Rappa - Reviews

Story

The story starts out somewhat similar to Trigun (as in it involves an ultra powerful dude with a large bounty on on his head).  However, what starts off as a fun bounty hunter romp sudenly turns into a "Man vs. Machine" story.  Also, while the setting initially seems to be the Old West, it quickly becomes apparent that there are alot of elements that don't fit in with this setting (such as dinosaurs, unicorns, and robots, to name a few).  Of course, since this manga involves people with crazy super powers, I didn't expect it to be realistic anyways; but, the inclusion of these elements is still kind of jarring (though one could argue that it also makes the manga more fun).  Maybe if there had been a bit more world building I could accept these oddball elements a bit more.  The only world building we get is some exposition about the man vs. machine wars and some more exposistion about the previous civilizations that had advanced technology.  Also, while the story was fairly fun and entertaining, I felt that the ending just wasn't very satisfying.  It was just a bit too open with some mysteries (mainly the ones around the titular Rappa) still unsolved.

Art

The artwork is quite nice and well detailed.  It's probably the best part of this manga.

Characters 

Sadly, the characters are for the most part one-note.  Even the titular Rappa (who has the benifits of being both bad-ass and mysterious) doesn't get as much development as I had hoped he would (though he is probably the most developed character in the manga).  It doesn't help we never find out the mysteries surounding him.  Also, I think the Mechanic could've been a more interesting villian if he had been fleshed out more.

Overall

I wanted to like this manga.  In fact, I did get some fun and entertainment from it.  However, I ultimately found this series to be somewhat disappointing. 

I can't really say that this held my interest for the first 7 chapters, there were ok but they weren't good the last 10 were the same, and even at times dragged on so badly I even fell asleep at chapter 13. LadyPsychic says that it's like Trigun, maybe; we won't ever know as the story setting is only kinda similar: vast wasteland, big bounty, lost tech, OP MC(debatable), two companions(3 if you include the unicorn[?]). I would actually Place Rappa in its own category because the mangaka can't decide what to do. Fantasy, magic, crazy futuristic but steampunk tech, dinosaurs(wtf?), mechs... too much in only 17 chapters.

Another point against it being like Trigun is that Trigun was 20 chapters, 3 chapters more(it does speed up halfway through) but it has a cohesive storyline the isn't all over the place. This really wasn't enjoyable, I just got done the original Trigun(the first time I read it) and it was very good, and held my interest, engrossing is the word I love to use on very good stories, just like all Baki's I want to read the next chapter and not sleep, this didn't do that I found myself thinking 'only 17 chapters I'm almost done, that's not a good thing. I can't really recommend this it's not bad but it ain't good, barely scratched the surface of Trigun but not even close to being like it, too many things happening all at once. One read.