Red

STORY
This one-shot manga started out with a lot of potential to be something really fabulous. Instead it teased without ever fully delivering; by the end I was left feeling completely unsatisfied. Basically this would make a great beginning to a longer series, but as a one-shot it really falls flat. It leaves far too many open-ended questions. Don't get me wrong, the plot itself is clever, but it promises more than it delivers.

ART
The style isn't as detailed as I generally prefer and it seems the manga-ka might have an aversion to drawing backgrounds. However, the guys were all very nice-looking and best of all it was SO easy to tell them apart (something that doesn't always happen in yaoi manga. ^_^;

CHARACTER
The characters were excellent; very nicely developed (for the most part) without being overly predictable in their actions. I just wish some of their back stories could have been explored a bit more...

ENJOYMENT
Right up until the end I was thoroughly enjoying what was going on. The plot was interesting, the characters were fun to read about, the setting was slightly historical, but something about the ending just felt unresolved for some reason. I was also a bit disappointed by the lack of guy/guy scenes. There's not much...just a kiss or two and some U.S.T. between a couple of the minor characters.

OVERALL
Well, despite being disappointed by how Rokuya chose to wrap things up, I still enjoyed this enough that I will probably keep it in my personal collection. The art was easy on the eyes and the interactions between the various characters was charmingly enjoyable.


**This review was written specifically for this site - if you see it anywhere else please contact me because it's been plagiarized. Thank you! And feel free to message me if you have more questions; I'll be more than happy to answer them if I can. :)

Red, a surprisingly good manga that no one I asked know. Even if you go to manga translation sites, you will not see this manga. What I am going to write will hopefully dig up this manga from the dirt and give it what it at least deserve, a praise.

STORY: 9/10 - the story is about Red and his journey of revenge. However, the manga is not always about Red. You will see stories about the other Indians, how they live in the white men's land. You will see the struggle of the American to live in the wild west. The story is wild and colorful with a lot of western movie elements that are both dark and comedic. However, a twist in the later half of the manga waved a new path which changed Red's top priority to not being able to revenge but able to survive, not because he suddenly cares about his life but because he has thing that he has to protect and the shift is so skillfully prepared that it feels natural. The story is not only about the past, the present but also the future.

CHARACTER: 10/10 - Our main character is obviously, Red, a native Indian, the last of his kind. Red is a not naive school boy but not a cold blood murderer either. While in his eyes, revenge is the most important priority, he also treasures life, friendship and struggles to not fall into the killing circle.

Red is not alone, he has a ton of friends and enemies. The cast are colorful and are portrayed as realistic as they could, from a cowboy with dark past, a Japanese with dark past, a black slave with dark past and a prostitute with dark past. Yes, the main cast are kinda dark but the author also managed to slip in some comedic characters that actually have a role in the story. The characters are not there to carter certain kinds of fan but to drive the story. The main point of having dark past is to let the readers have sympathy with them and dear, the author did a good job in it. Most of the characters do not cry, sad, angst about their past but they atone, live on and try not to fall again. You will love them or hate them because of their choices, not because they are main characters. That is the pros that a manga with a cast full of mature characters can archive, like Kenshin and Fate/Zero.

The main antagonist of the manga is a dangerous man, a truly dangerous man with a brilliant mind, not the kind of "I am so dangerous! Fear me, muwahahaha!" you usually see in shounen manga. He is on the level of Senator Palpatine and is total a jerk with no redeem feature. Other antagonists are also colorful. And due to the time skip from when Red was a baby and when he started his journey, some of his targets had already retired to live their daily life and this is the first time I actually read a manga with a case of "heel-face door slam" so hard that it left a bad taste for me, not to mention it's Red himself who slammed the god damn door.

ART: 10/10 - Oh boy, the realistic artwork suits the manga well. The female characters are sexy, cute and mature. The art is gritty but it's not negligent, all of the details are clear and welll drawn. The night is actually dark with black tone, I like this style.

ACTION ELEMENTS: 10/10 - Oh boy. How many times you read a shounen manga with a lot of over the top action scenes but still manages to not cross the unrealistic borderline? How many times? All of the casts are gunmen, gun rules, not katana (except one guy but he's villain). You will see a ton of gun fights, knife fights and even boxing fights. Red, thankfully, drops his giant axe early in the manga to learn how to use a gun and he's a bad shooter. And no, he took a lot of chapters only to be able to hit something that is close to him. He's still an average gunmen even after half of the manga, realistic as much as it can. The gritty art also added alot to the action scenes with head chopped off, brains blew away and more. This manga does not afraid to show you some blood.

HISTORY ELEMENTS: 10/10 - Oh boy! I am a historyl buff. And this manga satisfied my love for history despite being mainly a shounen manga with a ton of actions. The characters manage to involve with many historical events and figures without being out of place! From Saigo's rebel in 1877 to the capture of Geronimo in 1886. This is one of the few manga that portrays samurai as adept in using rifle. You will see character got sharped by history events, how their trivial life changed under the power of time, not the other way around. You have anti-christian japanese, slave trading, prostitution, cruel actions from both the white men and the Indian and many more. The clash of ideal between the native Indian who helped capture Geronimo and Geronimo himself, the clash of ideal of a true samurai and the change in Meiji era from both sides, everyone has their faults and the ideal clashes are as realistic as they can with no bias from the author. It's not about being God of the new world but to choose between going right or left.

FINAL RATING: 10/10. This is the second best story about the western world that I have ever read in my life (the best is Lucky Luke). The top noted art, skillfully portrayed story and characters and the healthy amount of both action and historical elements, this manga is certainly one of a kind and of the best I have read. As long as you are a fan of western America movie or just simply love manga, you will love this manga as much as I do.

See you in the next review!

