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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Part of the whole., July 17, 2007
This review is from: Read or Die, Vol. 1 (R.O.D.: Read or Die) (Paperback)
First, don't read this manga until you have finished both the Read Or Die OVA and the Read Or Dream TV series. The mangas were based ON the anime, so they should come first. The information in the books, in the form of flashbacks, really only make sense after viewing those anime episodes. Otherwise it may not make sense The artwork is good, the story is smooth but the action is sometimes hard to follow. The fight scenes can get right down confusing. At least Ms. Readman, Paper, is still as cute and as weird as ever. Some of the subject matter is adult, so only for older teens.
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5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Gorgeous Artwork, Crappy Storytelling, May 4, 2006
This review is from: Read or Die, Vol. 1 (R.O.D.: Read or Die) (Paperback)
Honestly, it takes more than pretty pictures to make a good manga. I really enjoyed the original "Read or Die" OVA but I've never seen the TV series. I saw this manga at the bookstore and thought I'd give it a try. Boy, I won't make that mistake again! The action is very choppy and the dialogue is so disjointed, it's difficult at times to figure out what is going on. Maybe if I'd seen the TV series, the book would make more sense, but as it is, there's a lot of vital information missing, which leaves the reader flipping pages and wondering "what just happened?" This is a common problem for amateur cartoonists who have a clear picture of the action in their minds but lack the storytelling finesse to actually pace out the panels so the story makes sense to someone who DOESN'T already know it. I would never expect such narrative ineptness from a "professional" manga artist. Besides the sloppy pacing, the story here is ... well ... just plain STUPID. Seriously, it was dumb. I expected better from something set in the "Read or Die" universe. All that aside, the artwork is really gorgeous. Shutaro Yamada's drawing style is easy to look at, particularly the sexy cheesecake (or should I say "fanservice") shots of the cute girl characters. A lot of this seemed gratuitous - I don't want to give anything away, but there's a scene with some costume changes which seem to be there just for the sake of drawing the character in a variety of skimpy cosplay outfits. There's certainly no justifiable PLOT reason for it, and sadly even that bit of titillation is not enough to compel me to keep this book. It's going up for sale, used.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Silliness., September 15, 2009
This review is from: Read or Die, Vol. 1 (R.O.D.: Read or Die) (Paperback)
Hideyuki Kurata, Read or Die vol. 1: Mr. Woo's Woes (ViZ, 2000) It's a no-brainer that a manga series called Read or Die (changed after four volumes to Read or Dream) would catch the eye of a voracious reader like yours truly. It proved to be kind of hard to track down, however, and I've finally gotten my hands on the first volume of the series almost three years after I first heard about it. And honestly, I'm not entirely sure what to say about it. There are so many things about this first volume that I loved, and so many that...well, I didn't love. Based on an original anime, Read or Die is the story of Yumiko Readman, a papermaster (think of Musica the silverclaimer in Rave Master, but with paper). She mainly works for the Library of England tracking down stolen volumes with a handler known only as Joker, but she does have some autonomy as well. She gets herself hired at a Japanese high school attended one of her favorite authors, sixteen-year-old Nenene Sumiregawa. The two of them do not exactly get off to the greatest of beginnings, but all that changes when the two of them find out that Sumiregawa has a very dangerous stalker. Worse yet, the stalker's sidekick is a master of the only thing potentially deadly to a papermaster... There is a particular style of manga I've encountered a handful of times that drives me nuts. It attempts a sort of impressionism, giving you about half the information you need to put together a coherent story from the images you've seen. Guys, it's not cool. It's really, really annoying. And the first half of this book is loaded with it. Also, some of Yumiko's mannerisms are liable to get on your nerves almost immediately. ("I'm a big fan!") On the other hand, the sexual undertones are just plain hot (and really, that's harder to do than it sounds in animation), and once the story actually gets on track, it's pretty darned good. I'm hoping the first half of this volume is an aberration, and it'll pick up in volume 2. ***
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