Customer Reviews

Star Trek: CON EXCLUSIVE

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

 

 

As part of an ongoing manga invasion of the West, TokyoPop has tackled the original Star Trek series with a collection of tales infused with new energy for a generation that adores Eastern cartooning. A Trek fan from way back -- particularly the Kirk years -- I was intrigued and, yes, a little excited to set out on this new set of action-packed missions.

Unfortunately, it's not very good.

The black-and-white art isn't bad, really, although the five artists at work here don't have anything close to a unified style, making it hard sometimes to keep characters straight. It doesn't help that the artists apparently have no idea what McCoy or Chekov look like; at least you can always recognize Spock, because of his ears; Uhura, because she's a shade darker than the rest; and Kirk, because he's always in the thick of things and giving orders. But the stories range from bland to tedious.

by Tom Knapp, Rambles.(n e t) editor

As a fan of the classic Trek and a fan of manga, I figured I might like this, plus the novelty of owning a Star Trek manga is kind of a hilarious icebreaker I suppose

The stories are all passable, but come off more as pastiches of bad fanfiction with good drawings to go with them. Yeah, that was the Borg Queen, and yeah, the story was crap. The saucer seperation story was interesting too, but only because the saucer separates. Other stories vary from genuinely enjoyable to absolutely terrible (I'm looking at you Mobile Suit Pirate Boy story).

Nitpick, nobody, and I mean NOBODY, on anyt of the art teams was able to draw McCoy right and Chekov was definitely just average otaku stencil with a Beatle wig in most of them.

A translation of the title would have been lovely too

I'll give it four stars, but mostly because the attitude of Shatner drips off of all the manga Kirks, and you can absolutely hear Nimoy talking with most of Spock's dialogue, so they at least got the main two right.

Some more Uhura action would have been nice, have the girl fire a phaser or open a channel, just something

Anywho, the manga was good, the Trekking was good, so do pick this up and try it for yourself.

I got this chiefly because of the hype surrounding it. Seriously, I'm glad it was given to me as a gift, because I liked it far less than I thought I would. The artwork was okay, although the differing styles from artist to artist made it hard to follow. The stories reminded me of the lesser episodes of the Animated Series. In the strictest tradition of Star Trek, this was pretty much what Fry said in Futurama: "79 episodes... about 20 good ones"... this was about 25% good at best. I kind of saw the Borg story coming about a mile away.

If you really want this, get it as a gift. I really thought this would be interesting and good, but at best it was interestingly-different.

My best friend bought me this for Hanukkah. He asked me if he could borrow it after I was done with it. I'm kind of tempted to just let him have it.

This was a BIIIG disappointment for me. I saw this and thought "Oh, that's that new Star Trek thing!" I'm a Trekkie and I love TOS, so I got it, thinking "It must be good!" Well, it was to manga like Enterprise was to live-action Star Trek TV shows--horrid. It was as if they said "It's Star Trek, right? Well, they should be happy with it! Who cares about storylines and stuff like that?"

#1("Side Effects"): Horrible artwork. I didn't really like the Borg thing (I think V'Ger started the Borg, for all those who've seen the first movie), but the story was ok. I have to keep saying it, though--HORRIBLE artwork. Everyone looks like a deer in the headlights!

#2("Anything but Alone"): Pretty good for artwork. The art fits the TOS theme--old-fashioned, like something you'd see in the '50s or '60s. The story feels as if it was hurried. It probably would've been better in an hour TV show.

#3("Til Death"): My favorite. The art is strange, not really great but not bad either. The story is inventive, another 'doomsday' thing, but one thing that wrecks it is that, once again, they seem to have sped up the story to not make the volume too fat.

#4("Oban"): My least favorite. The art is the worst in the whole volume (most of the time it doesn't look right at all) and the story makes no sense. Sometimes I don't know what's going on!

