Wāq Wāq

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The world of Waq Waq takes places in a future where the planet has become an endless desert and it's filled with machines that attack small villages dotted around the endless desert that are filled with humans that have black blood, whose only defense are the Sakimori, a group of humans chosen to partner with the Goujin-zou, a race of machines that grow stronger when they're melded with humans. Shio, who is traveling with his his Sakimori father, Al, are attacked soon after entering upon one of the small villages.

After his father is overwhelmed and defeated by the attacking machines, Al leaves his son with ... his Sakimori along with becoming the guarding of a mysterious young girl, who is believed to be god, who has red blood like the humans from long ago who created the machines. Soon, Shio finds out that several people with Sakimori are fighting each other instead of the machines for one thing, a chance for getting one wish granted.

Going into Waq Waq I had moderate but optimistic expectations, since I had never heard of it before and just randomly stumbled across it and both it's plot seemed fun enough and art was solid enough that it piqued my interest, and with it being only 4 volumes, it wasn't that much of a time investment. While reading it, there were a few things that I liked. The designs for the machines and the Sakimori along with their Goujin-zou are neat to look at, and the general plot was enjoyable, making for a fun adventure sci-fi manga and a breezy read. But it's brought down by it's one big problem, which is that some of it's scenes needed some more room to breathe.

There are times where secondary characters have to explain what's going on in some of the action scenes as they're watching from the sidelines, practically providing a play-by-play of every moment of what's going on, ruining some of the action scenes. This problem could have easily been solved by removing a few other elements, mostly a specific comic relief sidekick that adds nothing to the story, along with a few misplaced jokes throughout the manga, that could have easily been cut out of the manga and nothing would have been lost. If the character had been cut out, it would have allowed the action scenes to properly play out along with letting the characters not feel unnecessarily shoehorned into said scenes, taking away from the action. With such a slight rework, what is a fun little story could have been a lot more enjoyable.

My recommendation for Waq Waq might be lukewarm at best, which is probably still not enough for some people, but for those who like what they see might some fun here.