<b>Review of Livingstone #1 by Demelza</b>
I wasn’t ever the biggest fan of <em>Deadman Wonderland</em> but I really liked the artwork in the manga, so when Kodansha announced that they were releasing<em> Livingstone</em> in English I was excited to see Jinsei Kataoka’s art for a different project. The result was something quite interesting.
<em>Livingstone</em> is based on a short play by Tomohiro Maekawa (who is noted in the book for creating<em> The Invader Takes A Walk; Function Domino; Front, Back, and Beyond</em>). The story is centered around two young guys by the names of Sakurai and Amano, who are agents of a company known as Livingstone. It is said that every soul has a plan in life and if you stray from its destined path then your soul becomes tainted, causing the soul stone inside you to shatter. Sakurai and Amano’s job is to find souls in danger of breaking and put them back on the right path. If a soul stone shatters it creates a “negative point”, which is an area that’s been stained by someone whose soul stone has shattered. Any unfortunate human who stumbles upon this point risks his or her soul stone being tainted and shattering as well. This is what happens to the young man who is the focus of the first chapter, and is living in an apartment where a young girl was killed in the past. The girl’s untimely death left a negative point which leads the man’s soul off its destined course over a number of years.
This first book of the four volume series is mostly centered around setting up the two main characters and how the world of <em>Livingstone</em> works. Early on we learn that Amano is not human and does not have a soul stone, thus he does not feel pain like a human nor does he experience human emotions. It’s not clearly explained what Amano actually is or how he became partners with Sakurai, but I have a feeling that we’ll learn more about both in the next volume. Sakurai is in a similar position to Amano, in that he doesn’t seem to be completely human, although he does appear to have a soul stone. He also has the ability to view the memories of a shattered soul stone in order to discover what happened to a person before they died and how their soul stone broke.
Volume 1 of <em>Livingstone</em> includes the first five chapters of the series and shows how Amano and Sakurai deal with souls in different situations. If a person really wants to die and the two can’t convince them to continue living, they’ll move the soul onto its next life and deal with the body that remains. Sometimes they can turn it around and get the soul back on track and other times something even more unexpected can happen. Sakurai believes that life is precious and always wants to put things back on the right path whenever he can. Amano, however, doesn’t really care and would rather deal with every job as quickly as possible even if it means killing a person. This makes for an interesting team dynamic and certainly keeps the story flowing nicely.
There isn’t as much blood and mindless gore in <em>Livingstone</em> as is present in <em>Deadman Wonderland</em>, but when there are graphic scenes, Jinsei draws them really well. His artwork overall is very smooth and detailed, and character designs are unique enough that they’re always interesting. I noted that he has a wonderful talent for drawing scary, crazed-looking eyes for the characters when appropriate. His art seems less interesting and more generic when doing comedy scenes but there aren’t enough of them to hinder the impact <em>Livingstone</em> otherwise has. The plot is also fairly well thought out and I think four volumes will probably be more than enough to explore it thoroughly without becoming repetitive.
Overall I think that <em>Livingstone</em> has a really interesting concept and Jinsei Kataoka is the right guy to be handling the artwork as he brings it to life brilliantly. My only real concern with the series is that the story feels like it’s going to become very similar from book to book. Hopefully the fact the series is only four volumes was intentional and not a sign that the manga was prematurely cut due to repetitiveness. Regardless, I am optimistic and looking forward to reading the rest of <em>Livingstone.</em>
<b>Final score: 7 out of 10</b>
I wasn’t ever the biggest fan of <em>Deadman Wonderland</em> but I really liked the artwork in the manga, so when Kodansha announced that they were releasing<em> Livingstone</em> in English I was excited to see Jinsei Kataoka’s art for a different project. The result was something quite interesting.
<em>Livingstone</em> is based on a short play by Tomohiro Maekawa (who is noted in the book for creating<em> The Invader Takes A Walk; Function Domino; Front, Back, and Beyond</em>). The story is centered around two young guys by the names of Sakurai and Amano, who are agents of a company known as Livingstone. It is said that every soul has a plan in life and if you stray from its destined path then your soul becomes tainted, causing the soul stone inside you to shatter. Sakurai and Amano’s job is to find souls in danger of breaking and put them back on the right path. If a soul stone shatters it creates a “negative point”, which is an area that’s been stained by someone whose soul stone has shattered. Any unfortunate human who stumbles upon this point risks his or her soul stone being tainted and shattering as well. This is what happens to the young man who is the focus of the first chapter, and is living in an apartment where a young girl was killed in the past. The girl’s untimely death left a negative point which leads the man’s soul off its destined course over a number of years.
This first book of the four volume series is mostly centered around setting up the two main characters and how the world of <em>Livingstone</em> works. Early on we learn that Amano is not human and does not have a soul stone, thus he does not feel pain like a human nor does he experience human emotions. It’s not clearly explained what Amano actually is or how he became partners with Sakurai, but I have a feeling that we’ll learn more about both in the next volume. Sakurai is in a similar position to Amano, in that he doesn’t seem to be completely human, although he does appear to have a soul stone. He also has the ability to view the memories of a shattered soul stone in order to discover what happened to a person before they died and how their soul stone broke.
Volume 1 of <em>Livingstone</em> includes the first five chapters of the series and shows how Amano and Sakurai deal with souls in different situations. If a person really wants to die and the two can’t convince them to continue living, they’ll move the soul onto its next life and deal with the body that remains. Sometimes they can turn it around and get the soul back on track and other times something even more unexpected can happen. Sakurai believes that life is precious and always wants to put things back on the right path whenever he can. Amano, however, doesn’t really care and would rather deal with every job as quickly as possible even if it means killing a person. This makes for an interesting team dynamic and certainly keeps the story flowing nicely.
There isn’t as much blood and mindless gore in <em>Livingstone</em> as is present in <em>Deadman Wonderland</em>, but when there are graphic scenes, Jinsei draws them really well. His artwork overall is very smooth and detailed, and character designs are unique enough that they’re always interesting. I noted that he has a wonderful talent for drawing scary, crazed-looking eyes for the characters when appropriate. His art seems less interesting and more generic when doing comedy scenes but there aren’t enough of them to hinder the impact <em>Livingstone</em> otherwise has. The plot is also fairly well thought out and I think four volumes will probably be more than enough to explore it thoroughly without becoming repetitive.
Overall I think that <em>Livingstone</em> has a really interesting concept and Jinsei Kataoka is the right guy to be handling the artwork as he brings it to life brilliantly. My only real concern with the series is that the story feels like it’s going to become very similar from book to book. Hopefully the fact the series is only four volumes was intentional and not a sign that the manga was prematurely cut due to repetitiveness. Regardless, I am optimistic and looking forward to reading the rest of <em>Livingstone.</em>
<b>Final score: 7 out of 10</b>