I’ve been checking out a lot of Manga books from my library lately. I’ll post about that eventually. Anyway, I stumbled upon the Korean version of it (called Manhwa) and decided to check it out. The series is Shaman Warrior by Park Joong-Ki. I’ve read the first four books so far.
Initially the larger book size format was annoying to hold and I was thrown with flopping back to reading left to right again, (heh) but I adjusted. :P The artwork is very cool. The added color pages at the beginning of each book are a real treat. Book four is pictured here because it’s my favorite cover so far. It’s a pic of the captain of the assassin’s side of the butcher camp.
Anyway, my only frustration with any of the artwork stemmed from the style used for action sequences. He went for something to create the illusion of speed which made it difficult to follow what was actually happening at times. I think it was that many of the gray tones blurred together then and detail was lost. Not sure.
The story itself surrounds a culture in the midst of war. Gotta love endless swordplay, eh? :) Book one starts with Yarong (a Shaman warrior) and his servant, Batu, heading out on a mission from their king. Unbeknownst to them, secret plots to take down Shaman warriors are already in the works. First up on the hit list? Yarong, of course.
I won’t give away pieces of the plot (like the cover copy does), but book one’s plot is a little flimsy. I didn’t think the series would amount to much based on that. But, since I had the first four books of the series at home anyway, I decided to keep going. Book two is where the story starts to find its stride and it keeps getting better from there. It’s a gritty, violent culture and the more I see of it, the more I find myself waiting for the moment where I hope Batu and Yaki will succeed. Yep, I’m going to need to read more. I wish my library had volumes five and six right now!
Oh, and volume one is up for free: Shaman Warrior, Volume 1, but try not to base the rest of the series on that one.
And well, that’s that for this ramble. Later.
