He's got a clean, yet very detailed style and handles action sequences deftly.

The story was written by Richard Knaak, one of the tops in the heroic fantasy genre. Knaak has written such huge hits as "The Legend of Huma" and The Minotaur Wars, set in the Dragonlance world, as well as Warcraft novels "Day of the Dragon" and "The Well of Eternity." In addition to Warcraft, Knaak has also written novels based on the "Diablo" PC game so he has a strong background in adapting gaming environments to novels. Knaak and Kim have succeeded in creating not only a gorgeous graphic novel, but a marvelous heroic fantasy story, with lively characters and an intriguing plotline. A must for fans of Manga, Warcraft, or heroic fantasy!

From what I've seen of Manga, the art in this book far exceeds the norm. Detailed and beautiful drawings capture the wonder of the world of Warcraft nicely. Characters are developed and defined by the expressions on their faces and the cloths that they wear. It is amazing that so much of the feeling behind the story can come straight from the visuals. It almost seemed like you could get through this book without even really needing to read any of the dialogue.

While I was a bit disapointed in the story as a whole, it may just be because I am so used to reading novels that I have a hard time appreciating the simplicity of the story, or it may be that much of this book was devoted to laying the foundation for more Warcraft mangas to come. Either way I will definitely get the next one as soon as I see it.

One thing is for sure though, the artist for this book deserves far more of the credit than Richard Knaak.. This seems like something Knaak could pound out in just a couple of days while the detail in the art makes me believe that much, much more time was invested in that part of the work.

Dragon Hunt was, by far, a disappointment. I'm sure I'm not the first to ay how excited I was to see the World of Warcraft franchise extending its hand into the world of printed media, but the result, while not horrific, was extraordinarily mediocre.

I received my copies of the first two volumes of the Sunwell Trilogy as prizes for winning one of the WoW comic contests this past year, and even the fact that I got them for free couldn't cover up how poor I thought they were. The art is impressive, I must admit, and is towards the higher-end of manga, but it's generic and in no way reflects the already gorgeous and well-established visual style within the Warcraft universe. Similarly, the writing style and storyline, as has been said in previous reviews, goes on and on like any typical high fantasy novel and has little or no reason to be set in Azeroth. World of Warcraft is renowned for its stylized design, clean gameplay, and a well-honed sense of humor- why would that then be stripped away to write a story about bishounen elves who can turn into dragons? Search me.

I don't know about you, but in my manga, I like to read pages of a background story in minute detail, beginning with the creation of the world, and spanning thousands of years, through catacyclsm after catacylsm. Races and cities rise and fall, lots of good folks just inexplicably go "mad," and that's all before the art! No, actually, I don't.

Warcraft is written by a guy whose imagination is in overdrive. If this is a trilogy, and not a thirty-volume manga, such a background story was really uneccesary. What saves this manga is the art.

Korean artist Jae-Hwan Kim draws really exciting art. You feel like you are in the story. Kim has an incredible sense of space, dimension, and proportion. The characters designs and clothing are to die for. The men are men's men, but wear intricate clothing and armor. The women are beautiful, with lovely clothes. Forests and mountains don't look like backdrops, but like the real thing. You can almost smell the pine trees.

Richard A. Knaak has a "knack" for storytelling, when the manga finally begins. It is a good tale of good vs. evil in a fantasy land. Dragon Kalec has taken human form when he is attacked by a band of orcs led by a dragon-hating dwarf. Injured, Kalec is led to safety by a beautiful, naiive peasant girl named Anveena.

Anveena is so dumb, she makes TV's Crank Yanker's Special Ed look like a genius. (Yay!) If she were as ugly as she is stupid, Kalec would run like hell. As it is, she is very pretty, and Kalec feels a bond with her, even though he is engaged to the Dragon Tyrl. Tyrl is smart, beautiful, and arrogant. Soon they are engaged in bloody, (well-drawn) battles with orcs and the undead. Seeing someone fighting with his guts hanging out is pretty cool.

I would get this trilogy just for the art.

