Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea

By Nakaba Higurashi and Seiichi Morimura
Published in the US by CMX Manga


Slugline: A historical epic without any actual epic story

Temujin is the son of a Mongol chieftain and despite questions about his parentage he rises to lead the Mongols, forging them into a nation. His main obstacle along the way is a blood brother he made while hunting as a youth. But as they both grow older, they become leaders with different motivations until their conflict is carried over to their children until only one family is left alive. Guess which one.

This is based on the same source material as the movie by the same name, but since virtually no one saw the movie and even fewer in the English speaking world have read the source material. Despite the scarcity of the material, the manga reads as if the readers can bridge the gaps on their own, presumably because they have seen or read one of the other versions of the story. There are a lot of gaps to bridge over as the story jumps around in time without warning and with a very generic facial and dressing style for the characters it takes a lot of work to figure who everyone is as eras change. Fortunes twist and turn off panel, so that leaders rise to the height of their power then become friendless with the transition of a single line of text. It comes across as a collection of scenes rather than a story or even a tale of a broken friendship.



Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga

-Ferdinand

No comments: