Whodunnit: the generic shonen edition.
Creative Staff:
Original Story: Ishio Yamagata
Art: Kei Toru
Character Design: Miyagi
Translation: Nicole Wilder
Lettering: Rochelle Gancio
What They Say:
After barging into the Piena Kingdom’s holy tournament and causing a scene, Adlet was curtly jailed and, soon after, met the princess Nashetania. Though Adlet was viewed as unfit and unworthy by his fellow man, the Spirit of Fate bestowed upon Adlet the proof that he was one of the chosen Braves of the Six Flowers. But cornered by his fellow Braves who believe he is a traitor, Adlet must prove his innocence and find the true imposter before his companions play right into the enemy’s hands.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The idea of a group of heroes chosen by the gods themselves to fight evil only to have a villain hidden among them sounds like such a solid premise for a series. And yet now two volumes into Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers, I’m only further disappointed at how wrong I was.
Volume one of the series was already a disappointment in its execution on both art and story across the board, and this second volume only repeats those same problems. While the series itself makes for a decent shonen, every action sequence from its bombastic sword duels to its more minor punches of angst are so incredibly difficult to follow. Actions lasting only a single panel are especially difficult, but artist Toru’s real weakness is the lack of leading their actions along in a manner that overlaps with the reader’s natural progression from panel to panel. Rather than a gradual right-to-left, top-to-bottom flow, readers are left accidentally skipping over key frames, having to backtrack and figure out exactly what just happened in a single panel before moving forwards. On one occasion, I actually had no idea a character was supposed to have been beheaded until the character themselves states so out loud.
This leads to the series second failure—its writing. While Rokka’s story exposition certainly isn’t the worst I’ve read, it’s far from the best, or even acceptable by today’s standards. Too often do characters pause to provide some insight or backstory that feels so hackneyed and force-fed to readers that you can’t help but roll your eyes as you gloss over them. Fremy’s history of being a hero originally raised as a half-breed beast (excuse me, “fiends”) sounds like something out of a deviantart fanfiction, and Adlet’s own childhood backstory of how his village was silently under rule of fiends so blatantly tries to make you empathize with him only for the kneejerk reaction being “generic shonen protagonist.”
Of the heroes, Adlet is the sole member to have no magic powers, and yet he finds himself being accused of being the group’s saboteur. He’s clearly set up to be the series’ protagonist that you root for, and yet the story is executed so poorly that you can’t get attached to anyone at all. Furthermore, writing only gets more muddled when characters begin explaining their thought process in terms of who should and shouldn’t be trusted. You’d think with a gigantic cloud of suspicion looming above everyone, thoughts would lead to second-guessing, eventually snowballing into further drama, and yet the writing is very black and white about who’s labeled trustworthy and not that everything just feels so artificial.
There is a decent camaraderie that develops between Adlet and Hans, but at this point I’ve grown to weary to care.
In Summary:
Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers volume 2 carries over every problem from the first volume beat for beat. Muddled art makes for difficult-to-follow fights, linear storytelling oversimplifies what could have been a promising plot, but the volume itself ends off on a decent enough cliffhanger that you may second guess yourself before fully committing to dropping the series. Now two volumes in at this point, though, you should know better than to do that by now.
Content Grade: D+
Art Grade: C+
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: B
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: May 23rd, 2017
MSRP: $13.00
