Anime Boredom - First King Adventure manga reviews

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First King Adventure V. 2

ADVManga’ The First King Adventure V. 2
For every major manga title out there, there is a fistful of little known reads.
Titles that may or may not deserve your attention, yet lie hidden from sight amongst the endless waves of a large ocean of manga reads available to you. Thus, because of this, I’m going to go over a few of these reads over the coming weeks, one of these a title for kids that seemingly does not have the same appeal in English as it did to it’s original Japanese readers (for what I think are obvious reasons).

Once upon a time it was one of Japan’s most popular children’s mangas (in it‘s time), but apparently when it made it’s trip across the ocean and came here The First King Adventure just somehow didn’t hit it off with young readers as it did in Japan. That probably didn’t make any sense at first to the people at ADVManga who were putting it out, expecting similar embracement of the title here amongst English reading audiences as it was once embraced by the Japanese.

Perhaps the story had something to do with this.
The King of the kingdom of Tiltu is dead, and a successor to the throne is needed.
Enter Prince Varumu, who is on a quest to form pacts with spirit masters. Everytime he forms a pact a symbol of that pact forms on his left hand, which continues until the mark of the royal family is formed from all the symbols combined meaning that his journey is at an end and he had made enough pacts in order to become the King of Tiltu.

At this point Prince Varumu has only made a few pacts and is working hard to continue, but a chance encounter puts him in the company of new potential friends who may further complicate matters, especially since he’s faced with a duel against one master who is a master of swords, and one of his new friends seems to be destined himself to be king after he unintentionally makes a “pact” with the spirit of the winds. At the end, however, Varumu asserts his destiny to be king as he defeats the swordmaster and continues on his quest… a quest that seemingly never continued in reality.

So where is the title as of the here and now? This book came out in 2003 and it looks like ADManga has abandoned any plans to release anymore of this book. Why? Well I went over to Right Stuf International to see how many books came out of this series, and to date only two volumes has come out. Sure, sure, there is a third volume listed and it even has a release date… of December 12th… 2012.

By the way December 12th, 2012 seemingly is Right Stuf International’s cute way of saying “don’t hold your breath for this one to come out”, because they had this “date” listed on Broccoli Books’ Galaxy Angel Party V. 1 for the longest time until Broccoli Books finally got around to releasing said title. However if I were to be a betting individual then, unlike Galaxy Angel Party, I am pretty certain this is a death kneel for First King Adventure.

So then we’re left with the question of “why”.
I mean if the title was such a hit in Japan why did it fall apart in America?
This, actually, is an easy question if you think about it, because it is simply a matter of culture.
Like movies for instance. Any given year take a look at the top grossing movies in ticket sales in America and Japan, and you’ll see a strange difference. Movies that top the list in America are usually not the same in Japan, and movies that didn’t do as well in America are top grossing movies there for some reason. Same logic works here, because while this was a runaway hit with Japanese children it just wasn’t for American kids. Let’s go over why…

1-Is it me or is First King Adventure rather wordy for a children’s manga read? I am not certain, since I don’t read lots of kid geared manga, but somehow I’m betting those titles are not as wordy as this one.

2-Fistful of creatures that look like recycled Digimon creatures, which can’t be good.

3-Lack of real stand out characters that catch your attention. Unlike other kid beloved series that have characters that really stand out, it seems the characters of First King just don’t leap out of the pages in such a bold way as the characters in other titles.

4-Unlike the fast paced titles that kids are into these days, First King Adventure is rather slow paced.

5 - Oh, and here’s the obvious killjoy in my opinion. The title is underwhelming while I’m on it, and lacks any “support“ to be a major contender. With no major Anime series to tie into this book that I know of (at least to the point that I heard no hype over a “First King Adventure“ anime), or anything to draw readers like VIZ’ Shonen Jump titles draw young readers, this was a title doomed to failure.
The breakdown will comfirm that as you’ll see.

First King Breakdown the 2nd
What’s Hot?
Err… I wish there was something hot. But this slowly trudging, “failure to launch”, not as engaging as a children’s manga should have been read… well, it should have just been more. More exciting, filled with more engaging characters, impressive with a more energetic storytelling style that would keep readers coming back for more, just more.
If the title had more I’m sure it would still be going today, but it isn’t going… it’s DOA, and that should be the thing to say about this title on it’s tombstone : It should have been better, but it wasn’t.

What’s Not?
Think I said all I needed to say above.

Moments to Remember?
There are it’s cute and interesting moments in the story, so I wish there was more of that in this book.

What to Ignore?
However the good of this title just didn’t carry it far enough, and it fell short. Of course ADVManga could prove me wrong by popping out the 3rd volume of this title, but so far I don’t see any attempt to do so.

Overall?
If a 3rd Volume of this title comes out? Who knows, it might turn around and I might find something in that worth praising. But while I do find some things I liked in this one there is not enough here to recommend The First King Adventure to anyone. This little known treasure will remain little known until something comes up which makes it worth knowing… maybe Volume 3... Maybe.

First King Adventure

First King Adventure Reviews

First King Adventure V. 2