Sokora Refugees, v.1

Story by Segamu, Art by Melissa DeJesus
Published by TokyoPop



Slugline: A female high schooler discovers the latest in breast augmentation: timesharing your body with an elf sorceress.

Just a reminder, check back to the Pastel review from a few weeks ago to learn about fan service. I don't usually hold much against fan service, except for when it is being used as the only attraction of a book. I know I am radical, demanding a story or some other purpose to read a book than just stare are the scantily clad females, but that's me.

That being said, Sokora Refugees has the kernel of a good story in there, but it's buried in silly fan service and has a main character, Kana, that just whines and comments snarkily. And not very clever snarks, either. At the moment, the most interesting character is Tamara, one of the sidekicks who is more level-headed and aware of what is going on around her than anyone else. The sole downside is that is she is already endowed, so the comedic effect of giving her magical breast enhancements would be limited.

They use the alternate world concept interestingly, in that rather than being on the cusp of destruction, the other world seems pretty well destroyed already, full of empty villages and refugees. At the end of the first volume, the mechanism for traveling between worlds is destroyed, which is a shame. Usually in these sorts of the stories the main character is trapped in a different world and has to work her way back to her own world, for reasons that never seem quite clear because she is having a much better time there. I would have found it more interesting if the characters had to balance to the two worlds, which is the direction I thought they were going for.

To sample the book itself, check out the creator's webpages, www.sokora.com.



- Ferdinand