Jun 26, 2021
Basically, John Wick reincarnated into a dog. Also with Soviet Powers and Political Warfare. The spicy story indeed.
Based around 1989 even though the original manga was published around 1984, the story starts off near Alaska (To be more exact, Brooker Mountain Lookout Ridge) with two rangers/hunters Shiba & Dick looking for their next prey. After a while, they have stumbled upon a dire situation. A white dog upon a wolf pack. Just for fun, "Dick" the hunter decided to shoot the dog to scare the other wolves away. Upon realizing his mistake once the wolf dodged the bullet and proceeded to bite his head off
...
after a single bite. All happening within a second. Later on in the story, the dog is actually a weaponized retired war unit part of the secret Soviet Union. It's been stated that Blanca can go past 50 meters in 2 sec of reaction time, 120km/h in 5 secs, reach 20km in 10 mins, jump over 5 meters, fangs sharp enough to go through Kevlar armor, and having an unknown limiter due to not enough extensive research on his true peak. All of this to be controlled by a tuned dog whistle. The manga then follows two assigned snipers and a military canine trainer to find Blanca and stop him from landing on foreign lands and reaching his original birthplace. Also includes political warfare with a very unique art style very similar to Americanized comics (somewhat subjective on that part) Follow Shiba, find his source of revenge to kill Blanca, the three military personal Olona, Alferez, Molly to finding their place in the military (were once secondary units) and knowing their own morality between the hunter & the hunted, and Molly, an environmentalist who happened to document the entire process whilst exposing their own secrets to the CIA or FBI: A thriller all the way to the end with a satisfying ending and an amazing art style.
Story/ Character: 8/10
Even though Blanca is the main character of the story, to my surprise the side characters are written even better than Blanca herself. Though 20 Chapters won't give you their entire background stories as well as somewhat average personalities from the start, a lot of the characters were very interesting in the way Blanca affected their lives and their interaction with the dog itself. They question the true definition of Blanca (Weapon/Survivor) and lose/gain parts of themselves when the story is over. Shiba especially was the best-written one in the manga and was arguably the most capable of fighting Blanca itself. Helen also was the most sympathetic character in the show due to her being in the fight against Blanca not to her own will (unlike the other soldiers) but rather her being a canine trainer and interacting with dogs and killing one on her own hands. Other characters also have very well written but are sometimes played off know stereotypes such as job-first-feelings-later soldiers, but still has a very surprising writing style due to the fact that Blanca would be the main point of the story but rather the people affected by it. Very well written indeed.
Art:9/10
Though isn't as weird as Mononoke or as amazing as Beserk, the usage of shading of black is very well done. Felt very unusual for a Japanese-based manga as well of characters having the same feel as some Marvel comics. The most little details such as the chapter covers and small panels requiring more details than it was originally thought out to be. Also uses unnormal gray backgrounds and darker shades to signal dawn/rise/midnight. The only thing stopping the art from being a 10/10 is having its true originality and having longer scenes during Blanca battles. Other than that very well done.
Enjoyment/Overall: Definitely recommend this manga a lot. If anybody wanted to read about political warfare about the assassination of the dog absolutely bodying the entire Soviet Union this is worth the read. Only be disappointed in how short the manga is, and enjoy your time taking each manga panel in. Available through MangaGeek on phone and was enjoyable throughout. A very solid 8/10, amazing story througout.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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