Heat (Ryoichi Ikegami & Buronson)

Hey Daimyo here ready to bring you all another(it's actually the first) Champion of a manga. If you've been following my reviews on MAL (which you probably haven't). You probably know by now the type of things I value in a series. Which are (obviously): action, violence, delinquents, yakuzas, martial arts, explosions, mechas, samurais among various other testosterone driven things. Now what if I told you all that Ikegami Ryoichi(Sanctuary) and Buronson(Hokuto no Ken) got together and made a manga? But wait what if I add in that this manga is 17 volumes long? If you're anything like me you'd go to the nearest sports store buy a baseball bat and bash everything in sight with glee thinking that the worst destruction you could create would only pale in comparison to Buroichi(combination) chaos.


Sanctuary(Banker)                                           Heat(Loan Shark)

 

Doppelganger!?

Earlier I mentioned the manga Sanctuary, which was definitely a golden manga. Storytelling, characters, setting everything was practically flawless. Also it met my previous condition of being full of violence(the sex was a bonus) it really made me appreciate the life of a yakuza. Or atleast the life of a manga yakuza. Now I tried many mangas and manwhas that I hoped could emulate this effect like strain(too sappy), sunken rock (no comment), even the anime Gungrave(which while I did like the feeling was not close). That is I why I orgasmed when manga scanlation group Easy Going Scans decided to pick up another begotten gem of manga.

Yes Heat just as you would expect from the title is indeed full of heat. The manga explores the exploits of Tatsumi Karasawa. A character who quite literally just doesn't give a fuck. He doesn't give a fuck about the police, he doesn't give a fuck about the yakuza and he doesn't give a fuck about you or me. Literally our first introduction to his character is him filming a porno where he screws the police chiefs wife in order to blackmail him. It is from that point on we are given a roller coaster that just explodes as it depicts the rise of an amateur street punk to crime boss.

But what really brings this work home is the dynamic art of Ryoichi Ikegami. His fantastic and realistic visuals easily bring the scenes to life. The characters almost look life-like and as result retain much of their natural Japanese characteristics, which are often absent in most manga drawings. Also I'm sure all of you by now know that when it comes to action sequences and violence related plots, leave it to Buronson to rape(in the best way imaginable) a good story. Now what could possibly go wrong. We have an unbeatable manga duo working together on a great manga. Well, plenty of things could go wrong. First and foremost this manga was completed in 2002(yea I know over a hundred years ago) and has only now begun the process of scanlation. As far as I know there are no licenses for this title nor any plans to. Which is really a shame because if they licensed other Ikegami works like Crying freeman(really shouldn't have continued past the first arc) and the first BuroIchi( #1 blow???) licensed work we see is Strain something is terribly wrong with the world we live in.

Well, it's not that bad. You know there's always that wise guy (jackass) out there that tells us to stop complaining about slow translations and learn japanese. Sir I salute you. If you are willing to learn roughly 1000-2000 Japanese-Chinese characters just to read one seinen manga you deserve more than a medal, you deserve a statue, hell no you deserve a gundam. I'll get you an f9...Hi nu with your name on it. We'll exchange the gundam for a wife/gf that will cook, clean and serve without complaints(impossible task). 

End Transmission