Customer Reviews

Tactics Volume 2

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

 

 

Tactics chronicles the ghost-busting adventures of Kantarou and his goblin friends. Volume 1 offers 3 seperate stories, in which we're introduced to all the major characters: the sly, youthful-looking Kantarou, Youko--the foxy maid, and Haruka, an extremely powerful, handsome, and elegant "goblin-eater".

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this manga. There's a cheerfulness and cuteness about the art and characters that is extremely engaging. The target audience is probably 10-16 year-olds; I am past this age bracket, being a university senior, but that didn't stop me from liking the series. Fans of the Tactics anime should definitely check out the original manga.

Okay, now for the bad. There is something seriously screwed up about ADV's editing: text-over-images have not been edited at all, nor the sound effects. The result is rather messy: there will be one bubble in Japanese, and another bubble in English. I don't see the same things happening in my TokyoPop, Viz, or Darkhorse mangas, so I've got to wonder what ADV was thinking.

This ongoing manga series (currently at 7 volumes) has a historical (Taisho-period) Japanese setting. Humor, magic, and mild drama ensue in this loveable series.

The Tokyopop translation is quite good, with helpful notes and everything, in stark contrast to ADV's attempt.

The main character, Kantarou, is a clever and mischevious writer and folklorist who can see youkai and other magical creatures. Haruka is an extremely powerful (and handsome) tengu who has been named by Kantarou, and is therefore required to obey him.

The art style is quite lovely here, and the characters are really fun. There is also an associated anime series.

Tactics is a very entertaining manga series with well-developed characters and interesting storylines. Unfortunately, ADV's translation of this volume leaves much to be desired. The main problem is that they made a serious error in changing the sex of two of the main characters, sending Tactics fans everywhere into an uproar. There is no excuse for a mistake of this magnitude, so I can only assume that ADV must have done it intentionally, perhaps because one of the characters is a bit androgynous looking.

I have all of the original Japanese volumes of Tactics and was looking forward to buying the English translation as well, but I can't support a company that makes such serious translation errors. Nor a company that so blatantly ignores and looks down on its fanbase by assuming that no one would notice such an error.

This is probably one of the worst translating errors I've seen in a while. Whether is was an accident or intentional, I'm not sure.

Two of the reoccuring characters are switched to the other gender. Sugino, the white tengu, is very male, however ADV made Sugino female. Muu is generally considered to be female, most of the characters refer to her as such, but ADV made Muu male.

I'm incredibly disappointed and will more than likely buy the original rather than giving ADV my money for a piece of work that doesn't deserve it. I'm very fond of this series and these characters, and am greatly appalled at this massacre of it.

A fun series with interesting characters & ongoing plots & mystery!The tokyopop translations are good- ignore bad reviews talking about a different book(ADV)!!!

Kantaro Ichinomiya is an exterminator and a folklorist. He is searching for a demon eating tengu to aid in his demon extermination business. He also has tamed a fox demon, Youkai, into doing his housework for him. Everything begins to improve when he meets and names Haruka, a demon eating tengu that he befriends. Business is looking up.

This series is very episodic by nature. I feel like I would enjoy it more as an animated series than as a read... although it is very beautifully drawn. The overall plot is just formulaic to me. I am ambivalent if I will read more in the future. It just hasn't grabbed me yet.