Sun-Ken Rock

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Alternative Titles

English: Sun-Ken Rock

Synonyms: Trigun: The Lost Plant

Japanese: サンケンロック

Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 25

Chapters: 181

Status: Finished

Published: Apr 24, 2006 to Feb 22, 2016

Genres: Action, Comedy, Drama, Ecchi, Seinen

Authors: Boichi (Story & Art)

Serialization: Young King

Statistics

Score: 8.01¹ (scored by 24,719 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #668²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #143

Members: 59,122

Favorites: 2,554

8.01

Ranked #668Popularity #143Members 59,122

MangaYoung KingBoichi (Story & Art)

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Volumes: /25

Chapters: /181

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Synopsis

The story revolves around Ken, a man from an upper-class family that was orphaned young due to his family's involvement with the Yakuza; he became a high school delinquent known for fighting. The only thing that motivates him to take action is through his romantic affections for a classmate, Yumi. After learning she decided to move to Korea to become a police officer, Ken leaves his life in Japan behind and tries to follow in Yumi's footsteps; due to unforeseen circumstances, he incidentally becomes the head of a local gang and tries to hide it from Yumi. As the leader, the gang is renamed the Sun-Ken Rock Group.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Included one-shot:
Volume 12: Trigun: The Lost Plant

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Background

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Related Manga

Spin-off:

Yumin ni Gohan wo Tabesasetai: Yumin to Issho ni Taberu Kankoku Ryouri, Wallman

More characters
Characters

Kitano, Ken

Main

Tae-Soo, Park

Main

Yoshizawa, Yumi

Main

Yang, San-dae

Main

Chang, Do-Heun

Main

Kim, Kae-Lyn

Main

Lee, San-ki

Main

Armani, Benito

Supporting

Ban-Phuong, Kim

Supporting

Yun-Jeong, Na

Supporting

More reviewsReviews

May 12, 2020

181 of 181 chapters read

Overall Rating: 6

YvngNigxr (All reviews)

46 people found this review helpful

i really dont know how i feel about this manga, it started off good then the manager arc was really bad, the ban phuong arc made up for it and then the final arc was a huge mess and really bad, the ending had a chance to redeem the whole arc but instead it made it even worse.

if you read this manga you will either end up hating it or liking it, or have mixed feelings about it like me, i dont know if i would recommend it or not, but hey at least it has great art to compensate for the shit story

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Apr 22, 2016

181 of 181 chapters read

Overall Rating: 4

deadoptimist (All reviews)

128 people found this review helpful

I am not sure why this has such a high rating, so I want to give a warning to like-minded readers – don’t bother with Sun-Ken Rock, if you’re looking for a good story. The only thing this manga has going for it is art, and the writing is extremely cringeworthy.

You’ve read the synopsis? And now add “and then they dance”, because that’s what happens when the main character joins mafia, cause dancing is great, right? They dance for 7 panels on two pages. This is also a gag manga somehow, and what’s the worst is that it’s not humor added to a good plot, but gags replacing some important plotpoints and warping motivations.

You think you’ll see the hero rise to the top from the slums, building his muscle and personality? Forget it, he becomes the boss by chance, just because a teen loser is so awesome, I guess (he is a NEET loser at that moment allright). You think you’ll see how his love trains to become a cop? Nah, she is just there and oh-so-hot in her uniform.

Yeah, there’re some ideas, that wouldn’t be out of place in a serious criminal drama, like comparing a state to a gang or the stand for you subordinates and they’ll stand for you thing, but the poor overall quality of writing drowns what little good there is. Yeah, there’re potentially interesting topics - politics, nationality, revenge, forgiveness, etc. – but they are treated with all the grace of a story, written by a 12-14 year old boy. The moral dilemma of being a part of the underworld is replaced by the idea of following one’s heart and nakamas – the shounen motivation set A. The main hero fights for his friends and justice and somehow gains property. There’s also a tendency to include trivia and ethnographic info in the form of direct exposition, like, for example, in one of the early chapters the protagonist punishes MMO-money speculators and reads them a lecture on Korean gaming industry, because this is a manga about gang warfare, I suppose.

