Alternative TitlesEnglish: Zombie Powder Synonyms: Ultra Unholy Hearted Machine, Rune Master Urara, Bad Shield United Japanese: ゾンビパウダー
Information
Type: Manga
Volumes: 4
Chapters: 30
Status: Finished
Published: Jul 19, 1999 to Feb 8, 2000
StatisticsScore: 7.451 (scored by 3959 users)
Ranked: #46392
Popularity: #326
Members: 6,797
Favorites: 203 1 indicates a weighted score
My Info
Popular Tags
action adventure shounen supernatural |
SynopsisSomewhere in the desert lies the world's greatest treasure: the 12 Rings of the Dead, the only source of the mysterious substance Zombie Powder, which can raise the dead and grant eternal life. Into this world stalks Gamma Akutabi, a man with a metal arm and a six-foot chainsaw, cybernetically enhanced master of the legendary martial art . But it takes more than one man to find the ultimate prize. You need a team: super-gunman C.T. Smith, knife-slinging teenager Elwood, and brilliant (and impossibly big-breasted) journalist Wolfgangina. Against an army of crooks and killers, against runaway trains and superpowered madmen, they'll need all their skills... but the most dangerous thing in the west might be the Rings themselves...
(Source: Viz) |
Reviews
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Exiled-Masamune
13 of 14 people found this review helpful
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27 of 30 chapters read
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| Overall |
7 |
| Story |
7 |
| Art |
7 |
| Character |
8 |
| Enjoyment |
8 |
This is my first review, so please bear with me if it's kind of bad.
This Manga could go either way for the reader really, it had quite a bit of potential and could have went further if it had a little more support. It is a shame that it didn't, Zombie powder had an interesting story and plot line, the story of the Rings of the Dead and the Zombie Powder is rarely something seen in Manga making its story more original than most, along with good action scenes excellent fight sequences and some bizarre moves, and plot twists, it's more than enough to keep someone interested.
The artwork was good and clean with attention to detail, there was isn't a scene where to much there is to much happening in one image that could be eye distracting for the reader. Good character art, loved the main character Gamma's hair do. The only real downside is that it could be considered somewhat simple.
The characters of the story, are fairly well balanced and developed, each have their strengths and weaknesses, and can take care of themselves during a battle without relying on the main character to help them out all the time, compare it to the Bleach Soul Society arc, Ichigo being the strongest of the group, was depended on the most , this annoys me in Manga's when most of the main cast are dependent on the main character, it lowers the value of the characters till later on in the series (clearly evident in Bleach).
The main character Gamma along with his partner/friend CT Smith provide the major fighting power for the group and action scenes for the story, Gamma providing comical humour usually more present in his actions whereas CT Smith provides more sarcastic, subtle and somewhat mocking humour to balance it out. Gamma being the swordsman uses a wide variety of techniques and battle skill easily over powering the majority of enemies (with some techniques vaguely reminiscent of Ichigo's techniques), CT Smith provides marksmanship with incredible skill seen shooting out the pins of the wheels of a moving train without missing a shot. These two provide the main force and best battle scenes of the story.
The setting for the story is in a somewhat futuristic/sci-fi western universe, with guns, outlaws, bandits,etc, has a slightly more original setting and is similar to the Trigun series setting.
Overall, if your a fan of Bleach, then you should enjoy Zombie Powder (since it was done by the same Mangaka Tite Kubo), or at least give it a look. The story, characters and action scenes are great and it gave me a good laugh. My only problem is that it ended to abruptly and was left with that unfinished feeling, so for that i would give a 7 overall, i would like to have given it a 7.5 but that score isn't there, and if lasted longer and finished off without leaving such an open ending i would have probably given it an 8 or 9.
Still worth a read anyway. read more
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Qwerkzy
50 of 64 people found this review helpful
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30 chapters
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| Overall |
7 |
| Story |
6 |
| Art |
7 |
| Character |
7 |
| Enjoyment |
7 |
Zombie Powder is a bit of a mixed bag. It's really impossible to not compare it to Bleach, since Zombie Powder was the mangaka's previous work (a relatively commercially unsuccessful one, I should probably add). It's probably not altogether fair to make the comparison, but it can't be helped since I already saw Bleach (both the anime and the manga) so I might as well just go ahead honestly with that perspective in mind.
As far as art goes, it's very similar in style to Bleach-- good but not quite great. I would say that the mangaka's style hasn't really changed too much.