I found this to be a weak start to what I assume will be a weak source of lore. I should have looked more closely at the description and seen that this was a manga. I guess it's fine if you like that kind of thing, but I was hoping for more storyline, less half-naked girls and men who look like half-naked girls. Unless you simply stare at the artwork, which is fine if you enjoy ink sketches with no color, it will take you no longer than 30 minutes to read this from cover to cover. Half of that time was spent reading the prologue which is a descent summary of "The History of the World of Warcraft."

My recommendation is, if you enjoy manga and Warcraft, you might like this book. If you're buying it for the lore, you're much better of checking out the wikis there's not a lot of content in this black and white comic book.

I finished reading the Warcraft Vol. 1 manga only last night, and I cannot wait for volume 2 to come out. First of all, the story is a classic, and an original. Esentially what you need to know to understand the story is that there is a well of energy called the Sunwell, which was destroyed during a war. Dragons, the most supreme and powerful beings on the planet, are drawn to the energy, although the exact location of it is unknown. Kalec, a blue dragon, is seeking to discover more on the sunwell, and reveal some of its secrets. However, he is being pursued, by others after the exact same thing. He meets two beautiful women along the way, one of them a fellow blue dragon, and the other frees him from a trap in the beginning of the story. I won't tell any more about the story- I'm afraid I may have revealed too much already! The artwork is magnificent. It is, by far, the best drawing of ANY manga or graphic novel I've ever read- the details draw you into the situation as a reader. This comes from the same animator as 'King of Hell', another superb series. Richard Knaak, a New York Times Bestselling author, wrote the introduction, which initially engulfs you into the story, as well as the dialogue. It's worth WAY more than ten bucks of your money. If you love fantasy or have an obsession with dragons, this is a must-have. I'm already addicted beyond hope.

Excellent quality anime book my sons love this series and are happy to own this book, it was the only one they didn't have from this trilogy.

I starting reading this short series of manga a couple years back when WOW first came out. I had never played WOW, all my friends did though. I had played Warcraft, Warcraft 2, and Warcraft 3 though. I was in San Francisco with some friend and needed something to read on the BART on the way home, and saw it in a comic store in the Metreon Mall.

I first noticed that the art was a little different than Japanese artwork, or American artwork. I realized after reading it the first time, that it was actually drawn by a Korean guy. The art reminds me of the art of the horrible manga adaptation of Battle Royal. The art is a little too serious, but very detailed. The art looks very similar to the art in the game manual to Warcraft games.

There is a pretty good summary of the history of Warcraft in the first couple pages of the book. This is a good read for people that have no idea what Warcraft is about. The story really is complicated enough to be summarized in 10+ pages of text. The storyline in the actual manga is a little sappy. It follows the story of a shape-shifting dragon and his female counterpart. There are a lot of familiar races and scenarios to the Warcraft Canon. It is a true Warcraft manga, and not just a fantasy manga with a warcraft name. There is interesting back history to those that like to play Blood Elves as well. One of the main plot elements added to push the characters on is the classic RPG tag of "I have this cursed item stuck on me and I need to get it off, lets find "Random Guy" to take it off (maybe)".

I've played all the War Craft titles and have been playing WoW since launch and even have spent time inside the inner workings of Blizzard. Once again I am late in the review stack and others have done a great job so I will just say that the story is fair and the action is decent. What stands out the most is the artwork...blew me away and had me pausing at times to reflect...which is saying something seeings how my forte is reading text not artwork. Great job!

Also reading backstory and lore concerning Azeroth are never tiring and do nothing but enhance the game most of us love and are already playing. There are a few good pages of backstory on the Titans, Burning Legion, etc. prefaced in the book making it all worthwile. Good stuff and gobbled that up.

The price of the book is well worth what you get. So between the backstory and the artwork shes a winner...onto the next!

I liked this book quite a bit. I usually try to stay away from the whole manga/anime scene, but I'm a big Warcraft fan, and this was written by my favorite WC author, so I decided to give it a try.

The artwork, thank god, is very good. I was afraid it would be all big eyes and ridiculous poses, but the art is very reminiscent of what we've been seeing in the games and their manual illustrations for years. The artist does an excellent job of capturing the unique look and feel of the Warcraft world.

The story is also very good. There are several threads going on at once, and you get to read about all sorts of interesting characters and events. The downside, of course, is that this is part 1 of a trilogy, so a lot of time is spent setting things up for the next two books.