Madara Vol. #05

By Eduardo M. Chavez     March 02, 2006
Release Date: October 05, 2005



Creative Talent
Writer/Artist:Otsuka Eiji/Tajima Shou
Translated by:Michael Niyama
Adapted by:

What They Say
THIS FINAL BATTLE WILL DETERMINE THE FATE OF THE WORLD!

Madara has joined forces with Seishinja and Kaos to challenge Kageo and the remaining Moki army. Will they have enough strength to crush to crush this threat? Even if they prevail, will they have the power to confront and defeat Miroku, the demon emperor? Or will eternal darkness be cast upon the land?

The Review
Packaging:
Throughout this release CMX really impressed me. Starting with the cover art, CMX was able to acquire more current art to put on every book in this series. This volume features an ominous image of Madara's brother Kageo sitting in front of the doors leading to heaven. COOL! The image filled with shades of red and fine line work is a sharp contrast to the green and white pattern CMX used for their fantasy imprint. The opposite cover features some more character art above the volume description. The logo used was perfect, combining a youthful nature of the cast and a traditional brush-work feel that might have been used in the world of MADARA.

Open up the book and CMX provides 8 color plates. Starting with the volume header and contents page they even provide a few pages of the manga itself in rich full color. The rest of the manga's printing was clean and perfectly aligned. There were no extras or ads, but I still have to say this was a great looking package from start to finish.

Artwork:
Tajima's art is really outdated. Actually, the characters look so crappy it is almost comical. I am really surprised that Tajima's work has developed so much over the years, that I could not recognize his work in DMP's ROBOT. Comparing the cover art to the character designs would be misleading, so if character art is a concern for you open the book up before making a decision. Monster designs are not very creative either. To be honest as the manga progresses the designs got better overall, so characters like the Kaos generally look better than Madara and Kirin. There is almost no sense of form. Jaw lines are awkward and eyes are really asymmetrical. Characters look thick and chunky, nothing like the lean and mean looking characters on the front cover. Costumes are a mix of eighties punk and tribal. Hair designs are just huge (they put the hair from Kimagure Orange Road to shame! Fortunately, CMX did not edit out the nudity in this volume. I hope that they will continue this with the rest of their titles.

Background art is good but not very impressive for a fantasy title. There is little creativity in the world that Tajima has drawn. Backgrounds are often just screen tone or empty panels. On rare occasion when Tajima decides to draw the world these characters are in, all we get are stale old scenes filled with either trees, boulders or brick walls. The lack of detailing only helps the art look simple and dull. Fortunately the layout is active. Tajima uses a variety of techniques: out of panel characters, panel placement (i.e. panel in panel, collage, two-page spread) and interesting perspective. At times, it does not flow very well, but generally the layout really helped keep up the pacing of the story and improved the average character and background art.

SFX/Text:
The translation for Madara sounds great. Even though there are no honorifics, the dialogue flows well and maintains the individual personalities of the characters. I did not notice any typos or grammatical errors either; which is a good sign for a new publisher.

SFX are not so great. CMX seems to be inconsistent in regards to what they will translate and what they will not. What is worse is that they are not consistent with how they translate either - overlays or large subs. At least they overlaid all of the aside text, so this was not a total loss.

Contents: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The final battle nears and Madara's body - all pieces of it - can no longer patiently wait to be re-united. As Madara fights his way through Miroku's castle facing off with moki generals and princes of darkness, something seems to be guiding them along the way. The hope for peace and love is what has Madara, Kaos and Seishinja to risk their live. They have literally become the last hopes for survival for each of their respective tribes, and rather than wait to what the future holds, they have decided to make their future. However, what has cleared their path towards success has been destiny. The path that they were always supposed to be on, doors opened by Madara's body parts.

But what is destiny when it leads someone to a battle against your own twin brother? What waits when destiny determines the murder of your father, by your own hands? Is there any other path; is destiny entirely concrete, predetermined or is it created through life's experiences and coincidences. If one's life is entirely decided then what worth are life's decisions? If there really is no choice then why did Madara have to struggle? But now he will no longer fight this. His destiny might have led him here, but he is going to end up making the decisions that will determine how he sees the future. Even if destiny means going up against an all-knowing god, the choice is his to fight or not.

The battle will only be meaningless if he chooses not to act. With only Kirin by his side, he is going to take on not only the odds fighting on his own terms. Who knows what will come out of this final confrontation, but Madara will make sure that by taking on the risk and moving forward he will give his life meaning. And with the lives of so many riding on his future, all of them will be given a chance as well.

Comments
Ahhh, another short series comes to an end and well this one leaves the door wide open for a sequel.

MADARA was always something of a guilty pleasure of mine. The premise is fun but simple. Child is separated from his family. He was raised by those aware that he is destined to lead his new people to peace and happiness. And the conflict is the hero's father stands in the way. Otsuka Eiji possibly didn't rip this off from Lucas, Shakespeare or some Greek playwright, and there is no way I can compare the quality of storytelling either. Still, Tajima was able to make full use of his huge cast as he gave each character a role in molding the personality of the lead " Madara. In a way, not only was his body scattered and incomplete at the start of the series, but he was an incomplete person as well. As he met new people, fought with them, joined them in their quests, he grew up and became whole from the inside out. Seeing these fun characters with their spunk and good humor had me entertained, but also made for a positive feeling that is sometimes purposely left out of manga nowadays (mind you I don't always like happy-go-lucky situations, this was an exception).

MADARA's plot was extremely linear. Even the side-quests lead right back to the original journey. This made for a quick read that felt more like a shonen title than a seinen series.

Ultimately, MADARA ended up just being a big tease. And what a tease it was. I was never impressed with the writing and the art really aged poorly, but this just had an old skool fantasy RPG feel from the start. An extremely linear title, started off with a simple but like some Enix or GameArts games the personalities and the cheap dungeon crawler atmosphere (mainly created by the stale backgrounds) had me coming back. As I think about this title more, even the ending set itself up perfectly for a sequel or two, so that video game analogy seems really apt. I honestly would not recommend this title to most manga readers. This title really is not challenging at all, often feeling like a weak shonen ready for TV title, but for the hardcore fantasy adventure types that don't mind laughing at cheap art and even cheesier direction this should be a fun mid-size series to keep you over between volumes of Berserk or that long Louie wait.