|
|||||||||||||||
In book 2, “The Figurehead of Souls,” Jubei worked for a group of pirates on a mission to find an idol that gives a ship the power of invincibility. In this book, Jubei and his partner Carpet (a creature who can attach to a carpet and use it to fly) head to the island of Dejima for the Kizuna Society Merchant Auction, where the World’s Best Merchant will be announced. Upon their arrival, Jubei’s rival Grill begins to plot and scheme to make sure that Jubei won’t win the competition.
I’ve been following this series from the beginning, and have been fairly pleased with the way the stories have gone. Jubei always faces daunting challenges, and at some point he seems as though the problems he faces are too much, and that he is foolish for attempting the feats. Eventually though, we find that Jubei knew what was going on all along and was prepared for the trials that he faced. The same goes for the story in this book. Early during this story Jubei gets played for a sucker, and he will have to dig himself out of a major dilemma. He is willing to do anything to complete his goals; for example, to get out of one jam in the first book he pulled out his own tooth.
It’s a fast read and it’s filled with action. This keeps it exciting and interesting throughout the story. This book is well done as far as the story goes, but form what I understand, it is the final book in the series, and as such it wraps things up in a way that there is really no reason to continue on with Jubei stories. That is unfortunate in many ways, because the Treasure Hunter world was rich with interesting characters and environments that could have lead to much further exploration.
The art in this book is strange, but somewhat appealing. There isn’t extraordinary detail in the drawings, but it keeps things light and simplistic. The human characters particularly have a strange look to them; with little detail, the faces of characters seem a little irregular. You may end up hating this art. As for me I thought is was over all appropriate, but a little lower in quality than I am used to.
I have to say I’m a little disappointed that this is the end of the Treasure Hunter series. It wasn’t the best manga series I’ve read, but it was definitely entertaining. If Jubei’s story could be followed in the future, it would probably be interesting to explore the stories of his start as a merchant, and how he met Carpet. This is a short series, and would probably be an easy manga series to afford, because you won’t have to keep buying volume after volume to see what will happen next in the story.
-brant-
|
|||||||||||||||
