By Yusuke Aso
CMX, 194 pp.
Rating: Teen

The King of Debris is fairly fun, formulaic shonen. While there isn’t anything terribly memorable, Yusuke Aso’s story moves at a nice clip and never gets bogged down by lengthy exposition that so often plagues the early volumes of many manga.

The usual ragtag troupe of characters explores a war-filled world, unknowingly drawn into a conflict that runs much deeper than they ever imagined. Citro is the main character, an android boy who winds up having a mysterious orb (known as “the Heart of the God of Destruction”) embedded in his body. This gives him a third eye on his forehead, which grants him extra power when activated. Citro’s “sister,” Corona, travels with him. She is a skilled mechanic, a valuable trade in a world filled with robots. Their peaceful life was disrupted when Tera, a hi-tech witch of sorts, is followed by a bunch of enemy robots. Her appearance resulted in Citro’s absorption of the orb and started him on the quest to have it removed from his body. They eventually make friends with Agito, a swordsman who spends a lot of time failing to slice up his target, while also looking a whole lot like Cloud Strife.

The plot works like this: enemies from the Desgerka army try to capture Citro, minor characters get thrashed, someone hurts or captures Corona, Citro’s inner power awakens, and then he kicks all kinds of ass. This happens twice in volume two, wearing out any sort of novelty by the second instance. I can only guess that Gohan Citro will eventually gain control of his emotions and the power of the Heart of the God of Destruction. Aso is not going to win any contest for originality, but in the world of shonen manga, this is a successful, acceptable formula.

Even with a stale plot, there is still a lot of good working for this manga. The opposing army has a team of elite warriors with some delightful character designs and personalities. They call themselves Hexagon (even though there are seven members) and I found their interactions to be far more engaging than the main party’s. There’s a pair of genuinely creepy twin girls who make an appearance—they only count as one “side” of Hexagon—and they walk around wielding morning stars. My favorite “side” of Hexagon, however, is Colonel Strike, who looks like he was lifted from a MegaMan X boss character sketch session. It’s a nice, refreshing design when compared to the other spiky-haired generics who populate most of the pages.

Also on the “enemy” side is Kirgit, who may prove to have the most character depth out of anyone in the cast. He has a run-in with part of Hexagon, where it is revealed that Kirgit’s body has been reconstructed, effectively leaving him composed of eighty percent machine parts. There is a small scuffle between him and the others, with Kirgit insisting on being called human. I do not expect the series to turn into a full-on philosophical examination of humanity for the ages. I do, without reservation, cite this as one of The King of Debris’s stronger moments and I would hope that this issue continues to surface in future volumes.

If you need a light page-turner to pick up, you could do far worse than The King of Debris. Those of you who dig generic shonen manga will find a lot to like here. The rest of you can safely pass on this one.

Volume two of The King of Debris is available now.

Review copy provided by the publisher.