Veritas

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

With the exception of a few comedies, like Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, or Cromartie High School, manga and anime primarily set in high school absolutely suck.

The reason for this is simple enough; of all the exciting, interesting places to base a story, high school is just about the worst. Choosing this as a setting is simply pandering to one's audience, nothing more.

However, despite so much working against it, "Veritas" manages to pull this off. This is no ordinary school; it's a place for instructing exceptional fighters, set up by an organization called Reunion, which has mastered biotechnology and robotics at ... a level far beyond anything in the real world.

None of the main action occurs in the classroom either; instead, the manga is a series of tremendous fights interspersed with political intrigue and mystery.

At the center of all this is the hero, Gangryong, the typical, strong-willed, never give up, never back down street fighter. While at first just an ordinary juvenile delinquent, his life changes when he comes across Lightning Tiger, a tremendous warrior who begrudgingly takes Gangryong on as a pupil.

After Tiger's supposed death, Gangryong is recruited into the school as his late master's only student.

While this could easily turn into a non-stop fight manga, (not that there's anything wrong with those!) there is a great deal of exposition and mystery connected with Gangryong's sponsors, the struggle between traditional martial artists like Lightning Tiger and Reunion's own brand of synthesized, bio-engineered martial arts, and the battle for the title of the head of Heaven's Riches that includes the school's student council as well as its adult sponsors.

While the story is well done, and the fights are brutal, gorgeous, and exciting, the manga manages to include a number of funny, humorous moments as well. It never takes itself too seriously, which just makes it that much more fun to read.

The place where this work really stands out most is the style of the characters. They just look cool. Gold chains and pendants around their necks, bracelets all over their arms, beanies over their heads, (in one case) a tribal tattoo, and a generally cool, trendy vibe are a hallmark of every significant character.

The guys all have hard, chiseled facial features and a moderate, well-defined amount of muscle. The female characters have soft faces, slim bodies, disproportionately large breasts and ass, and a similar trendy, up-to-date sense of style.

All of this might seem besides the point, but it's not. Having the characters look interesting, appealing, and (gasp) like a bunch of trendy high school youths makes the illustration more entertaining and the story more palatable.

While it undoubtedly alienates a portion of its readers, who won't be able to identify strongly with most of its cast, it's a fine decision on the part of Veritas's creators.

In terms of weaknesses, Veritas suffers from some predictable fights and scenarios. They're done well, but on several occasions, the creators had a chance to change it up, but opted to go for the more familiar route.

2018 EDIT FOR THE 3/10 REVIEW BELOW MINE-

Yes, I read the entire manhwa. It continuously gets better and more interesting, and while the final ending is rushed due to being canceled, it's far from bad. For a series that is all about playing with and subverting the cliches of the high school shounen fight genre, such a plot twist isn't out of place. Moreover, it's sensible, given the story arc and nature of the character in question.

SLIGHTLY OFF-TOPIC RESPONSE BELOW, IGNORE IF YOU ONLY CARE ABOUT VERITAS-

Also, I don't mind anyone disagreeing with my review, but if you're going to specifically call out my score, how the hell do you then justify giving The Breaker 10/10? It's the same genre as Veritas except utterly generic, blindly adhering to the high school shounen fight conventions which Veritas was all about innovating upon.

Moreover, The Breaker ALSO had a rushed, last-second ending. Except in that case, it made zero sense, and was nothing more than a "reset" of the plot and main characters for the new series. In other words, none of the shit in The Breaker matters, and read The Breaker: New Waves to see how everything progresses from square one. Again.

Veritas is an action manhwa that contains a lot of common themes. That isn’t what makes it great. What makes it great at the themes it subverts. Where this manhwa shines are the refreshing protagonist and the good fight scenes.

What makes the protagonist, Ma Gangryong, refreshing? He’s a common action comic hero – dense, always looking to fight the strong, been taught by a powerful master, etc. However, the author built on this strong point – he’s basically a violent punk that just loves fighting.

No, really that’s him to a ‘tee’. He doesn’t care about school, doesn’t have any love interests, and the only reason ... he has friends at all is because they forced themselves on him. What does he preach, i.e. ‘his path of truth’ in shounen terms? Nothing. He cares about nothing except getting stronger. When confronted by people who tell him that they fight to protect their families, he mentions – for the first time – that he has a little sister…then promptly says he still never thought about fighting to protect anyone.

See? Refreshing. Just a violent punk who happens to be the protagonist.

Thanks primarily to him, we get plenty of great action scenes.

Unfortunately, the manga could use a lot of improvements elsewhere. Aside from the refreshing protagonist, it is cliché and dull in a lot of other ways.

The main setting of this manhwa is an exclusive school designed to nurture martial artists. Here, fighters can learn skills and challenge each other. This school is ruled by an all powerful ‘Student Council’ (of course…) who is led by the rich, intelligent, and powerful president. Sounds familiar, huh?

Additionally, the presidential election is coming up and there is a conspiracy to overthrow the leader, and this is the primary plot of Veritas. From here, you get a lot of the Batman gambits, underhanded plotting by crafty guys, and so on.

You see the same thing in every action manga which involves school in any way, shape, or form.

Aside from the bland plot, there is a problem wherein Veritas lacks decent antagonists. Unfortunately, the author has a love of basically two types of villains: The bloodthirsty lunatics (who always laugh with wide teeth) and the cold, quiet calculating types. There’s a few people in-between, but they’re rare and they get less prominence.

So in short, Veritas is great with the protagonist and action scenes, but has a generally bland story and antagonists. Overall, I’d still recommend a read if you’re into action with great art style.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS

One Line Review: Don't waste your time.

So this is my first manga review, and I only felt compelled to write one because I wanted to give potential readers a different opinion of the OVERALL series than the Top Reviews do. Honestly, I have no idea how they would rate it so highly, if they actually finished it.

I decided to read this series since I thought it would be similar to The Breaker, and was well rated by the Top Reviews. As you can tell by my score, I did not like it and hope to spare other readers from wasting their ... time. Actually the manga was quite decent ..... up to a certain point. I'll briefly list what I thought was good, and what was not.

Pros:
- The Art was good
- A MC who is sort of arrogant and enjoys fighting
- How important events that played out in the past of the school, gradually get revealed from many characters point of view. This provides some intrigue and advancement to the plot, as events gradually build up to a supposed "final fight(s)"

Cons:
- MC is absent from considerable portions of story. He also does not get into as many fights as you might expect.
- Quite a few plot holes and nonsensical things throughout story
- Although it's a fighting manga, I believe that there were quite a few things that could be resolved through some conversation. It's like these characters are too stupid to talk to one another and realize that their goals are maybe not so different.
- Many characters have pretty stupid/trivial reasons for their actions throughout story. Bringing me to my next point, and why I rated this manga so poorly:
- The ENDING WAS S**T. THE WORST ENDING I HAVE EVER SEEN in manga or anime. I may have rated this manga a 6 or 7, if it wasn't for the utterly garbage ending starting from maybe CH 78-79. SPOILERS BELOW...

SPOILERS NOW: So out of nowhere, one of the main characters decides to personally kill pretty much the entire school including their friends, for some stupid reason. Not only will this nonsense rub you the wrong way, but this has the additional effect of not allowing ANY of the fights you were expecting from the "final fights" of the Reunion students vs Traditional students, that you thought was going to happen just a chapter before. And finally, the character that will fight this other character, just barely starts the fight before the manga abruptly ends. Additionally you should know that the manga was rushed near the end and cancelled. So there will not be any sequel, further locking in this garbage ending.

So I don't recommend you read this manga. I hope I have helped some people save their time.