Customer Reviews

Rave Master, Vol. 1

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

 

 

i think this book is awsome!!it starts out with haru glory thats never left his home at garage island.so the old ravemaster comes to town and figures out that haru can use the raves and then he wants haru to be the next ravemaster so haru says ok and then the story of the ravemaster begins!!!

I am 12 years old.I went to Borders today and got volume 1 + 2.I Think both anime and manga are good.

Don't bother getting this now, the series is out-of-date, try a newer 'Hiro Mashima' Sensei series.
Might just be me but this type of style just doesn't work for me...... I found myself read it, then getting the next book 2, then on to the next. but something just didn't feel right, not connecting at all here.

My thoughts:

I love the humor in the story and the character attributes of Haru. He is very considerate, noble, yet humble; and kicks butt too. Not only that, but he doesn't have totally off-the-wall anime hair (thank goodness). I will for sure be acquiring the next book in the series.

Things to consider:

There are violence scenes with blood spilling (but no "guts" type gore). So far there are no scantily dressed girls, which are common in manga, nor foul language. I would rate this for pre-teens and note that it is geared more towards boys.

Full review at: http://booksforyouth.com/2009/03/03/rave-master-volume-1-by-hiro-mashima/ .

Hiro Mashima, Rave Master, vol. 1 (Tokyopop, 1999)

Not at all what I was expecting, this. Superhero manga stuff (for some reason I'd thought it was a shojo series)-- Haru Glory, the new Rave Master, must save the world from Demon Card, who are basically an organized crime outfit. Great use of Engrish here, though whether that's to be blamed on the author or translators is unknown. The opening volume introduces us to Haru, his older sister Cattleya (named after a species of orchid), and their... what is that thing, anyway?... Nakajima. They live on Garage Island, well out of the way of the events of the wider world, and everything's going along swimmingly, until Haru, fishing one day, catches Plue. We have no idea what Plue is. Looks kind of like a dog with a unicorn's horn in place of a nose. Plue's owner comes looking for him, and members of demon card come looking for Plue's owner, bringing the chaos of the outside world to Garage Island. And away we go! Good, solid action and silly dialogue make this one a lot of fun to read. ****

I finally got this book today, and it rocked! It's well drawn, and extremely funny. It's different from the anime, that's for sure, but I like the manga better. The charecters look different from the anime too. However, this is still an awsome! Oh, by the way, Plue is absolutly adorable!

I am 12 years old. I like anime, including this one. This manga is awesome. It is about 16-year old Haru Glory, who lives on Garage Island. While fishing, he fishs out a weird creatue. He meets an old man named Shiva, who was a Rave Master 50 years ago but can't use the power of Rave, which is a small stone in a shape of a sword. The creature Haru fished was Plue who tried to help him save the world 50 years ago. Now Haru is the new Rave Master and he must leave the island to save the world. Please only read this if you are 11 or older because this is some blood and cursing in this manga. This is the first manga I read.

Courageous teen hero + giant sword + magic talisman + missing parent + destined fight against evil = typical shonen manga.

Nobody can really accuse Hiro Mashima of too much originality in the first volume of "Rave Master." But for a newbie manga author (who was only in his early twenties at the time) it's not half bad for a beginning, and has enough comedy, action and promise that it might just become more enjoyable in the future (don't worry, it definitely does).

Hary Glory is fishing when he captures a weird doglike creature with a conical nose. While he's showing it to a friend of his, he encounters an even weirder old man named Shiba... who turns out to be the legendary Sword Saint Shiba from fifty years before, and the cone-nosed creature (named Plue) is the keeper of the powerful Rave Stones. They were lost in the devastating Overdrive, and now Shiba is searching for them.

Then a thug from the evil organization known as Demon Card arrives and attacks Shiba -- and Rave unexpectedly choose Haru as its new bearer. Haru is ready to take up Shiba's old job, but his sister is violently opposed to him leaving, since their father vanished years ago. However, Demon Card has discovered Garage Island and is intent on finding Rave...

"Rave Master Volume 1" is a manga collection full of cliches that you'll find in many an action manga or movie -- giant swords, purehearted teen heroes, idyllic little villages, old men with catastrophic pasts, and so on. It's not a bad manga, but it doesn't show a spark of originality (or even much of a plot, really). Yet. There's still room to expand -- lots of it.

Mashima does however have a very nice style of art -- it's rather simple as befits a newbie, but it's steady and smoothly-drawn, and has some nice action scenes and comic moments ("IT'S BEEN FIFTY YEARS!"). And while many aspects of the series are unexplained (okay, what makes the Dark Bring and the Raves?), he seems to be laying out groundwork for future revelations about Demon Card and the Rave. Not to mention the past events involving the Dark Bring.

Haru Glory is as yet a rather unformed character, but he's a likable kid who bases his choices and his beliefs on his idolized older sister. And he grows in the latter half of this manga volume, especially when he suffers some doubts about the right thing to do -- stay with his sister or go and save the world. Shiba is rather too goofy for a legendary hero (even an aged one), and Plue.... well, I don't know what Plue and Nakajima (a flower face embedded on a house) are.

"Rave Master 1" is a pack of cliches with solid-but-not-exceptional artwork, but the series improves from here on -- just stick it out. It's a decent start for a novice manga artist, and Hiro Mashima is just revving up.

Ahhh,yes. Okay I'll stop acting weird now. Rave master is the first of the mangas Ive read in years that makes sense. The storyline is simple. Haru has been living on Garage island, the average out of the way island.He has lived with cattelya,his sister, nakaima,a flower/sun thingy, and Gemma, who can laugh whenever,whereever, and forever.that changes when he finds plue, a little creature called Rave bearer.And Demon card comes and litteraly destroys the town. And haru meets up with a guy named shiba, who tells him he can punch through12 foot thick brickwalls,jump 50 feet in the air, and use the legenday ten powers sword. I wont ruin the ending, but it is a great book.

I heard good things about Rave Master from multiple sites, one of them being this one. Eventually it ended up in a book order, and so I ordered it. I was disappointed.

You COULD buy this manga, and waste $8.00 on something you won't enjoy unless you enjoy unoriginality, boring storylines, a typical protagonist with a typical objective, and an equally unoriginal villain, or group of villains. Or you could buy something that is actually good, like .hack//Legend of The Twilight or Naruto.

(or Fullmetal Alchemist, which is available through fan scanlations online. Best manga in my opinion.)