Yellow Tanabe

Kekkaishi is basically a demon hunting manga. Let's not bother getting into the specifics, as they really don't make a difference. The main character is a kid in junior high who's secret family business is to get rid of demons (somewhere in the middle between your usual beast demon and a Pokemon) at night. His next door neighbor is a rival family who does the same. The girl from that family was friends with the main when small, but now she is more serious about her job than he is (he'd rather bake cakes), as well as more able, though less powerful, and good in school, and thus now behaves in a slightly uppity manner towards him. He has an obsession with protecting her since something stupid he did once got her hurt.

I'd gotten this vibe from the mangaverse that Kekkaishi was the fun shounen manga that might appeal to fans of Bleach or Naruto who either don't mind or prefer a more...modest effort. Something that isn't about painfully huge casts of characters who must all either drip cool, moe, or be perverted old men. Something that can be exciting without always being about how awesomely the main totally whipped that last guy who was supposedly the strongest man evah. Now, honestly, I like cool in my shounen series. I like a little attitude and exciting battles. But so many shounen focus on those things so much other stuff ends up shallow. So I was hoping taking one that didn't focus on that stuff would be awesome in other areas.

In the end, this manga seems solid for what it is, but not a lot more. I don't exactly want to call it average, since a lot of average manga aren't that solid. But...I'm a little miffed as to why this is supposed to be all that noteworthy. The baddies are anonymous, the battles don't hold a great deal of emotional interest, there isn't really a plot. It is so far indeed a more modest seeming effort, but it doesn't have any more substance in other areas like I was hoping for in exchange.

It doesn't, for example, try to make the characters amazingly awesome OMGcool. Which is where I start hoping, knowing this manga is supposed to be good, that not being tied down to that will allow them to make a more original, psychologically interesting character. But...they're all pretty meh. You can list all their traits and know them entirely. There is no nuance. I'm not the world's biggest supporter of Bleach and Naruto, but at least in a lot of the cases you'd have to watch the characters for a little to know exactly what they are like (if you're like me you might not be hugely impressed with what you find, but still). None of the characters have any chemistry. There's nothing really for them to form chemistry with.

Which sounds weird considering I just called this manga 'solid.' I think I do because, unlike a lot of manga who try to give their character development or interaction nuance and chemistry and fail....this one really doesn't try to go much deeper. Can you call it a faltered step if the step isn't taken?

Basically, it's just all kept very simple. It's juvenile. It seems like some older people like this too, though. Maybe this manga gets better in later volumes. But since I've never heard any utterance of 'the beginning's nothing special but keep at it,' and because even if it DID get better, I imagine it would be in the area of plot and battles rather than, say, complicating the characters, I'm definitely going to pass on further volumes.… (mer)