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booksandladders's review against another edition
3.0
Chapter 1: 4*
Chapter 2: 3*
Chapter 3: 3*
Chapter 4: 3.5*
Chapter 5: 3.5*
Chapter 6: 3.5*
Chapter 7: 3.5*
Overall Rating: 3.4* (but I'm rounding down)
So I was really intrigued by this one since it is a darker version of Pokémon where each battle ends in the death of both the creature and it's trainer. I even have the other two volumes pre-ordered because the premise alone sounds fantastic, but I was a bit disappointed.
This delivers in the sense that this is gritty and gruesome and demonstrates that there could be a darker side to fighting battles with creatures rather than just "fainting" after your creatures have all fainted. Death happens to all of us and it is important to look at the other side of things. And this does that pretty well. But it is really rushed. The chapters are really short, the fighting sequences seem to take a total of two minutes -- which could be the case since the stakes are through the roof but it also feels like they are putting way too much emphasis on kill strikes rather than strategy? Also, there were three different battles in just this first volume! Maybe I'm too used to long, drawn out fight sequences, but I would have liked just a bit more time spent on how the creatures fight.
The art was really clean: I could really see how the creatures were fighting, but a lot of what was shown was more for shock value rather than for actual progression of the plot. There is like very gross depictions of death in this one, which is fine, but it felt more like it was done to show it was (basically) the anti-Pokémon rather than serving a purpose in the story. But I did like the art style.
It seems like this is a really good idea that doesn't have the best execution, but since this is only three volumes, I'm going to finish the series.
Books and Ladders | Queen of the Bookshelves | Books Are My Fandom | Twitter | Instagram | Bloglovin'
Chapter 2: 3*
Chapter 3: 3*
Chapter 4: 3.5*
Chapter 5: 3.5*
Chapter 6: 3.5*
Chapter 7: 3.5*
Overall Rating: 3.4* (but I'm rounding down)
So I was really intrigued by this one since it is a darker version of Pokémon where each battle ends in the death of both the creature and it's trainer. I even have the other two volumes pre-ordered because the premise alone sounds fantastic, but I was a bit disappointed.
This delivers in the sense that this is gritty and gruesome and demonstrates that there could be a darker side to fighting battles with creatures rather than just "fainting" after your creatures have all fainted. Death happens to all of us and it is important to look at the other side of things. And this does that pretty well. But it is really rushed. The chapters are really short, the fighting sequences seem to take a total of two minutes -- which could be the case since the stakes are through the roof but it also feels like they are putting way too much emphasis on kill strikes rather than strategy? Also, there were three different battles in just this first volume! Maybe I'm too used to long, drawn out fight sequences, but I would have liked just a bit more time spent on how the creatures fight.
The art was really clean: I could really see how the creatures were fighting, but a lot of what was shown was more for shock value rather than for actual progression of the plot. There is like very gross depictions of death in this one, which is fine, but it felt more like it was done to show it was (basically) the anti-Pokémon rather than serving a purpose in the story. But I did like the art style.
It seems like this is a really good idea that doesn't have the best execution, but since this is only three volumes, I'm going to finish the series.
Books and Ladders | Queen of the Bookshelves | Books Are My Fandom | Twitter | Instagram | Bloglovin'
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