Manga Review #3: Blazin' Barrels

[Obfuscate]

Basic Info:

Title: Blazin Barrels
Publisher: Tokyopop
Writer(s): Min-Seo Park
Genre(s): comedy, futuristic-western, action
Basic Storyline/Plot: The main character, Sting, is a wannabe bounty hunter. Much like Vash the Stampede from Trigun he looks and ACTS rather naive and harmless. In reality he is an expert in Kung Fu and a pretty darn good shot with a double barrel (stacked not side by side) rifle. (Trust me when I say this manga is ALOT like Trigun) With all that in mind he is after an all female trio of bank robbers who have a stunning $99,000,000 on their heads, dead or alive of course. Mix in a known legendary bounty hunter and you have a comedic, futuristic western action manga.

My Take:

Since I am not out to make any friends doing this I'm just going to flat out say it: IF YOU WANT THIS KIND OF MANGA JUST READ TRIGUN!!!!!! Okay I said it. Honestly this was a pretty good read and it kept me reading. If you are not easily offended by apparent knock-offs then pick it up.

Final Score: 04/10 ( There are just to many similarities between this and Trigun for me to give it any higher of a score)

[HokageIzlude]

Blazin' Barrels and Trigun are like two totally different things. Trigun has alot of depth and complex characters, and its not so much about life in the wildwest, but survival as a whole. Blazin' Barrels on the other hand is just pure action/comedy wildwest hijinks with some adventure. It's nothing like Trigun at all in terms of characters, plot, or theme, anything. The ony thing these two manga have in common is that they use a wildwest-type setting.

So now apparently, anything that uses a wildwest setting is now a ripoff of Trigun. Also, I think I should add that Blazin' Barrels is not a japanese manga, it's a korean manwha, and has been running for almost 10 years with nearly 20 volumes. Trigun too has been around for about 10 years, but doesnt have as many collected volumes yet because Nightow took a break a few years back.

I don't think Blazin' Barrels deserves a lower score because people may think its a rip-off of Trigun, in which it clearly isnt it, especially because its not of japanese origin, however, Blazin' Barrels doesnt exactly deserve a higher score ethier because it doesnt have anywhere near the same kind of level of depth that Trigun has.

[Obfuscate]

Blazin' Barrels and Trigun are like two totally different things. Trigun has alot of depth and complex characters, and its not so much about life in the wildwest, but survival as a whole. Blazin' Barrels on the other hand is just pure action/comedy wildwest hijinks with some adventure. It's nothing like Trigun at all in terms of characters, plot, or theme, anything. The ony thing these two manga have in common is that they use a wildwest-type setting.

So now apparently, anything that uses a wildwest setting is now a ripoff of Trigun.
Also, I think I should add that Blazin' Barrels is not a japanese manga, it's a korean manwha, and has been running for almost 10 years with nearly 20 volumes. Trigun too has been around for about 10 years, but doesnt have as many collected volumes yet because Nightow took a break a few years back.

I don't think Blazin' Barrels deserves a lower score because people may think its a rip-off of Trigun, in which it clearly isnt it, especially because its not of japanese origin, however, Blazin' Barrels doesnt exactly deserve a higher score ethier because it doesnt have anywhere near the same kind of level of depth that Trigun has.

1.) Blazin' Barrels is Trigun with alot less thought...BOTTOM LINE. (I seriously did not think I would have spell that out)

2.) Sorry I'm not familiar with the different terminology associated with comics from different regions. These are just quick reviews based on what I read. There is no in-depth background checking or researching, hell I even skip anything about the author if there is a blurb about him/her. Beyond that for clarities sake manga will suffice. People KNOW the term manga and have at least a basic understanding of what it is. If I tried using all the different terms associated with each countries version of manga I would drive myself and others crazy. They wouldn't know if they were reading a novel or a kids bed time story. Its just easier on me and everyone else if we just call it ALL manga and leave it at that.

3.) This is the first review of a wild westish type manga I do not think its even remotely fair for you to immedeatly say I'm going to throw them all in the same boat. Unless of course you can acurately predict the future, which I highly doubt you can.

4.) The scoring is completely bias. It is in no way an objective score of the manga/series. In fact other than the section basic info the whole review is all according to my bias. If you have read the series or decide to the read series based on a review I do and decide either its better or worse than what I said thats fine. Like I said I'm not out to make any friends doing this.

5.) Thanks for actually replying. I wouldn't mind if you replied to every single review I did and gave your own 10pence on the subject. Always nice to have two sides to a story and all that jazz.

[HokageIzlude]

I still fail to see how Blazin Barrels is like Trigun at all, both have western themes, but otherwise, that's it, the similarities end there. Even if Sting's character, personality wise is somewhat like Vash, somewhat appearing harmless, naive, and just totally lame, but he has a very strong and natural agressive side to him, take into account that this is a very common reaccuring personality given to many Shonen manga/manwha heroes.

A few good examples -

Son Goku (DragonBall)
Luffy D. Monkey (One Piece)
Kenshin Himura (Rurouni Kenshin)
Recca Hannabishi (Flame of Recca)

There are thousands more out there, but it's quite common for the main character of a shonen series, especially one filled with action and other shonen elements. However, as I mentioned before, not all shonen series live up to the same depth.

Alot of people compare One Piece and DragonBall, and say One Piece is just DragonBall with pirates and Luffy is Goku. But when you really look at it, you'll see that DragonBall eventually falls into this strangely endless loop of super villians (Way later after the Saiyan Saga), while One Piece goes off on it's own unpredictable trail, with no telling whats going to happen next to the characters.

Blazin' Barrels has nothing on Trigun in terms of depth, but it's not a ripoff of it ethier. Otherwise, I doubt it would of survived for so long.

Anyways, keep up the work with the manga reviews, even if they aren't the most educated reviews, reading about a manga from anothers perspective is always nice. I may also recommend you check out Battle Angel Alita from Viz Media, it's a great manga