Zone-00 #1 - Zone-00 01

  
  

Vital Stats:

Title: Zone-00
JP Publisher: Kadokawa Shoten
Licensor: TOKYOPOP
Mangaka: Kiyo Qjo

The Story

To keep it short and simple: Kujo is a normal high school kid who's a paranormal otaku. One day a new kid named Shima transfers in, along with a girl named Majoko, who turn out to be an exorcist charged with keeping the peace between humans and Creatures (and destroying any Creatures who harm humans) and a witch/Creature, respectively. Majoko is one of two witches, the second being Hime, and both of them have their own Creature familiars (a cat and a dog who can both transform into humans). 
 
These are just the beginning slew in a handful of Creature and Creature-related characters, including Byakko, a nine-tailed fox demon who runs a bar, Benten, a Creature whose exact role is unclear at this time, Fenril (supposed to be Fenrir?), a pair of siblings who turn into demon Harley motorcycles, and that's just the semi-regular cast. Oh, and Shima also has a robot butler and maid, the first a badass and the second a, um, dominatrix, I guess.
 
Anyway, Kujo instantly attaches himself to Shima, declaring him "mysterious!" with wide-eyed glee. They're all hanging out at Byakko's bar when Kujo is killed, except that it actually turns out that Kujo has within him an ogre who Shima is supposed to kill, cue drama.

The Review

...Oof. If the above description sounded kind of vague, that's because, well, it's presented vaguely...but not in a mysterious way. The art is fantastic but too much gets jammed onto each page, including words as well as pictures. You get the sense that Qjo is trying to very quickly establish an ensemble cast for some rollicking adventures followed by more serious plot, but he does it SO quickly that it becomes very, very easy to lose track of them...especially in the big action scenes.
 
These action scenes are also done way too quickly, such that even on reading through it a second time you're not entirely sure what happens. There's one scene in which a character shoots Shima in the stomach via ricochet, but you don't see the shot happen anywhere...it's just all kind of lost in the shuffle. Those of you who are interested in the monster/supernatural side of it won't see a lot of what you want, either...all the monsters are excessively human-like, and even the dog and cat familiars transform into humans most of the time. The magic abilities shown are minimal so far, too.
 
That said, the characters themselves do have some fun little interactions, and if you're really, really hardcore into violent action and silly random bathhouse scenes, you might find a few things here worth looking at (oh, and if fanservice is your game, there's a fair bit of that too-- both of the men and women). Yes, the visuals are, while sometimes confusing and distracting, nice to look at. But based on this first volume, I can't say you're going to get much more out of it than that.

IF, THEN

If you like these manga, you might like Zone-00.
- Descendents of Darkness
- Hellsing
- Trinity Blood

Release Info:

Released: Aug. 4, 2009
Length: 192 pages
Features:
- Character descriptions in the back, for ALL of them, which is quite a few.
- Preview of the next chapter.