#5("Orphans"): Pretty good; my second favorite. The mecha angle was ok, but they were playing second fiddle most of the time. The whole thing was a little too much like Gundam Wing (kids flying mobile suits, considered pirates by a lot of people...) Sometimes the art was pretty funny, though.

Memories from my 2007 summer reading list:

I rather enjoyed the managa adaption of classic trek. I remember thinking the art work of the main characters lacked consistency from story to story. It was a satisfying enough read and I would certainly read it again and will probably put volume II on this summer's list.

This "Manga style" illustrated novel has several short stories or episodes centering around The Original Star Trek TV series. Each short story is written and illustrated by a different writer and artist. Because of this, each story has it's own unique style.

I think this concept is very interesting and has the potential to keep this series fresh and creative. The dialog in these books are pretty true to the Original Series and the artwork is very good too.

I was impressed with Volume one of this series of Manga. Having seen every episode of The Original Series on TV, this book had some very interesting stories to tell. The character dialog stayed true to the TV series and the artwork was very good. I think fans old and new would enjoy this first volume. Not all the stories are wonderful but there are enough of them to make reading this worthwhile.

If you are a fan of the original series, then this is a nice collectable to have. The stories are interesting enough to not get dull, and I actually thought that they should have had more stories than just these five, because it seemed like it was over too fast. The animation changes with every story since a different artist does the work for each story, some animation is better than others, but none of it is bad. The five stories are written well, overall, a really enjoyable book that you will like if you're a fan. I will be buying Volume 2, this was good enough to make me want to read the next one.

This is the first in a series of Star Trek Manga being produced by ToykoPop, so far just the classic series has been getting the treatment but the TNG crew version is soon to released.

There are 5 stories done by different teams, that I do not mind. The art is pretty decent and I was not distracted from the uniques looks given to Kirk and McCoy. What I did not like was quite weak stories, only one raised above the level of being good.

This book does have a Star Trekkie feel to it, you feel like the characters are the same as we have watched, but the outright stupidity of the stories (giant dragon worm?) brings the whole thing down.

If it was not for a fresh take on Star Trek, I would have given it 1 star.

The best thing this book has going for it is the novel idea. It's pretty entertaining; the plots themselves aren't all winners, but I found myself enjoying at least parts of each of the five stories in this collection. Two things about this book were most troubling to me. The first is the artwork. It's not bad in its own right, but there is a vast difference in styles between each story in this book, and all five styles do a fairly poor job of modeling characters after the show. This leads to occasional confusion as to who is talking, and detracts a bit from the "Trek" feel of the stories. My other complaint with this book was the lack of involvement from minor characters. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy get plenty of dialogue, but few of the other characters from the original TV show do much of consequence. To be fair, this is in typical of many of the episodes of the TV show itself, particularly the earlier ones. However, subsequent films, novels, and other adaptations have made great use of the supporting cast of characters, and I suppose I was expecting the same here. I felt this was definitely worth checking out, but I did so from my local library and don't plan on buying it.

I am a fairly new trekkie, only about 5 or 6 years strong. I was born into a trekkie family, but it took awhile to spread to me. I'm in the age range of late teens/early twenties so I am probably not as knowledgeable as someone who has been in it since, say, the 60s. However as much as I am a trekkie, I also love all types of anime/manga. So when I saw this book, I jumped on it!

To me, the storylines were wonderful (except the mecha pirate one) and had the same air as the TOS era. The characters' dialog kept true to their original essence and seemed as if they were really being said by their original actors. The art itself was incredible, especially for a young adult who loves the graphic Japanese anime style! I love the way they drew Kirk especially (they made him seem even more handsome and charming), and another big surprise the art for Danzak, the future Borg Queen. The image of her has always come to me as ugly, but in this artist's hands the young views to the teen queen show her as both evil and beautiful, almost psychopathic in nature.

I admit this book may not be for hardnosed readers, but it is excellent for teens and young adults, with a love for anime and have a good Trek background. It's light flipper and interesting page-turner all at once.