Thursday, January 03, 2008

The Demon Ororon, vols 1-2 of Ultimate Edition

by Hakase Mizuki
Published in the US by Tokyopop as a Ultimate Edition


Slugline: The king of hell shacks up with an angel's child. Much violence ensues.

The Ultimate Edition is so thick I'm making two reviews out of it.

Ororon is the king of hell. Chiaki is the daughter of the archangel Michael, though she didn't know at first. She wants him to stay with her, which he does, and they start acting in the manner which in manga is referred to as "love." If you're new to manga, you might think that they're roommates who get along fairly well, but in manga this qualifies as being madly in love.

In the first two volumes, a short settling-in period punctuated by attacks by various predators leads to the start of a more serious assault on Ororon and the arrival of more interesting characters such as Ororon's brother Othello and Mitsume the one-armed assassin. Othello and Mitsume are responsible for most of the fun and emotional fireworks in the second half of the collection.

Due to the art style, everyone's limbs are a mile long, genders are indistinct and sometimes it's hard to tell people apart. I didn't find the first two volumes inspiring, though they were competent, but there's two more to come.



The Demon Ororon, Ultimate Edition is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Miranda

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