Manga Review: Black Cat, Vols. 14-15

Black Cat, Vols. 14-15

By Kentaro Yaduki
Published by Viz
Rating: Teen + (Older Teen)

In volume 14 of Black Cat, our intrepid trio of bounty hunters, Train, Eve and Sven, begin the unenviable task of hunting down the evil Creed Diskenth! This involves some intensive training, and a duel with the Sweeper called River to gather information on his location. While volume 15 kicks off the opening rounds of an assault upon Creed Diskenth’s forces as our heroes team with a small group of Sweepers, including River, to take on Creed and his super powered minions, the Disciples of the Stars. Unfortunately for them they vastly under estimated the Disciples and quickly find themselves ambushed, separated and spread out over Creed’s private island. Can our heroes survive their respective battles with the Disciples? Can they trust the other Sweepers they’ve just teamed with? And exactly how did the guy get the information on Creed’s location anyway…?

The art is slick and solid, the contemporary nature of the setting is a nice twist from the generic fantasy world that most shonen series inhabit, unfortunately we don’t get to see much action in an urban setting as a good chunk of these two volumes are set on an Creed’s island which is heavily forested. The character designs aren’t too shabby, but some of the Disciples are bland and forgettable. Even the new Sweepers don’t exactly stick out as being particularly memorable. The action scenes are well handled though, clear and easy to follow, with the highlight being Eve vs. the flying surfboard kid in volume 15. It’s a creative and interesting fight in which she utilizes her hair as a weapon, a power I’m becoming increasingly fond of thanks to things like Millia in Guilty Gear XX, and the sequence in the second volume of Uzumaki. Yaduki does some neat things with this ability and it makes the fight visually engaging and fun to watch.

The story is pretty straightforward. The heroes, after gaining the information needed, team with some other random Sweepers and launch an assault on the big bad’s headquarters. Fights ensue. The characters don’t really come across particularly well, they generally seem smart and resourceful, but when just about all of the heroes seem this way it can be a bit meh. The Disciples of the Stars that they encounter are really just canon fodder with almost no history or back story given to any of them. When we do get some history it’s usually through exposition in the middle of the fight, which is something I’ve never been to happy with. Life stories should not be shared during battle unless it’s a distraction technique! Hopefully some of the new Sweepers will be fleshed out if they last long enough, but for the most part they’re just bodies as well. The dialogue is short and snappy, but still… the writing was decidely average.

These two volumes of Black Cat are decent enough, not particularly amazing. It’s doing a good job at being a competently put together shonen series with some nice art and ok, if not average, writing. Neither is a good jumping on point–that would be volume 13–but they both move the plot along with a nice twist and a strong action sequence. I still can’t really gush over the series, but once again there’s nothing really awful with it either. On the other hand if you’re a fan of the series these volumes are pretty key and important. According to a message from Yaduki in the front of volume 15, the battle with Creed is about to reach its climax, so you’ll definitely be wanting these opening rounds.

Volume 14 of Black Cat is available now. Volume 15 will be available on July 1, 2008.