Dragon Eye, Vol. 1

Genre manga Author Kairi Fujiyama Publisher Del Rey Manga External Links Del Rey Manga

Manga has developed some easy-to-understand categories that help us differentiate between manga we might want to read and manga we want to avoid. For example, Shoujo manga is mostly intended for young girls, and deals more with relationships and drama than anything else. Shonen manga, on the other hand, is all about the action. If you pick up Dragon Eye, understand what you're buying: this is Shonen manga through and through.

Not to say that the book doesn't attempt some drama. It does. Sort of. Some of the characters have a connected past, and that promises to become a major focus of the storytelling at some point in a later volume. However, in Volume 1, we've got some character introductions and a lot of fighting.

Basic premise: the world has been infected with a virus, called the D Virus, which turns people it infects into terrifying monsters called (wait for it) Dracules. And yes, they can infect others by making them drink their blood. The virus has wiped out a large portion of the world's population. A group of people with strong antibodies, called VIUS, is dedicated to eliminating the Dracule menace. Our main characters are all a part of this group. There's the leader, Issa Kazuma, the standard goofy hero with a dark and troubled past. Then there's Leila Mikami, the perky young female recruit on a quest to avenge her murdered parents. Adding complications to the group is Sosei Yukimura, a man who joined Issa's squad in order to take revenge on him for some terrible crime. They're characters you've probably seen before and will likely see again, if you're into Shonen manga. Nothing extraordinary, but passable.

The main event, of course, is the fighting. The panels are well drawn. The fights are, for the most part, clear. That's one thing I've always had trouble distinguishing in manga—the fight scenes. But Dragon Eye's author, Kairi Fujiyama, does a decent job of showing the action, at least most of the time.

The dialog is most often bad, sometimes laughable—like this gem of a line, delivered by one of the villains: “I can't believe so many young prey...um, guests...have gathered for my banquet...” Yeesh. But it's there to serve the action, and in that it succeeds.

I may sound like I'm being hard on it, but in all honesty, it's a fairly fun, if empty, experience. If you're a fan of Shonen, check it out (and add at least a star and a half to my review).