Ranked #435

Black Cat (Manga)

Personally, I love this manga. With former bad guy assassin turned good guy story lines being done to death in various other manga, it's nice to break away from the format every now and then. The manga focuses on the aforementioned reformed character: Train Heartnet. The former Chronos number XIII, ruthless assassin turned sweeper - or plain old bounty hunter. He's partnered up with Sven Vollfied, a former IBI (International Bureau of Investigation) turned sweeper. And of course Rinslet Walker, the famous thief for hire. Later they are joined by a young girl named Eve, who happens to be a genetically engineered bio-weapon who is infused with nano technology which enables her to transform various parts of her body into objects such as hammers, swords etc. In one volume she was able to grow angel wings onto her back. In the opening volumes of the manga, Eve is rescued by Sven and Train from her creator and goes on to be a sweeper with them. Sven treats Eve almost like a daughter to him, although there is a slight rivalry between Train and Eve (not so much on Train's part) for Sven's attention. It's all very cute, and has plenty of comic relief moments.

The story of why Train became a sweeper is more detailed in the manga than in the Anime. With the manga taking place 2 years after Train was "killed" and therefore, was no longer a part of Chronos. Some of the chapters feature lengthy flashbacks, taking the reader back to when Train was a number and when he met Saya, who was a sweeper and lived her life to the full. Train partly left Cronos to persue the person who killed Saya - Creed Diskenth who was once a candidate for the Chronos numbers but was rejected due to his unstable state of mind. In actual fact, Train took Creed's spot as the 13th member of Chronos. Creed then went on to become the leader of the Apostles of the Stars, a group of people who use Tao to create unique powers. A battle ensues between both Chronos and the Apostles, with Train and the others stuck firmly in the middle. As the story progresses, more of the Chronos numbers are introduced such as Chronos number I Sephiria Arks, and the ever enigmatic number VII Jenos Hazard.

It's a well constructed story line, although I must admit that it can be slightly repetitive in some places. The manga itself contain some well defined characters and a flowing art style, although not as graphic as some others that I have read. Still, it's enjoyable enough to read. The plot itself is pretty much easy to follow, and the intermittent comedy moments are an added bonus. read more

Black Cat at its worst is a typical action manga chock-full of unoriginal characters and plot devices, but at its best an enjoyable series in which those unoriginal characters are endearing, the plot devices are familiar enough to seem almost nostalgic, and the story as a whole flows well (for the most part).

Story: The core story is quite interesting, though it often takes the shonen staples of "I'm gonna fight you just to prove myself" and "I suddenly got so much more powerful" and "I'm the only one that can stop the bad guy." The story is fun and even suspenseful beyond those occasional nuisances.

Art: Black Cat also reminds the audience it's shonen by featuring a lot of guys with spiky hair. Train Heartnet's features are adorably catlike. In case you're not sure who to root for, the good guys look nice and bad guys are usually quite ugly. Nothing about the art itself really jumps out at the reader beyond some of the action sequences, which are nicely drawn. Unlike many other shonen, I actually found myself understanding what had just happened in any given fight.

Character: Characters are not this series' strong point, at least not as far as originality goes. Everyone has seen these characters before at some point, they just looked different and had different names. Train is your heartless assassin-turned all-around nice guy who is also a bounty hunter. Sven is the self-proclaimed gentleman sidekick with some kind of trump card in his fighting ability. Eve is the ridiculously powerful child who's been genetically altered and initially had no emotion. Creed is the guy who has a disturbing obsession with the main character and a vendetta against the world who inevitably decides to rule it over as a god.

That being said, the characters are faithful to their unoriginal archetypes. They rarely do anything unexpected, unless that's their intended personality.

Enjoyment: In spite of the perceived recycled characters and storyline, Black Cat is quite enjoyable. There's plenty of humor interspersed throughout and the characters, to their credit, are diverse enough where a reader could pick one he/she really really likes and cheer them on over the course of the story.

Overall: Black Cat is criticized for not being too original, but that's not really its intention. The idea is to create an interesting story with characters that have been tested and proven to work on an audience before, and besides, if Black Cat were to happen to be the first anime anyone saw, they wouldn't necessarily know the difference. This is, in the end, a worthwhile series for action fans. read more