Manga Review – RG Veda Volume 2

This week I have a review of RG Veda’s second problem. Yasha’s band of outlaws grows by a few members, and we get some more backstory for Ashura. Is this enough to push this volume above the prior volume’s lackluster score?

General Information

Title: RG Veda Vol. 2
Written and Illustrated by CLAMP (Story by Nanase Ohkawa, Art by Mokona Apapa)
Translated by Haruko Furukawa & Christine Schilling
Lettering by William Suh
Originally serialized in Japan in Wings.

Premise

Lord Yasha and young Ashura continue on their search for the Six Stars, who they will have to unite to overthrow Taishakuten. In their search they also find a lead on a weapon they’ll also need to overthrown Taishakuten – legendary Shura sword.

The High Points

The scenery is still fantastic, and the fight scenes are also much improved from the last volume.

The Low Points

We have a new character introduced this volume, who may be one of the Stars (it’s not confirmed yet), who also is kind of meant to be the scrappy kid archtype, combined with the Proud Warrior archtype – which ultimately ends up falling flat at best.

Content Notes

Still not a lot of blood here – and I’d say there might even be less than the last volume of the manga.

The Scores

Originality: The series continues, but being that this is a moderate-length manga series, I’m not particularly going to dock it for originality. 5 out of 6.

Artwork: The artwork is still great work for CLAMP, and the improved art for the fight scenes (I can keep track of things now) gets it an additional point. 5 out of 6.

Story: The story is definitely fleshed out a bit more. Now, we don’t get a final conclusion (this isn’t the end of the series), but we get some answers, and a few new questions posed. 5 out of 6.

Emotional Response: I’m still not quite able to get into the characters quite yet. Hopefully later volumes will provoke more of an emotional response, but thus far I’m still not feeling it. 2 out of 6.

Characterization: We get more character development for Yasha and Ashura, and thus far they stick with their characters – but the characters still feel flat to me. Consistant, flat characters (figuratively speaking), but flat characters nonetheless. 3 out of 6.

Flow: 4 out of 6.

Overall: This was okay. Not stellar, just decent. 3 out of 6.

In total, RG Veda Vol. 2 gets 27 out of 42.