I honestly wanted to read more of the story to feel more secure about condemning it, but it’s physiologically painful (I probed in the later chapters, the same effect).

The art is good, as I’ve mentioned. For it and only for it this manga gets a 4.

The emphasis is on showing the badass characters’ designs, and the author can draw bodies (especially male) magnificently. But the art also jerks uncomfortably between amazing panels with characters looking like older people from a better story and chibies or cartoon exaggeration. I must also add, that design-wise the main character seem to be the best thing there is, so you kind of saw it all on the cover. Maybe the protagonists’s right-hand man is somewhere close with his gothic-flawored prettiness (no wonder, since he is rivalish), but flipping through the additional couple of dozens of chapters doesn’t reveal other characters, that are comparably memorable.

There’re nice scenery shots, sometimes even cinematographic.

The manga has severe problem with female characters however. And no, I don’t try to push the femi angle here, I understand what the genre demands, but creepy is creepy. The female cast is drawn with exaggeratedly “pretty” features and a particular kind of beauty in mind (seems legit Korean, btw - see, I give praise where it’s due), which results in lush bodies and baby faces with pouty lips and eyes straight off a gray alien. They also all look very similar. For me alien girls broke additional straws of immersion. The level of sexualization is total, a normal shot for a heroine being a close-up of her butt in sexy lingerie. Boichi sure loves drawing ass, so you see female characters’ panties as often as their faces. The girls act kind of strange personality-wise too (“I train my body, because someday it may please someone” – …well, ok). Sex, rape and weird sexual stuff happen in abundance.

And then there is action. Action in bad context doesn’t work for me, and battle logic here allows shounen power-ups, like being able to fight with broken arms, because of trueness to one’s heart, indignation or wish to save someone, but, I guess, the often spectacular fighting may still be a plus for some readers. Here my judgement is neutral, yet I honestly think that you can get more engaging fights in a number of better series.

All in all I do not recommend Sun-Ken Rock. I don’t want to start a flame war or diminish tastes, but I honesty was let down by this manga as I rarely have been before in this medium.

I grant that it may work for some readers, it can be used as a source of powerful panels and, probably, as a gold mine for ass-shots, if this particular shape suits your fetish, maybe, and I am very unsure here, as a source on some info on Korea – but I hardly see this manga holding water as a proper story in the eyes of an older, more experienced reader. If you look for a good criminal drama, a good story or a proper seinen, don’t be fooled by the good art, avoid!

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Oct 30, 2016

181 of 181 chapters read

Overall Rating: 10

kwire042 (All reviews)

26 people found this review helpful

You got to be crazy not to enjoy Sun-Ken Rock or a child or even just a parent who doesn't like explicit things. This is by far in my top five of my favorite mangas and only the purest of eyes should be able to read Sun-Ken Rock if it was up to me,but luckily for you its not the story was magnificent I had to have read every single chapter in a 2 day span of time because of my infatuation with the plot. The art was so focused and centered but still so different that I was happy to use some styles even read more

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Oct 10, 2017

181 of 181 chapters read

Overall Rating: 9

Miguel_Zaki (All reviews)

9 people found this review helpful

Story: a man that like a woman...it's seems cliche, but no, to change of country it's no joke, and he did this.
the force and effort of Ken to be stronger is insane, as shown in your trainings, his hands are bruised with calluses and lots of blood.
a man call Ken for get in a gang of mafia, Ken acept it
Ken turned the leader, and your gang stay so BADASS that I would wish entry

art: i don't need to say, it's simply amazing, each trace, each detail, impossible to have someone who doesn't like the fine art, it is pleasing to the eyes XD

Character: they are read more

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