{"id":3618,"date":"2010-03-05T19:02:43","date_gmt":"2010-03-06T03:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/?p=3618"},"modified":"2013-12-29T14:33:25","modified_gmt":"2013-12-29T22:33:25","slug":"hero-tales-volume-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/2010\/03\/05\/hero-tales-volume-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Hero Tales Volume 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Legend speaks of seven heroes, each one bearing the bower of one of the stars of the Big Dipper.\u00a0 Two of these stars are constantly in conflict, destined to battle and throw the world into chaos…<\/em><\/p>\n

Not that Taitou has ever paid much attention to old stories.\u00a0 Headstrong and defiant, he is the last in his village to complete his coming-of-age ceremony– a fact his sister Laila incessantly teases him about.\u00a0 When he is presented with the Kenka Ranbu, an ancient sword that can only be drawn by a true hero.\u00a0 As the frustrated Taitou struggles to unsheath the sword, a mysterious thief appears, making off with the blade and citing the legend of the Big Dipper.\u00a0 The starts have been set in motion, as Taitou sets off after the Kenka Tanbu and the truth of his own destiny…<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Hero<\/a>By Hiromu Arakawa; Story by Huang Jin Zhou<\/strong>
\nPublisher:<\/strong> Yen Press
\nAge Rating:<\/strong> Older Teen
\nGenre:<\/strong> Historical Fantasy
\nPrice:<\/strong> $10.99<\/p>\n

Hero Tales<\/em> is a title I’ve been looking forward to.\u00a0 The artist, Hiromu Arakawa, also does one of my favorite titles ever, Fullmetal Alchemist<\/em>.\u00a0 So I had high hopes for this title. While I really like the premise and historical setting of the story, the actual execution feel lackluster.\u00a0 Neither the story as it starts, nor the characters really seem interesting.<\/p>\n

Hero Tales<\/em> is set in ancient China.\u00a0 It’s a classic quest story with the hero, Taitou, searching for the sword Kenka Ranbu.\u00a0 He starts out with his sister Laila and Ryuukou, one of the Hokushin Tenkun as companions, and by the end of the volume they have picked up a second star, Housei.\u00a0 Along the way, they also help out the people of the empire, saving them from oppressive government troops and thieves who have taken over entire towns.\u00a0 It’s a very standard plot.<\/p>\n

The characters that we follow in this title are not badly written, they are just very 2-dimensional.\u00a0 They seem more like cardboard cutouts of typical manga characters than real people.\u00a0 Taitou is the typical strong by not real bright hero.\u00a0 His answer to solving everything is with his fist.\u00a0 Laila is the headstrong and courageous sister that is always beating up Taitou.\u00a0 The First Star, Ryuukou is the serious, no-nonsense teacher type that is helping Taitou on his quest.\u00a0 The second star, Housei is the opposite of Ryuukou.\u00a0 He’s easy-going and lecherous, and falls in love with Laila at first sight.\u00a0 Genrotou, the titles villain and opposing star to Taitou is a hulk of a man who is strong and ambitious, and General to the Emperor.\u00a0 There’s nothing really special about these characters to differentiate them from others in the action genre.\u00a0 I found them to be rather forgettable.<\/p>\n

Arakawa’s art is well done, and would be expected.\u00a0 The style is definitely hers, but none of the characters look like they were just lifted from her other series Fullmetal Alchemist<\/em>.\u00a0 They all have their own personalities.\u00a0 Though you might be able to see similarities between characters, they are obviously their own.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Arakawa can only get the characters to do so much within the confines of the lifeless story.\u00a0 It’s obvious she’s trying to do her best, but it’s not enough to overcome lackluster of the story.<\/p>\n

Overall, Hero Tales<\/em> isn’t bad, it’s just average.\u00a0 The first volume only had the first three chapters, so there is room for improvement.\u00a0 Later chapters in Yen Plus<\/em> seemed to have more life to them, so hopefully things will improve.\u00a0 I may have had too high expectations for the series compared to Fullmetal Alchemist,<\/em> which came out punching and never stopped.\u00a0 I’ll continue to follow this series and see if it improves, but this first volume does not impress.<\/p>\n

Review copy provided by publisher.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Legend speaks of seven heroes, each one bearing the bower of one of the stars of the Big Dipper.\u00a0 Two of these stars are constantly in conflict, destined to battle and throw the world into chaos… Not that Taitou has ever paid much attention to old stories.\u00a0 Headstrong and defiant, he is the last in his village to complete his coming-of-age ceremony– a fact his sister Laila incessantly teases him about.\u00a0 When he is presented with the Kenka Ranbu, an ancient sword that can only be drawn by a true hero.\u00a0 As the frustrated Taitou struggles to unsheath the sword, a mysterious thief appears, making off with the blade and citing the legend of the Big Dipper.\u00a0 The starts have been set in motion, as Taitou sets off after the Kenka Tanbu and the truth of his own destiny… By Hiromu Arakawa; Story by Huang Jin Zhou Publisher: Yen Press Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Historical Fantasy Price: $10.99 Hero Tales is a title I’ve been looking forward to.\u00a0 The artist, Hiromu Arakawa, also does one of my favorite titles ever, Fullmetal Alchemist.\u00a0 So I had high hopes for this title. While I really like the premise and historical setting…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,14,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-reviews","category-yen-press"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/files\/2010\/03\/Hero-Tales-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2umma-Wm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3618"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3618"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3975,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3618\/revisions\/3975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}