People who have read/seen Bleach will notice very obvious parallels between Ichigo and Gamma, both of which utilize ridiculously large swords and whose bodies contain some greater, dark being holding tremendous power. Both of these darker sides are at once the protagonist and not, and you see Ichigo/Gamma noticeably suppress them. There are some other character similarities (Inoue and "Wolfgangina" [<--- that really is her name, I'm not kidding] look very similar) but they're not quite as evident.
The characters are fairly well developed, better so than in Bleach, if you only go up to volume 4 (the last volume in Zombie Powder) to be fair. Some of the characters are pretty cool, my favorite of the bunch is probably CT Smith, a charismatic gunslinger who offers some of the best humor in the series. The characters are a bit more balanced than in Bleach (where Ichigo is by far the strongest of the original team that went to Soul Society) and can take care of themselves fairly well without always having to rely on Gamma-- something I appreciate.
In terms of settings, the Bleach and Zombie Powder universes are almost polar opposites. Bleach is a supernatural Japanese universe complete with swords and spirits while Zombie Powder is a sci-fi Western (think cowboy movies w.r.t to the Western part) universe with guns and outlaws. Between the two settings, I honestly prefer the supernatural Japanese one, although I will admit it is rather trite and Zombie Powder's setting is much more original (though it has a possible cousin in the form of Trigun).
As Zombie Powder is an action manga, it would be a tremendous oversight to discuss it without mentioning a bit about the action scenes, which I think are fairly good. They're actually quite similar to Bleach-- clean art, lots of plot twists in which it'll seem one guy is coming out on top but hey, go figure, he actually isn't, a generous helping of humor both during and between action scenes to keep the mood light. Also lots of bizarre "special" attacks and villains, ranging from a crazy circus magician to a titanic fat woman. It's a bit wacky, but if you've read the Bleach manga up to the latest chapters (with the rather bizarre and gruesome Szayel vs Mayuri fight) it's nothing you haven't seen before, anyway.
In conclusion, not a bad manga but I can't help but feel something is missing. Maybe that is due to the fact that this manga never really ended, the mangaka stopped abruptly. Maybe it's because some of the mechanics in the manga are a bit too similar to Bleach. It might also be because of the really cliche premise of the story-- essentially a search for "Rings of the Dead" to construct Zombie Powder to gain immortality. I think in the end, this was a worthwhile read for me, if only for historical purposes. If you like Western settings in manga, or if you really liked Bleach a lot and would like to see a similar series, or hey if you just have some free time, maybe take a quick look at Zombie Powder and see if you like it.
read more
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Zombie Powder was Tite Kubo's first manga serial, which he started working on in high school. It was cancelled after only a year, but reading it, you have to wonder why. All of the incredibly stylish art and character design that make BLEACH so great are also in great supply in Zombie Powder. It's got fantastic battles, a supremely cool cast of characters, and is all in all something that every BLEACH fan should read.
And if you've somehow managed to read Zombie Powder without first hearing of BLEACH, do by all means start on the latter! xD BLEACH's length almost makes up for how abruptly ZP was cut short.
Zombie Powder is the less known manga done by Kubo Tite, and in my opinion was the better of his two creations. However when Bleach became popular he dropped this manga in favour of it, as such the story hasn't been completed. This manga can be described as a fusion of Bleach and Trigun as it borrows elements from the two. It's a shame that this excellent story was dropped for Bleach, I would've preferred this any day.
The most popular of Tite Kubo's two manga creations (Zombie Powder being the first) but in reading his previous manga, you can clearly see how he perfected his incredible art style, as well as awesome character design for Bleach. I actually started reading Bleach first and read ZP afterwards, and you can clearly see that there are similarities between the two manga, however, some might not be as apparent as others. Both mangas have amazingly detailed battle scenes, the super-cool characters (that are vital for a good manga) and the superb plot line that ties the whole thing together. First published in 2001 and still going strong - the length of this manga makes up for any disappointment at the abruptness of Zombie Powder's end.
Because these series are from the same author/artist, they both deal with similar style, characters, situations and development, the plot's are different and the looks of the characters. But for the rest, they are pretty much the same.
While reading Zombie Powder you can see the origins of Bleach. Characters' design, personalities, battles... everything is similar. Also, there is the "inside power" of the protagonist that they have to control.
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Both deal with going on an epic quest to aquire an item that has the power to bring a loved one back from the dead or grant awesome powers to the living
they both deal with people looking for somthing to bring people back to life,and if you ask me thay are writen alike.
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