Customer Reviews

Read or Die, Vol. 1 (R.O.D.: Read or Die)

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

 

 

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.

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.

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. ***

Unlike the two reviewers below me, i enjoyed this a lot. It is a completely different part of the story. And that is why its good. The original anime one was about yomiko, the rod the tv, was about the paper sisters and nenene. This book introduces Nenene and Yomiko before the original. This is a buy, it is great.

Yomiko Readman is what is known in the world of Read Or Die as a "Paper Master", meaning she can fashion all kinds of things, including weapons, vehicles, and shields to use in her role as an agent of the British Library under the codename "The Paper". On top of that she's what you would call an ardent bibliophile. Actually, that's a bit too mild of a description. Yomiko gets sexually aroused near a good book and falls in love with them. The rarer the book, the more ecstasy she enjoys! As the manga opens she, along with her boss, Joker, meet up with an illicit rare book dealer and the deal soon goes south. The main storyline of the book concerns a young high school student who is also a famous writer. Her name is Nenene Sumiregawa and Yomiko has fallen in love with her through reading her work. Someone has been stalking Nenene and Yomiko has been sent in undercover as a subsitute teacher to keep an eye on her. It's a good thing too because soon after Yomiko arrives there is a kidnapping attempt!

I really wanted to like this manga because I have enjoyed the anime incarnations of ROD, and also because while not a bibliolunatic like Yomiko, I do have a love for reading, so I can relate to the subject. But I was really disappointed with Volume 1. Yomiko, instead of being the likable but powerful klutz in the anime is here seen as a complete loser missing a brain. The villains of the piece are just as bad. Fire Inc, a woman who can bend flames to her will, initiates her powers by striking giant matches! The main villain is even worse, with overblown dialogue and laughing telepathically transferred from Dr. Evil! It just came off as a little kid's book instead of a more sophisticated read. The anime had an air of slick coolness which this manga sorely missed. While this book was pretty awful, it was entertaining enough in its own sorry way. The art was great but the dialogue bubbles were poorly placed or did not indicate direction, so a lot of the time you are confused as to who is talking. I read a lot of manga, so if I get confused, that means a more casual reader would be at a total loss. What a waste. Another strike against this book is that the sound effects are translated totally into English. I much prefer the Japanese to be left intact with small English translations underneath when needed. If you're a fan of the ROD franchise, it's worth reading this to get more of the story, but for other readers, skip it.

The storyline in the manga pre-dates the orginal anime release and the television production. It involves a few of the character in the original but only a couple. The manga leaves the orginal fan base and delves into new territoy, leaving a bad taste in my mouth. The character designs head for the 18+ and male only crowd while the plot line drops down into the 10+ age group. Sadly, I won't be buying the rest of the series.

Just picked this book up (for whatever reason I've noticed that this and other titles are getting released sooner than shown on amazon.com) and just finished reading it tonight. I guess the appropriate responses in one word are for the art: Yeah! for the story: huh?

The plot in this is really atrocious and for fans of the OVA while that plot was also silly, they will find that none of the cool characters like Ms. Deep appear. Instead only Joker, Mr. Gentleman and Yomiko are there. As a prequel this is okay but given that it's a prequel we would expect the story to feature some great backstory to the British Library service, Joker (just what is story as we learn what he becomes in the TV show) and likewise a truly sad (and by that I mean Lame) 'twist' for Yomiko's origin. Being very liberal, I was also very surprised at the amount of suggestive tones within. Manga should be liberated in its' approach to stories but I just found some of the plots here and suggestions to be so ridiculous and lame in service to the plot as presented that my intelligence was insulted.

Still, the art is really amazing. Very clean lines allow for some gorgeous environments and characters. My only complaint is that the fight scenes are difficult to follow (unlike the absurdedly fun anime fights).

This volume is adapted from a novel (which makes the lack of plot even more silly) but the next three are original. I love the characters and concepts from the anime so much..I'm willing to give this a try. If it doesn't improve in volume 2 though both may be on this site's used page for resell.