Chronin Volume 1: The Knife at Your Back

Wow, so good! I loved the drawing style. I had a bit of difficulty keeping the Japanese history straight, and there were a lot of names (besides the main characters’ names) to keep track of, but the story was good and worth the effort. The characters are great, especially Hatsu, and I really liked the friendship that developed between Mirai and her. I can’t wait for September when the sequel comes out!

The art and writing are a bit awkward, but I found myself drawn into this time travel saga as the book progressed. It helped that it was set in a place and time with which I do not have a lot of familiarity -- Japan in the 1860s -- instead of some overused time and place. Interesting characters dealing with an interesting scenario make for a good book.

But the art was distracting. All the backgrounds were toned with a gray wash containing white speckles, making it look like the all-white figures in the foreground were fogbound in a never-ending snowstorm. Weird choice.

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3495734.html

It's an interesting story of Japan just before the Meiji Restoration, with a woman from 2042 masquerading as a samurai and a time-travel screw-up potentially erasing our version of history. The plot is intriguing enough, and has some good gender-bending twists, but I'm afraid I found the art (also by the author) rather deficient; it was difficult to tell several of the key characters apart, and they sometimes seemed rather awkwardly posed, which rather distracted me from what was going on.

The story was very interesting, but I found the art very unhelpful. The uncolored, unshaded line art was difficult to parse; it was difficult to tell characters apart; characters were posed awkwardly and confusingly, particularly in fight scenes; and in some scenes it was unclear what panels were the current action.

This is a cool concept, and I like the different ways the various characters experienced the setting. Makes me wish I knew more about Japanese history!