Liling-Po Volume 1
1 journaler for this copy...
(I took care to give no obvious spoilers about the story)
Title: Liling-Po 1 (on Librarything, Goodreads, Bookmeter (読書メーター))
Original title: LILING～PO＜リリン-ポ＞（1）
Author: Ako Yutenji (祐天慈あこ)
Translator: Takae Brewer
Illustrator: Ako Yutenji
Language: English, original Japanese
Series: Liling-Po volume 1 out of 9
Format of publication: paperback, right-to-left
Number of pages: 198
Publisher: Tokyopop
Year published: original Japanese 1997, my edition 2005 (1st English translation)
ISBN number: 1595325190
Topics: thieves, treasures
Reason for reading: I found it in a Little Free Library.
Recommended: No.
Target age group: 11+
Buy / Borrow / Bypass: Bypass.
Short summary:
Liling-Po, a master thief, is in jail. Because eight great treasures were now stolen from the government, Liling-Po is asked to help steal those back in exchange for his freedom.
Back cover text:
Master thief Liling-Po has finally been captured! However, the government offers a chance for Liling-Po to redeem himself: All he has to do is "retrieve" some special items. After passing his first test with two agents, he is accepted as part of the elite team on a mission to recover eight mysterious, magical treasures.
First page:
Image of Liling-Po sitting on the floor with one arm down and one arm up, with a shawl wrapped around the arm he is holding up (or the arm is being held up by the shawl).
Background people:
"Did you hear the news?"
"He finally got caught!"
Background text:
Once upon a time...
...all over China, a tale was told of a thief...
Liling-Po, the master thief...
Comments on the first page:
The arm he is holding up, actually looks a bit dislocated...
Review:
Story:
It's not always immediately clear what is happening, though if you continue reading, it gets a bit clearer.
It also took a while before it was clear which side characters there were and what they were called, because text placement and drawings are confusing...
Though the three main characters are introduced properly, and stay recognizable: Liling-Po, Bu-Cho and Mei-Toku, they're not the most interesting characters. Liling-Po is a master thief, but makes weird mistakes and he is quite young. Bu-Cho almost seems like a bad guy, as he really dislikes Liling-Po. Mei-Toku is tagging along, but doesn't do much except being in awe of Bu-Cho and wanting to be like him (but he talks nicely with Liling-Po).
The story is set in Ancient China, but except for the clothes, it doesn't add much to the story. The author doesn't focus on drawing the backgrounds either - the characters take up most of the drawings.
They only find two of the eight treasures in this volume, but it's all not really interesting. This, as well as the confusing text placement and drawings, makes me wonder about the rest of the series. It has nine volumes in total and Tokyopop did decide to translate it into English, so maybe the series gets a lot better and less confusing in later volumes?
Writing style:
Almost every few words... there are three dots... because the sentence... doesn't fit... into... the text balloons.
It is... very... irritating... to... read.
Actually, I think more text would have fit into each of the balloons, but the artist drew so many small text balloons that the translator had to fit in the English text in some way.
The order of the text balloons isn't always very clear either, but looking at the text placement, I think it was similar in the Japanese version.
Spelling errors/typos:
- in "Mushroom Millionaire of the West part 1":
He said left his last job... =
He said he left his last job...
Art:
The arms, legs, bodies and necks of the characters are all too long to look natural. Even their heads look elongated. Sometimes the poses also look quite impossible, so it's weird to look at.
The author uses a lot of patterns to colour the drawings, making the illustrations look quite detailed.
Cover:
A brown-haired man is sword-fighting with a grey-haired (young) man, though the grey-haired man is holding an arrow? Or maybe the brown-haired man is not holding a sword, but something else.
I'm also not sure who the two people on the cover are, as their hair colours and styles don't really seem to match the greyscale-colours used in the book... But I think the brown-haired one is Bu-cho (and then it should be a sword) and the grey-haired one is Liling-Po (though in the book, both of them have black hair).
Conclusion:
The story isn't very interesting and it's not always immediately clear what's happening.
