Star Wars: The Manga

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of revisiting the four part manga series retelling the story of Star Wars: A New Hope.  While the manga was originally published in 1998, I first discovered the series around the mid-2000's when I was still a snot-nosed teen.  The premise of the series alone was enough to pique my interest.  After all, Star Wars and manga are both staples of geek culture and to put the two together seemed like a perfect blend of ingredients (a la peanut butter and chocolate).

And to be fair, a lot of the lasting appeal you'll get from reading the Star Wars manga comes simply from seeing such beloved characters as Han, Luke, and Threepio represented in a whole new light.  Sure, the Star Wars manga sticks pretty closely to the film's original script and doesn't provide the reader with any new story material.  But, c'mon it's anime Princess Leia!  And while one would expect the novelty of the series to wear thin pretty fast, it actually never feels stale or tired.  Part of the credit for this has to go to the artist Hisao Tamaki.  While I am completely unfamiliar with the artist's work outside of this Star Wars adaptation, here he does a commendable job both with capturing the characters and environments of the Star Wars universe, but also with lending a sense of movement and life to the imagery of the comic.  The latter is where the book really shines.  Since it's an adaptation of a special effects and action heavy film, it is essential that the climactic scenes of the film are represented here with the same sense of excitement and movement that they had in their original presentation.  Thankfully the book's artist and editors were up to the task of adaptation, and the story's action sequences retain their fluidity and excitement in the transition from screen to page.

The strongest volume in the series would have to be #3, in which the duel between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan is given spectacular treatment.  Vader's character design makes the transition to manga surprisingly well, and he has never looked more badass and imposing than he does here between the pages of the Star Wars manga.  The showdown between Vader and Obi-Wan also seems to have drawn some inspiration from samurai lore (an inspiration that works to wonderful effect).

If I had to add a caveat to my recommendation of this title it would have to be that this is a book for a very niche market.  And if you have to ask whether or not you're in that niche market, then chances are these really aren't the books for you.  The only other aspect of this book that makes me slightly hesitant to recommend it would be the fact that the book's contents were "flipped" for its American audience.  Meaning that the book publisher assumed that Americans would be resistant to reading the book right to left in the Japanese fashion, so they created a mirror image of the original artwork.  Unfortunately in this case this means that images from the film are reversed (ex- if Threepio was on the left in a scene in the film he would now appear on the right).  From a purist's standpoint this is a significant faux pas on the part of the publisher.

If you can handle the minor flaws that I just mentioned, by all means give this one a shot.  If nothing else it makes for a great curiosity piece for Star Wars enthusiasts.