Bruh...I am so glad to have read this manga because the amount of action put into this western type series...is just so damn good man!

******Just a warning for those planning to read this 151 chapter series, there is about 99.9% of bloody gun violence involved here and that includes one attempted rape scene so please take heed on my notice on that!******

At first when I read this manga, I didn't have a dang clue what was going like this is a sort of series where you have to read slowly in order to understand it properly. The characters were very nicely developed,I liked how us readers were given a chance to explore the background of the main characters involved.

First up, we have our main man Red who is an albino Native Indian. He was elected at 9 years old (jeez that was a big responsibility for a child that age!!) to become a chieftain and suddenly the rest of his clan are all killed by the white men. He is seeking revenge on a man named Blue since he's the main guy who told his men to kill the Indian clan. Pretty much a badass character👍👍👍👍

We then have our second main man Itou, who is a Japanese samurai and came to the United States with his friend after fighting in the Seinan War. He also tragically lost his comrades through violence during the war. He's often called Yellow because his name means the colour in English, tried using Google translate but have me no luck. He's pretty much hot tempered but quite a smart guy. He pretty much had a similar experience as Red with losing groups of people he was close with.

Lastly we have our gurl Angie (real name Annie West). She is an ex prostitute who was half raised by a nun and an Indian named Night Owl after running away from home. Honestly guys, the things coming out of her mouth were pretty funny.

I wanna admit the ending is touching but since this manga is criminally underrated, I want to be providing a spoiler free review to get more people to notice it. Also discuss about it, it was pretty much all thanks to Animeplanet who suggested this because I recently read Jojos Bizzare Adventure Part 7: Steel Ball Run.

Seriously if you love Steel Ball Run, Hellsing, Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, or even old western movies, this manga is definitely to binge on!

ALSO NOT FOR CHILDREN!!!!

I can't think of any manga that has kept my attention and desire to read more as much as Red. It's a story with very well thought out characters, a gripping narrative and a fantastic art style.

Story
It's a story you've seen before. At least the basic set up is. It's a traditional revenge story sprinkled with some obvious archetypes and a familiar setting. All that being said, We've always gotten western mixed with some other genre in anime or manga (Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Gun X Sword, etc...) However, here we just have a straightforward western with perhaps a small bit of Samurai film trips in between. As mentioned, Red is a revenge story. However, as the story progresses, we find that revenge isn't so simple. Some of these men have made lives for themselves and moved on which creates a conflict amongst the cast. Some are fine with continuing even knowing this while others are off-put by the senseless violence. They're beats that we've seen before in other works, but Muraeda Keiichi manages to make it feel fresh with a cinematic touch to it not typically seen in a manga. This is especially aided by the next point.

Art
To be honest with you, I was not on board with Red's art at first. Something about the designs just wasn't clicking with me in the first two chapters. However where the art started to really grab me was at the end of the second chapter, and from that point, it was clear that there was gonna be some more flair to it than initially thought. I wish I could post some screenshots I took in this review because some of these panels are absolutely breathtaking. From glorious moments of carnage to gorgeous backdrops and scenery clearly taking influence from classic spaghetti westerns. Muraeda's art is nothing to scoff at. This is a man who clearly knows how to frame scenes within panels without ever making them feel either cluttered or baren. This carries over to his other works as well (recommend checking out Kamen Rider SPIRITS)

Characters
The cast is essentially what really carries the story. As mentioned, the story, for the most part, is incredibly familiar, and some would argue derivative. What really drives this series home is the cast. Red is a solid stoic protagonist, however, despite taking on the strong silent type role, he has moments of levity that help establish his likability. If he were brooding the whole time then he would be a pain to read, but he's overall very sympathetic and even in his moments of cruelty, you understand where he's coming from and why he feels the need to do what he is doing. Angie is a solid female lead as well. She's comparable to Revy from Black Lagoon only less crass and more seductive like Fujiko from Lupin III. She's probably the more derivative of the main cast, but she's still an interesting character and has good chemistry with the rest of the crew. Grey is also a solid character, though I'll refrain from speaking much about him since that's mostly stuff that we learn closer to the end. But he's a great mysterious gunslinger type. Lastly, we have Ieroh who is by far the most developed character of the series. In fact, I would even go so far as to call him the real protagonist, or at the very least, shares the limelight with Red. Easily one of the most likable characters in any manga I have read and he goes through so much development that you really feel this character come to life as you read. there's plenty more character to talk about but It's best if you get to meet them yourselves.

Enjoyment
I feel like I've already let my feelings about this series known, Fuck yes it's enjoyable and it's an absolute crime that it never got an adaptation or an official translation. It's a difficult series to put down and it deserves everyone's attention.

Overall
Needless to say, this is my favorite manga of all time. I'm worried I may have oversold it (the series itself sure as hell didn't) But I truly believe this series is worth reading. Even if you're not into westerns there are plenty of great characters and solid action scenes to latch yourself onto and keep you invested. I want more people to read this series, and I would kill for an anime adaptation or hell, maybe even a live-action movie, but I know it'll never happen. Still, if you have the time, (which if you're browsing MAL you definitely do) then I highly encourage you to read the first 3 chapters and see how you feel about it.

Personal Enjoyment 10/10
Score 10/10

I want Tom Hanks to play Blue in the adaptation.

"RED Is completely unpopular manga, from the writer of Kamen Rider Spirit. I read it 9 years ago with Indonesian translation and it's not completed yet. And I find it extraordinary.

Story 10
It's all about red indian who's on the journey to get revenge for the annihiliation of his clan by white people. and the story have been executed very well.

Art 10
Because it's have the mature art, similiar to Battle Angel Alita, Pluto, and so on..

Character 10
Especially the main character is very unique, just like 3 people from 3 civilization

Enjoyment 10

Overall 10