Drifters vol. 1

Despite being a big fan of the original “Hellsing” anime I didn’t get around to actually buying the manga when Dark Horse released it over here.  That’s because I was borrowing it from a friend of mine and he stopped buying it when it started going off the rails in vol. 6.  Still, there’s no denying that its creator, Kohta Hirano, is quite talented so I figured I’d give his new series a shot.  It has a somewhat original premise of famous characters from history being plucked from near death and thrust into a fantasy landscape to battle it out as proxies for two deities.  Naturally most of these characters are Japanese, and while Oda Nobunaga is one of them (big surprise, I know), the main character is the battle-junkie Shimazu Toyohisa.

With its over-the-top fantasy violence, the easy answer would be to say that it’d make for a nice substitute until the next volume of “Berserk” arrives.  However, that volume is due out in the next couple of weeks, so instead I’ll say that the “don’t take it seriously” vibe the series has goes a long way towards making up for its slapdash execution.  You get the feeling that this is more of an endeavor for Hirano to amuse himself and indulge in his taste for crazy action without having to worry about developing a long-term plot.  On that level, it delivers as the plot here is more of an excuse to stage some pretty impressive action scenes than a means to tell a meaningful story.  I’ve heard that this series is only meant to last for two volumes, and after reading this that sounds like the right kind of length for this sort of thing.