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RED PROWLING DEVIL VOLUME 1
Mildly Recommended (6/10)
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Comicsone
Writer/Artist: Toshimitsu Shimizu
Translation: Chia-Chi Yu
Editors: Angel Cheng, Duncan Cameron, Shawn Sanders & Mark Fujita
Price: $9.95 US |
Red Prowling Devil has a great concept, the kind of thing that would make a fantastic weekly TV series. In fact, it sort of did, because it's basically a cross between La Femme Nikita and Top Gun, as a beautiful female pilot convicted of a crime is forced to work for a secret organization to pay off her sentence. With such a solid concept, and some neat further development, it's a shame that the approach doesn't seem to have translated so well, as the missions and the character development are erratic and somewhat perfunctory, making it clear that Shimizu's interest lies more in the tech specs of the plane than in crafting a solid story where the technology is one element. As the story went on, I found myself drawn more and more into it despite the flaws that I saw, and it's definitely worth checking out, but mostly I saw in Red Prowling Devil the blueprint for something that could be more interesting.
Shimizu has a lot of interesting story elements in this book. The relationship between lead character Naomi and her handler Franz is typical of the agent-handler relationship, with Franz coming off as tough and unrelenting but actually having a softness for his charge, and the relationship develops in fits and starts throughout but eventually lands in an interesting place. Ditto for Naomi's relationship with the intelligence officer of the organization, and although the relationships with her boyfriend and brother have a lot less depth, they are important in terms of humanizing Naomi.
By far the most interesting relationship in the book, however, is one that doesn't develop over the course of several stories but instead is the focus of one chapter. Naomi's friendly relationship with a skilled ex-Vietnam pilot, and the circumstances that they eventually find themselves in that put them at odds, makes for the most effective story in the book. It's about as subtle as the rest of the book, which is to say not at all, but it does help reinforce the somewhat tragic tone of Naomi's life.
My complaint about the series stems in no small part from the translation of such a western concept into a manga-style storytelling vein. The poetic endings of each story, which seek to make Naomi seem like a noble warrior, seems an odd contrast with the apolitical and amoral nature of her job, and the exaggerated methods of speech don't do the characterization any favors. It doesn't help that Shimizu's storytelling technique invites the reader to figure things out on his or her own rather than really laying it out, and I would have much preferred that he set up the status quo of Naomi and her role in the organization first rather than spooning it out so slowly over the course of the entire book.
In a book about an aerial ace, you'd expect there to be a fair amount of aerial combat, and Red Prowling Devil doesn't disappoint on that score. Unfortunately, I found it hard to tell the difference between the various planes as Shimizu draws them in motion, and given that manga is famous (or infamous) for decompressed storytelling, I was surprised and disappointed to see the aerial combats end within a few pages, usually without making it very clear what happened in those intervening pages other than the winner or loser of the fight.
This comic book was not among this week's new releases.
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