Izayakaku
Title: Izayakaku
Type: Manga
Artist(s): SAKAMAKI Yukisato
Status in Home Country: Ongoing (3 Volumes)
Scanslation Status: Ongoing, Ch 10+
Scan Groups: Hyper Parfait
Genre(s): Action, Adventure, Historical, Josei
Summary: The war between the two clans intensifies. Most of the Genji (Minamoto Clan) have fallen, and were taken as captives. Among them was the young Yoritomo, a surviving successor of the Minamoto Clan. Yoritomo was pardoned by the head of the Taira Clan and was exiled to Hirugakojima, a small island in the Izu province. Yoritomo lived a peaceful and contented life in exile and never once thought of taking revenge.
One day, a monk was sent to the same island, supposedly banished for insolence towards the Emperor. Incidentally, this ill-mannered monk called Mongaku is Yoritomo's acquaintance. Mongaku meets Yoritomo and tries to convince him that the time has come to take revenge on the Taira. However, Yoritomo shuns Mongaku’s words….
Review: I can’t quite say I like this. The artwork would be better if not all the male characters were drawn as teenagers w/ various spikey hair. I had trouble telling apart the male characters because of the similar face and hair styles. I don’t think all the male characters are teens, so it may be just the mangaka’s style towards shounen? Although, this series is categorized as josei....
As for the plot, there wasn’t any action until Ch 5. Is that the end of Vol 1 or the beginning of Vol 2? In any case, because the action came about so late and didn’t last long; the story was kind of a snoozer. I actually didn’t really understand the plot anyways.
Two clans got into a war. One clan won. One clan lost. Looser clan wipes out the leading family except for one of the younger sons. Looser clan’s leader got decapitated, eldest son gets injured so bad that the father gives him a mercy killing, and the younger son gets exiled into some place so that he will never raise arms, practice the sword, hold a sword, or do any revenge stuff. To begin w/, leaving the younger son alive and assigning others to watch over his behavior doesn’t seem to be cost effective. Why not just wipe out the looser clan anyways? If you’re going to go to war, wipe out the enemy so they can never come back to haunt you. This just screams PLOTKAI!
There’s only about 10 chapters scanlated right now, and about the first 6 chapters the hero has been refusing left and right in raising the flag of his fallen clan. Pretty boring to have a hero be so passive and defeatist for so long in a series.
I may check out the end of the series once it completely get scanlated in the future, but it’s not a series I want to stay updated on. The hero has spent years in exile not practicing any martial arts, the sword, and etc. His skills are really rusty, and his attitude kind of sucks. The only thing he’s got going for him is his lady killer aura which is more of a long standing joke in the story.
Rate: 6/10