Monday, December 15, 2014

Booknote: Star Trek: The Manga Ultimate Edition

Various authors, Star Trek: the Manga Ultimate Edition. Los Angeles, CA: Tokyopop,  2009. ISBN: 978-1-4278-1352-7


This was another ride down nostalgia lane for me. Back in the manga heyday when companies like TokyoPop were going strong, once in a while they would give a well-known property, like Star Trek or McFarlane's Spawn (I recently came across some volumes of this, and I will have a review down the road), the manga treatment. The result here captures the essence of the show and characters.

The volume contains eight stories by various writers, including a story written by Wil Wheaton and another by David Gerrold, who is know for also writing "Trouble with Tribbles". The art is also done by various artists. In anthologies like this, I always find it interesting how each artist adds his or her own style, varying things slightly. It is manga, so we do find some of those cute (kawaii) frames characteristic of the genre. Seeing Kirk and Spock go a bit kawaii does add some charm to the book. The stories are of good quality, what you would find in a good episode of the classic series ranging from light humor to serious and reflective.

This particular volume came out in 2009, and it is a compilation of stories from the first three volumes of the Star Trek manga series. It states that the stories were selected by fans. They chose well as this is a good, light, and entertaining anthology. My only wish is that it was in color. The volume does include some prologue pages in color, and they looked great. I wish they had done the whole volume that way. Still, overall, this was one I really liked.

The volume is definitely a good one for public libraries. It is rated for teens, but I am sure many adults will enjoy it as well.

4 out of 5 stars.

2 comments:

Nikki in Niagara said...

Oh wow! Star Trek manga! I didn't know it existed, I'll have to track this down. I recently enjoyed the Batman manga.

A. Rivera said...

Turns out every so often "Western" properties get the manga treatment. This one was a fun one to read. I just found some Spawn manga, which I recently read the first volume (found three volumes in second hand shop). I will be reviewing those down the road.

Thank you for stopping by. Best and keep on blogging.