Manga Preview: Atori Sho

So I've decided to finally start my manga preview of some of the mangas that i've been reading over the past year or two. I'm excluding some of the more mainstream titles (ie. Bleach, One Piece and Naruto) since well...they're 'mainstream' and info can be found easily. Those who know me during my AnimeonDVD days, know that I tend to purchase obscure, not well known mangas, but have the potential to be a big hit. Mangas that i've read way before most knew about and hit it big (say an anime conversion) include Naruto, Tenjo Tenge, School Rumble, Black Lagoon, Teizokurei Daydream, Genshiken, Ikkitousen and Gantz are some of the few. Of course, there's a million mangas in Japan that are obscure and never get the chance to hit it big (ie. Rosario + Vampire, which i've been reading and waitin' forever for a anime :(). I usually pick mangas w/ impressive artwork and then i look @ action w/ fanservice coming in last ^^. Sometimes just artwork. So most mangas i pick up are the violent fighting type (cuz u know i love fighting anime/games/movies :P ^^).

Vol.1 Cover

First up, is Diaboros Live Atori Sho, also known as Pretty Hunter for those HK readers. the HK version is released by JDcomics while the original JPN version is released by MF comics serialized in Comic Flapper. The cover that you see is the Taiwan version...confusing? yes, i know. Here's the JPN link for reference and resource. The manga is by Takuya Tashiro whom some may know, was in charge of the adapted Najica manga. It's licensed and has been released ADV who also released the anime. Like that manga, Atori Sho is full of action + fanservice and includes a lot of nudity which Najica sorely lacked for its genre.

Takuya Tashiro Najica Manga art

Basically, the manga is about Atori who's half-human and half-diaboros (or half demon). We basically follow her on her everyday school life and her adventures fighting/killing full fledged diaboros. Exterminating these diaboros is her other job. Yes quite cliche. Story just shows hints about her past every now and then, her school life w/ classmates/friends and fighting demons. Pretty ho hum. Vol.3 has a somewhat big fight w/ 'somewhat' major villain. Anyways, due to its slice of life, comedy, main chick w/ a sword and fanservice. i can't help but think of Shakugan no Shana sometimes. Though of course, Atori's more stacked, which i obviously dig. Some may be turned off by the fanservice. Well, it's pretty gratuitous, there wasn't anything explicit when it started. It wasn't until Takuya introduced a new hottie chara who was there to exploit her hotness. Then came the bare boobs (w/ nips) villains and that went a little overboard for me.

Manga Sample - Hottie Fight

the art in general is decent. It's pretty average IMO but somehow it's 'averageness' attracts me, especially Takyua's female designs, which have always been well proportioned. However, Takuya has times where he draws some characters disproportionately (slightly bigger heads on bodies). It's a little detracting but nothing too bad i'd say. I personally don't like how he draws his eyes and noses sometimes. The huge eyes he draws makes his stuff seem very amateurish and unappealing. His action scenes are pretty solid throughout. His background art is quite standard and is vast improvement over Najica, in which backgrounds were severely lacking...literally. A lot of times there was no backgrounds in Najica.

Manga Sample - Atori in yum underwear w/ sword

Would I recommend this? No, not really. Story hasn't been all that interesting and though the fights are pretty good, coupled w/ some nice looking ladies showing their stuff, it doesn't stick out from most stuff out there which have been done much better. There are 4 volumes out so far and i stopped around the middle of that volume. I don't plan on going any further right now.

I don't feel like posting any game news really cuz there's been so much over the past week. Though I will mention about Persona 3's US release. For those who didn't know, it's been pushed back to June 2007 instead of it's February original date. This is good as it sorta gives Atlus USA time to possibly translate and bring over the much better Persona 3 Fes, which comes out in Japan in April. I'm not sure if that really is the case. But pushing it this far back may indicate the possibility. Let's hope so.