Taboo-Tattoo
Title: Taboo-Tattoo
Type: Manga
Artist(s): Shinjirou
Status in Home Country: Ongoing (2 Volumes)
Scanslation Status: Ongoing, Ch 9+
Scan Groups: Stand Alone Scanlation, Simple Scans
Genre(s): Action, Martial Arts, Mystery, Seinen, Supernatural
Summary: Seigi, a martial arts trained middle schooler, often feels driven to protect the weaker people around him. One day, he defends a homeless man against some punks, and the man gives him a strange tattoo on his palm in return. The tattoo is a secret weapon produced in the arms race between America and the Serinistan Kingdom.
Seigi finds himself in over his head when a powerful girl, using the same secret weapon, violently pursues him in order to retrieve it. His skill at martial arts may not be enough to keep him alive, but will he be able to learn how to trigger the power of his tattoo in time?
Review: This series reminds me a mix of “Bleach” and “Psyren”. Seigi is one of those heroes that believe in justice and helping out anyone in need of a rescue. His father died as a cop so he wants to take the same path. Thus far, the only person who could beat him was his grandfather. However, he soon gets his ass handed to him by a girl, and ends up learning about the magical tattoo he got from helping out a vagrant man one night.
From then on, he’s reluctantly paired w/ the girl in secret to hunt others w/ stolen tattoos in some sort of war w/ American versus some unnamed Kingdom. I still find it a bit strange that this war between these 2 countries is taking place covertly in Japan, but whatever. The whole illegal power thing that Seigi obtained and pairing up w/ the girl is extremely like “Bleach”. In addition, the girl looks like a middle schooler, but apparently she’s supposedly way older than Seigi, like in her middle age or more. This is similar to Rukia being older to Ichigo in “Bleach.”
As for why it’s like “Psyren,” Seigi’s power of void is almost like Aegha’s power. Not to mention their skills and personalities are similar.
With all the similarities, it’s still a good series. The only big difference is the ecchi scenes. The ecchi scenes go back and forth between big breasted women and Lolita like girls w/ a lot of fan service in between. It’s still early in the series but it’s typical shounen style of middle school boy obtaining some power and going from fight to fight while powering up. Hmm...I wonder if the seinen category must be a mistake?
The artwork is good, but I don’t like that all the main characters look like young middle school children. Even the villains look and act like 14 year olds.
Rate: 6/10