Subject: Manga Reviews: Star Trek: the Manga vol. 2 Kakan ni Shinkou | Author | Messages | Billy Aguiar
Posts: 84
 | Posted: 10/1/2007 9:19:56 AM | Star Trek: The Manga vol. 2 Kakan ni Shinkou
TokyoPop
$9.99, B/W, 216 pages, Available Now!
Edited by Luis Reyes
Rated for 13+
Reviewed by Billy Aguiar
2 1/2 Stars
Reading Star Trek can be radically different experience each time you pick up a new story, especially when you are dealing with The Original Series. It has a very distinct tone as compared to the others, somewhat like a combination of the exploration of The Next Generation and the willingness to get one's hand dirty and get involved that was part of Deep Space Nine. Too often the stories seem merely a borrowing of the later generations of shows with new clothes. But in this volume, the tone of The Original Series is captured, especially in the first two stories, which had a greater willingness to get into a fight but also a greater willingness to get involved and to try to change things for the better. Especially The Trial, shows Kirk as a fighter, but instead a person who wants to win. There is an interesting comparison in that story to the strength and weakness of the Klingons . Also in the short stories are the disposable red shirts, dilithium crystals, nods to continuity without being a slave to it and a back handed snicker about Kirk's womanizing. Like many anthologies, I fear that some people will overlook the strong stories out of distaste for the weaker, later stories in the volume. I do wish that the stories focused more on the primary trio of characters of Spock, Kirk and McCoy, but you can't get everything and this is still a good addition to Star Trek: the Original Series, keeping in the spirit of it.
I have already done a review of the first volume of the series, located here, and I can tell you right up front that one of my concerns that this could have happened to any of the Star Trek crews, well, the situation in The Trial, for instance, is one that only Kirk could have gotten himself into and out of.
This is a weekly manga review here on the CBG site, but don’t forgot to check out my other review site, Prospero’s Manga for more manga reviews.
www.tokyopop.com
Vol 1. ISBN: 1-42780-620-9
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