Rereadability:
No.
Title: Liling-Po 1 (on Librarything, Goodreads, Bookmeter (読書メーター))
Original title: LILING～PO＜リリン-ポ＞（1）
Author: Ako Yutenji (祐天慈あこ)
Translator: Takae Brewer
Illustrator: Ako Yutenji
Language: English, original Japanese
Series: Liling-Po volume 1 out of 9
Format of publication: paperback, right-to-left
Number of pages: 198
Publisher: Tokyopop
Year published: original Japanese 1997, my edition 2005 (1st English translation)
ISBN number: 1595325190
Topics: thieves, treasures
Reason for reading: I found it in a Little Free Library.
Recommended: No.
Target age group: 11+
Buy / Borrow / Bypass: Bypass.
Short summary:
Liling-Po, a master thief, is in jail. Because eight great treasures were now stolen from the government, Liling-Po is asked to help steal those back in exchange for his freedom.
Back cover text:
Master thief Liling-Po has finally been captured! However, the government offers a chance for Liling-Po to redeem himself: All he has to do is "retrieve" some special items. After passing his first test with two agents, he is accepted as part of the elite team on a mission to recover eight mysterious, magical treasures.
First page:
Image of Liling-Po sitting on the floor with one arm down and one arm up, with a shawl wrapped around the arm he is holding up (or the arm is being held up by the shawl).
Background people:
"Did you hear the news?"
"He finally got caught!"
Background text:
Once upon a time...
...all over China, a tale was told of a thief...
Liling-Po, the master thief...
Comments on the first page:
The arm he is holding up, actually looks a bit dislocated...
Review:
Story:
It's not always immediately clear what is happening, though if you continue reading, it gets a bit clearer.
It also took a while before it was clear which side characters there were and what they were called, because text placement and drawings are confusing...
Though the three main characters are introduced properly, and stay recognizable: Liling-Po, Bu-Cho and Mei-Toku, they're not the most interesting characters. Liling-Po is a master thief, but makes weird mistakes and he is quite young. Bu-Cho almost seems like a bad guy, as he really dislikes Liling-Po. Mei-Toku is tagging along, but doesn't do much except being in awe of Bu-Cho and wanting to be like him (but he talks nicely with Liling-Po).
The story is set in Ancient China, but except for the clothes, it doesn't add much to the story. The author doesn't focus on drawing the backgrounds either - the characters take up most of the drawings.
They only find two of the eight treasures in this volume, but it's all not really interesting. This, as well as the confusing text placement and drawings, makes me wonder about the rest of the series. It has nine volumes in total and Tokyopop did decide to translate it into English, so maybe the series gets a lot better and less confusing in later volumes?
Writing style:
Almost every few words... there are three dots... because the sentence... doesn't fit... into... the text balloons.
It is... very... irritating... to... read.
Actually, I think more text would have fit into each of the balloons, but the artist drew so many small text balloons that the translator had to fit in the English text in some way.
The order of the text balloons isn't always very clear either, but looking at the text placement, I think it was similar in the Japanese version.
Spelling errors/typos:
- in "Mushroom Millionaire of the West part 1":
He said left his last job... =
He said he left his last job...
Art:
The arms, legs, bodies and necks of the characters are all too long to look natural. Even their heads look elongated. Sometimes the poses also look quite impossible, so it's weird to look at.
The author uses a lot of patterns to colour the drawings, making the illustrations look quite detailed.
Cover:
A brown-haired man is sword-fighting with a grey-haired (young) man, though the grey-haired man is holding an arrow? Or maybe the brown-haired man is not holding a sword, but something else.
I'm also not sure who the two people on the cover are, as their hair colours and styles don't really seem to match the greyscale-colours used in the book... But I think the brown-haired one is Bu-cho (and then it should be a sword) and the grey-haired one is Liling-Po (though in the book, both of them have black hair).
Conclusion:
The story isn't very interesting and it's not always immediately clear what's happening.
Rereadability:
No.
