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This is another complicated bit of backstory: in 1979, Kaoru Kurimoto started a series of epic fantasy novels about a warrior-type named Guin who woke up amnesiac with a leopard mask permanently affixed to his face. There are at least a hundred and eighteen novels in the main series, plus some unspecified number of “side stories.” (I don’t know what makes them “side stories,” either.) One of those “side stories” was adapted into a manga series, and collected into three volumes. Now Vertical is in the middle of publishing the manga based on the side story based on the main story of the leopard-headed warrior named Guin. (Who lies in the house of Bedlam, Elizabeth Bishop would add.)

The first two volumes are out in English already; the third is scheduled to follow in March. And I read those first two volumes today (Thursday), to let you, the manga-starved hordes of ComicMix, know what they’re like.

And they’re OK.

Hm. You probably want more than that, right? All right. Guin is your standard post-Conan mightily-thewed barbarian type, with impossibly bulging muscles and a big sword he whips out and swings around phallicly at the appropriate moments. In the manga, his leopard “mask” looks just like a head – the jaw moves, the eyes move, and the whole thing is disconcertingly too small for his overmuscled body. Also in Conan fashion, he’s hacked his way to being king of a civilized nation, marrying the beautiful princess along the way. (Unlike Conan, though, the princess is not exceptionally enamored of her husband.)

The art is clearly in a manga-style, but the number of panels to a page is kept from being ridiculous, and the flow of the art is easy for Western eyes to follow. Add that to the very familiar epic fantasy plot, and this is a fine series for a lot of American readers (fans of Forgotten Realms novels, for example) to dip into the manga world.

On the other hand, that plot is a bit thin – there’s some kind of supernatural plague/curse hitting the city of Cylon (yes, yes, I know – snicker now), capital of Cheironia. Guin – King, let’s recall, of the whole country – heads out alone to a transdimensional street of sorcerers to find out what’s behind the curse and shove a sword through it. On the street of the Seven Magi – Talidd’s Alley of Charms, for those making notes for their own RPGs – he meets his sidekicks: the just-barely-ex-dancer/prostitute Valusa and the pimp (but not her pimp) Als the Torq Rat. (No, I don’t know what a “Torq Rat” is either, or why it’s part of his name. Now shush.) Together, they get dragged into the home/dimension of the magician Thalmia, who wants Guin (in several ways).

Eventually, Guin gets to see the magus Yelisha, whom he was going to see about curing the plague…and then goes back to the palace after talking quite a bit but not doing much of anything. He gallops back out on his horse at the end of the first book, after a giant head appears in the sky, terrifying the populace and upping the curse-level of the area.

The second volume sees more of the same: quite a lot of running around and talking, some fighting, and only a bit of plot advancement. But, by the end, we do have a name and home address for the evil magus behind the curse, and Guin tries to do the stabbity thing to him, but finds that magical types often can’t be killed just by a few feet of steel. So the stage is set for a big showdown in the third volume.

I did find the first two volumes of The Guin Saga Manga a bit diffuse. It’s not slow-moving, exactly – Guin stalks around, growling and throwing poses, and the talking is actually pretty dynamic – but not a whole lot actually happens. For those used to gigantic fantasy umptologies, this will not be a problem, so I’m confident that readers of Big Dumb Fantasy in prose form will be equally as happy with The Guin Saga Manga. And it’s pleasant enough for the rest of us, too.

Publishers who would like their books to be reviewed at ComicMix should contact ComicMix through the usual channels or email Andrew Wheeler directly at acwheele (at) optonline (dot) net.