Junk: Record of the Last Hero

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Not for the faint of heart but a great Superhero origin story. To this day, this is the best manga I've read. Very obscure but well worth the find.

Also, your not supposed to like the main character in the beginning. Just thought I'd add that in case one of you turns away in disgust. He does redeem himself though, you feel like you grow with the character while reading it.

The universe's Villains are interesting and the main character causes havoc for another Superhero too. The series is short but has the perfect ending.

If your a Superhero fan and you want a unique and different Superhero ... manga, then this is for you. If your looking for something adult and mature, then this is for you.

And if your looking for a quick read, then this is a great manga for that too.

This manga should not disappoint you.

Okay just to let you all know I haven't read all of the manga yet!! So when I do this may change but I felt that Junk deserved at least one review because it is such a great manga ... so far.

STORY: Alright, the story of Junk is fairly simple and has been sort of overdone in manga and anime throughout the years. It's your simple "teenage boy gets suit and starts kicking butt" manga like the Guyver and other things like that. That's why I had to ulitmately give it a seven, although it is well done and does add some ... new things to the genre, the basis for the story has been simply overplayed one too many times.

That said, this is not the Guyver, it is unlike anything you have seen before in this kind of genre. Unlike the Guyver, which is dark in its own right, this series is dark. It is darker than dark, darker than black. (Sorry couldn’t resist throwing in that anime reference.) There is a lot of violence and sexual things that several readers might be turned off by but I think it adds to the whole of Junk.

Also, he doesn’t use the suit to save the world, oh no, he uses it to serve himself. He beats up bullies who did … sexual things to him in school. (Did I not warn you of the darkness of this manga?) He uses it to get into a packed concert and other things along those lines. He is not your happy-go-lucky hero, he’s a kid with serious problems in a world that spawns even more problems.

ART: The art is gorgeous throughout and it is fun to read. The only real problem comes in with the fight scenes between two Junks. The angles are sporadic and sometimes it is hard to tell what exactly is going on but they do add to the pacing of the fight scenes which are fast, brutal, and relatively realistic. (Think the Bourne Ultimatum in manga form and you’ll have about what it is.)

CHARACTER: This is where Junk really shines, as you can tell from the ten. The characters in this series are amazingly well-done. All of the Junk owners have serious problems: the main character (black Junk) is a recluse and a pervert, the white Junk is … famous? (Can’t say too much without spoiling the series for you.) And the red Junk is a murderous psychotic.

But here’s the thing: none of them is the good guy and none of them is the bad guy. They are not white or black they are just different shades of gray, some being darker or lighter but never truly white or black. If anyone in this series is truly good, it would have to be the police force, and if anyone is truly bad … then telling you about them would ruin the series for you. (Sorry!) The only time I have ever seen characters like this in comics (I say comics not manga because these are American series.) are the characters in all of Sin City and the heroes in the Watchmen.

It’s just so good to read about these characters and how different they are and their problems. None of them are the standard hero/villain archetypes like you see in other manga and anime. And the character and suit designs are wonderful although the suits are a bit hard to distinguish from one another at the beginning.

ENJOYMENT: If you can’t tell by now, I really enjoyed this manga. It is one of my top five manga series. The whole thing is about as addicting as crystal meth and at the end of each volume you’ll be begging for more. The pacing is excellent for the most part, some of the discussions within the police department are somewhat boring but for the most part it’s great. The plot is engaging and it throws some unexpected things at you quite a bit. One word: Amazing.

OVERALL: I wanted to give this series a ten but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. The only two reasons I couldn’t, and they are very minor, are the slowdowns during the police department discussions and the hard to read fight scenes. But these are not good reasons why not to pick it up.

Also, this is a very dark manga and if you are into uplifting shounen stuff, stay away from Junk. It will not make you very happy. But if you like your manga dark and your characters gray then make sure to check this out.

And I have now finished all the manga and the score remains the same. Hurray Junk for not having a crappy ending.

tl;dr: A henshin hero manga that has a few good moments, but overall has a directionless plot and unlikable characters.

This manga is essentially a dark tonkatsu hero type story. The protagonist, Hiro, was originally a shut in due to being bullied at high school. He then receives a device through the mail called Junk, which lets him transform into a masked superhuman. He goes on a power trip and does all sorts of crazy things such as severely hurting his bullies. But it’s not like he really has any sort of goal and he’s not especially heroic, so he just ends up using the suit ... for random stuff and essentially just killing time.

The first five volumes are incredibly directionless since there really isn’t any sort of overarching story to speak of. Hiro gets involved with other Junk users and various things happen that vastly change his life circumstances, but ultimately none of it really goes anywhere or has much of a point. There aren’t really any major plot threads or character arcs. There’s not really any world building either and everything regarding Junk is left vague and mysterious. Furthermore, characters are pretty much all flat personality wise and terrible people for the most part, and thus hard to get invested in them at all. There certainly still are parts that are interesting or amusing, though it leans heavily on being overtly edgy for that. If you’re not a fan of edginess for edginess’s sake, there’s probably very little that’ll appeal to you.

The last two volumes seem to get to the point, but the manga gets even worse surprisingly enough. The mangaka said that the original plan was for the manga to be twice as long, but he was forced to rush things into an ending. That explains some of the issues, but I feel that a lot of the problems are too deep seated for simply a longer manga to fix. The protagonist actually has essentially nothing to do with the main plot. As such, the manga switches back and forth between showing him living his normal life and other characters actually moving the plot along. However, his normal life is really boring, and while there were plot threads there, they all get cut off in ways that make them feel completely pointless. The protagonist is eventually thrown into being involved with the main plot at the end, but the ending overall is just unbearably stupid and not satisfying in the slightest.

The moral of the story overall is that young people need to start taking more responsibility for themselves and society. That’s one of the most generic morals in existence, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but what made it awful was that this moral was conveyed in a way that was incredibly hamfisted. It involved a character enacting an incredibly dumb plan and this moronic plan somehow working. It made no sense and was past any reasonable threshold of suspension of disbelief. All the explanation for the various mysteries throughout the manga also made absolutely no sense. For example, the explanation for how Junks are powered absolutely does not make sense in the context that Junks can shoot lasers. It’s just terrible writing all around.

The art was okay in terms of quality, but I can’t say I was much of a fan of the style. The designs were pretty boring too. The fan translation seemed pretty solid.