You may noticed that this review is overly positive... I blame this on the fact that I'm a sucker for Space-Opera.
The author is Johji Manabe, responsible for both art and story. At first glance you may notice the resemblance of the art style with that of Rumiko Takahashi, what more the story starts with almost the same motive as “Urusei Yatsura” – a normal guy meets a princess that came to conquer his world. In this case “Outlanders” is 8 years younger.
But on this point the similarities end. This is a part of the summary on “Manga Fox’s” page:
It all seemed like another regular day for the photo-journalist Wakatsuki Tetsuya when something big happened. ALIEN INVASION! This brings his journalist’s blood to a boil and he goes to check it out. It is there he meets, standing in a pool of blood and corpses, the alien girl Kahm, who looks exactly like a human if you take away the pair of horns growing from the sides of her head. There they fight and Tetsuya wins and takes her sword. Kahm retreats but soon comes back to retrieve the sword and save Tetsuya from Japan’s unavoidable fate…
Actually I cut the summary a bit because it gives away to much of the story, Anime-Planet summary has the same problem.
On this point I should mention that this manga is a comedy-drama (I think I don’t have to mention other obvious stuff like: Space Opera, Sci-fi, Romance, Action… do I?) and I have to say quite nicely balanced – the characters are of the goofy sort (again, think of Urusei Yatsura) but the story is “totally serious”, there is blood and people died… a lot of them. This combination gives a rather peculiar “taste/feeling”… I will be honest, I’m not of fan of this “taste”… but this is just my personal preference, have that in mind.
Other good stuff about this work is the motivation of the characters, as in, they actually have one compared to the usual “I’m bad for the sake of being bad and they don’t have to pay me for this…“, at some point I even thought: “dang, this bad guy has a point”.
Earlier I mentioned the art, but I didn’t say how detailed it is – now I have a chance – it’s very detailed. The human vehicles/weapons like: AH-1 Cobra heli, Tornado & Harrier jets, Leopard tank and other well drawn “assets”, at first glance you could tell (if you are a military freak like myself) what they were, Johji Manabe you are the man. While we speak about the author I should mention that he himself makes an appearance in the main storyline… cheeky bastard.
The only thing I have against this manga is the meaningless epilog that is there only to make you go “WTF” and fuck up things a bit… but only a bit.
In conclusion I like “Outlanders” for the sum of its parts – good story that wasn’t too transparent, no cheap-overthetop-drama… – in simple words a “Good Manga”.
overall score: 7/10
overall score: 9/10
overall score: 8/10
This is definitely a good read!
As both a scifi and manga fan this is just an amazing read! it aslo has a rarity in scifi, organic ships and vehicles. The design work is just outstanding, it's a good classic read, a shame it is no longer in print though...
Mind as well post this to spare myself some questions. Minor spoilers inbound.
Writing down synopsis of a volume does not make it spoiler free, mind you.
"Earth is under attack! The powerful, alien Santovasku Empire has returned to the planet to reclaim it as their home world, putting the lives of all mankind at risk. Pulled into the center of the conflict is photographer Tetsuya, a man who inadvertently meets the otherworldly Princess Kahm, deftly avoiding being killed by her! However, Tetsuya’s problems don’t end there; Princess Kahm returns and kidnaps him, forcing him into an out of this world adventure..."
Everything is a-okay till this point, after that is what bugs me:
"...Her father is hell-bent on destroying all of humanity, but together, the two can do something that may avert the war. That is, if Tetsuya can bring himself to follow through with it!"
Mentioning someone or something that occurs much later in the story (vol 3 of 8) is something I consider a "spoiler". True, it's very general but still, let's look at it from this point, I will write a summery of Fallout (Black Isle Studios RPG):
"For many people living in the vault you have been chosen to complete the task of obtaining the water chip. The old one broke and the water reserves will last only for 150 days . This task will be not easy because to do that you will have to explore the world that has been destroyed by a nuclear war, what awaits you is a wasteland and many other dangers..."
Proper, isn't it? But let's add one more line to it, shall we:
"...one of your main enemies will be savage mutants ordered by the evil Master."
See my point? I'm not negating the definition of summaries/synopsis, I'm just pointing out that a site that is directed towards "recommending" stuff (with a story) should only inform people about things that are happening at the beginning to give you the general gist, the rest I want to find out on my own.
I personally loved this manga. Its a rival with mushishi.
I do see what you mean whith being almost the same as Urusei Yatsura. But Urusei Yatsura seemed like it was less thought through more of amake money kinda of anime. I haven't watched the anime version yet, because alot of the times the anime versions lack the quality or plots or even have added plots to control the amount of time each episode has or how the episodes flow together.
This is one manga though that doesn't screw around to much but isn't always straight to the point. I say that it has a certain style that draws the reader in even in the worst parts (not like there were any to speak of though)
All in all great read my profile might say I'm not a longtime user but that doesn't mean I don't know my manga/anime.You might also see that I usually give out high rankings this is just because if its bad I don't take the time to say anythung about it. But this great even if you think thst a give it a abnormally high rank , it deserves every star