Red Sprite is a manga that ran in Shonen Jump for three months late last year. Unfortunately, for creator Tomohiro Yagi, this was his second serialisation to be cancelled without given the appropriate time needed for complete story fruition.
Before I dive into this review, there is one thing I believe we need to take a minute to think about, and this factor is the only background information I’ll take up your time with providing.
As most of us know, the famous manga Bleach had been on a serious level of decline in the Jump rankings for the last few years. Due to this, creator Tite Kubo was forced to wrap up the final fight and conclusion of the series in only three or four chapters.
What resulted from this was a cringeworthy final battle, and an ending that left out a lot of closure. Oh and of course a tonne of pissed off Bleach fans.
Shonen Jump as of lately has been set on bringing in as many new series’ as possible with Toriko having recently received the Bleach treatment too.
Where does this all tie in? Well Red Sprite was the manga to replace Bleach. The manga that Jump were so quick to shove Bleach out of the equation for its’ arrival.
There is a lesson here and I believe that as much as business is obviously an important factor for Jump, I believe there should be a bit more respect for a mangaka who has shown Jump mostly success for the last 15 years. Come on Jump, at least try not be such dicks in your desperate quest to find the next One Piece.
However, moving on.
Red Sprite was essentially a battle manga.
It based on the concept of the advancement of technology but at a sinister cost. I won’t dive further into the story as I feel that is not what a review is written to provide.
This concept set up for a classic morally right vs morally wrong in fine print, which I will further examine later on.
After reading the first chapter of Red Sprite, I immediately found a few problems.
Don’t get it twisted, it wasn’t a horrible piece of story telling, but the flaws were easily evident.
The debut chapter decided to go via the route of; MC and said side characters share their lives a little differently to the rest of the world but all is okay and manageable. MC and side characters learn that everything they have ever known is wrong and is immensely fucked up. Oh the horror of it all. Ignorance is bliss, right?
New Shonen Jump series, The Promised Neverland delivered a similar first chapter, however with the latter being much more attention grabbing, I found.
The first initial problem that came to mind with Red Sprite was… well, after reading chapter ichi, I probably could have dropped the series and never really reflected back to it.
Unfortunately, shonen battle manga is becoming more and more repetitive with typical clichés, character traits and plot devices.
The series Black Clover, for example, immediately screams Naruto x Fairy Tail.
Red Sprite didn’t so much remind me of another series so bluntly, but it’s set up felt somewhat flat.
Nevertheless, I decided to continue reading.
After fourteen chapters, Red Sprite was removed from Shonen Jump.
I’m going to present some points which I believed caused this cancellation.
By the end of the manga, I had realised two things.
Realisation #1 The MC couldn’t be anymore MC.
To further explain my point: Kentaro Miura’s Berserk is the perfect example of a unique MC because Guts isn’t so self-righteous. The dude has killed an innocent little kid, somewhat accidentally, be that as it may.
And I realise I am comparing a shonen to one of the darkest seinen manga to ever exist. But what I am trying to demonstrate is that with a main character that defies the cliché traits, uniqueness and interest can often immediately be noticed in a refreshing light.
Realisation #2 This is straight up good vs evil.
If there is one thing that mangaka Yoshihiro Tagashi is great at (besides playing Dragon Quest) is his portrayal of villains in his two-well-known series’ Yu Yu Hakusho and Hunter x Hunter. (the ‘x’ is silent, n00bs.)
Villains that cause readers to contemplate if the villains are really even villians, or simply share conflicting interests with the protagonists, creates intellectual rich story telling.
In terms of the side characters, 14 chapters is certainly not enough time to expect any kind of development so I feel it is only fair to leave them unjudged at this point in time.
At times it felt like the story wasn’t really going anywhere in particular, and due to this, cancellation or not, I cannot imagine how the story would have progressed past 20-30 chapters.
A lot more depth would have definitely been necessary for the story to flourish. Interesting world building could have helped dramatically, though again, fourteen chapters simply could not provide this, respectfully.
The conclusion was predictable, but not horrible for a forced ending. I mean, good won over bad, what more can I say.
And that’s just exactly where this manga fell flat. No one will remember it in a year’s time.
The art was itself a metaphor for this manga. Not bad, but nothing to write home about.
At this point, I feel like I’m starting to become repetitive (though not as repetitive as Hiro Mashima’s trolls) so I’ll wrap this up.
If you’ve read this far, I appreciate it. It’s been fun.
Feel free to comment on my profile, we can talk about Red Sprite.
In conclusion, it’s unfortunate to see that mangaka Tomohiro Yagi, can’t quite get it right just yet. With Red Sprite failing for different but still similar reasons to Iron Knight.
I’ll still be looking out for his next try and honestly, I hope his next series passes the yearly mark. Ganbatte, Tomohiro Yagi!
This was: Let’s Talk About Manga #1 Red Sprite
