UNDERTOWN, Volume 1
© TOKYOPOP
Mania Grade: C-
Story by: Jim Pascoe
Art by: Jake Myler
Publisher: TOKYOPOP
Rating: Teen (13+)
Price: $9.99
Story by: Jim Pascoe
Art by: Jake Myler
Publisher: TOKYOPOP
Rating: Teen (13+)
Price: $9.99
UNDERTOWN, Volume One
By: Nadia OxfordReview Date: Monday, October 15, 2007
Teenage boys are proud and confused creatures. They're at an age where toys and games of make-believe are slowly giving way to other interests like music and, Heaven forefend, girls. That said, a young boy at the crossroads might not be ready to give up his favourite teddy bear, but he feels like a certain obligation comes with his age. Sama, the lead boy in Tokyopop's Undertown, has a certain humanity because of a similar inner struggle, but the "fantastic" world he falls into requires nothing of his imagination--or the reader's, for that matter.
Sama is a shy young boy who, despite being on puberty's doorstep, still loves his teddy bear, Eddie. When Sama's childish ways literally give his gruff father a heart attack, he finds kinship with a fidgeting old man in the hospital. The man tells Sama about the "sugar stone," a magical healing item that's hidden in a peaceful secret world known as "Undertown." When Sama hears that his father has a month to live, he crawls under his bed and enters Undertown (where Eddie comes to life) and finds himself in the middle of a sugar-driven war between "Furmen" and insect "Insurgents."
Pascoe and Myler try very hard to present Undertown as a fantasy story that readers will want to recite to their children at bedtime, but the OEL manga doesn't really present a good reason why Sama's tale should live on after the book is closed. The world of Undertown is structured carefully and populated with scores of animal-men, but the characters interact so fleetingly with the cities, the deserts and the forests that Undertown feels like little more than a cardboard backdrop.
When the characters get into a sticky situation, some sort of new character or item unfailingly presents itself to get them out. This might be intended as a demonstration of Undertown's magic, but it just feels cheap. In one instance, Sama meets an amiable tribe of "Lizard Boys" that help him cross a vast desert with the aid of a sand skiff. When it's destroyed, the lizards immediately summon giant lizards. The manga is loaded with empty interaction that doesn't develop the world or characters of Undertown beyond a chance for the reader to say, "Well, that's sort of cool."
There's also the too-obvious attempt at making the story a dark fantasy alternative for kids who've outgrown Cinderella. Undertown is torn by a war over dwindling sugar resources and its residents talk about a teddy bear holocaust that nearly decimated the race. It sounds silly from the outset and it doesn't come across any better in context: there's just no way to make a serious story out of such subject matter, especially when the Insurgents force-feed sugar to a freedom fighter as a means of torture.
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