Ryuko

Overall

There are a lot of complaints on the web about this manga, which is not even listed on MyAnimeList over a technicality (i.e being published in a country outside of China, Japan or Korea first, despite being created in Japan and being originally written in Japanese) and honestly, I get people's problems with it, by no stretch of the imagination is this manga great, but I have read worse.

Ryuko is a crime-thriller following the titular heir to a Yakuza boss and her efforts to protect a Middle Eastern king's daughter, from a military faction leader. I do not remeber it too well, but it took me two reads of the first volume, the first of which made me confused, but the second made a bit more sense. The art is quite nicely done, but in some of the fight scenes it can get a little confusing, due to the avant-garde nature of the artstyle, which leans a little more towards the modern side of things, featuring flowing lines and a realistic recapturing of Ryuko's hair. The second volume was a little better, as far as my problems were concerned, but still, the plot was a mixed bag. The series was over in two volumes, and because of the length, as well as the mixture of quality, it reminds me a lot of an old OVA from the 1980s-1990s, especially Angel Cop, in terms of setting (almost entirely urban for both) and the involvement of several factions and governing organizations.

Overall, I am entirely neutral on this one. On the one hand, there is good artwork, on the other hand, things unfolded confusingly. The plot was quite a mixed bag too. I can neither recommend nor discourage you from reading this for these reasons.

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