The Teen Exorcist Volume 2 Review
Masahiro is the grandson of the legendary exorcist/onmyoji Abe no Seimei, as everyone constantly reminds him. Determined to stand on his own two feet as an exorcist, he’s inherited one of the legendary twelve divine generals, the powerful shikigami Guren – and he needs all the help Guren can give him as he battles an influx of demons.
Guren saves his spiritual energy most of the time by adopting the form of Mokken, Masahiro’s cute rabbit-like familiar (apparently fox is closer but the way Mokken is drawn, he looks like a rabbit or a hare).
The monsters threatening the palace (and the princess) are unfamiliar and Masahiro’s researches take him to writings from the Tang dynasty (Heian Japan has cut itself off from relations with China) Shanhai Jing, collected by his grandfather. Why are Chinese monsters turning up in Japan? When the main monster reveals itself to be Qiongqi, a tiger demon, a terrible battle ensues and even Guren takes damage protecting Masahiro. At the height of the battle, another exorcist appears. Whose side is he on? Is he there to protect or destroy Masahiro?
It’s always a challenge for a mangaka to illustrate action scenes, especially when they involve magical battles. The hardest part is to make a sequence of static panels give the reader the impression that they’re watching an exchange of magical weaponry which lights up the skies, causes masonry to crumble etc. etc. Not every mangaka – even the great CLAMP – has always managed to bring this off successfully and this reviewer has spent many frustrating moments staring in bewilderment at a series of images that contain explosions, clouds of smoke, speed lines and more, completely baffled and unable to make out what’s going on. This is also not helped by the characters shouting out various magical incantations and invocations such as “Blazing shockwave!” and ‘All evil, submit!” It was disappointing, therefore, to realize that the second volume of The Teen Exorcist is mostly one of those magical battle manga in which it’s really difficult to tell what’s going on in the battles. It’s also a pity as the original source material is enjoyable in anime form as a supernatural historical fantasy (we don’t have any of the 56+ ongoing light novels by Mitsuru Yuki in translation).
The success of a manga adaptation of a light novel lies mostly with the mangaka – and also in their choice of incidents and dialogue from the original material. Shikiji Sorakura’s colour art is attractive, as seen on the cover and the four pages at the front of the volume, which is a plus. But it’s not quite enough to make up for the succession of confusing encounters with magical beasts, confusing in that it’s not easy to make out what’s going on – but also because the source material here is not very convincingly delivered (‘Chinese’ youkai?). Maybe it hasn’t aged so well as the first light novels were released in 2001. When Masahiro has to face the threatening creature/s from China, with Guren commentating, “The body of a calf with hedgehog’s spines… a man-eating demon that transforms into a tiger with the wings of a great eagle” it lacks the necessary menace. It’s difficult to feel concerned about the outcome for the princess Akiko (whom the monster wants to devour) or Masahiro as Guren and the tiger monster Qiongqi exchange insults in a slightly antiquated form of speech. And as almost every page contains Masahiro complaining about being called ‘grandson of Abe no Seimei’ the repetition soon becomes old and one-note. “Don’t call me grandson!” We get it.
The translation for Yen Press is again by Minna Lin with lettering by Bianca Pistillo and there’s one page of translation notes. There are three light-hearted short bonus manga at the end (including one on ‘Heian Era Snacks’) and on the inner covers, there’s more information about Masahiro’s house with floorplans and the layout of East Sanjou Palace. There are also brief afterwords from the author and the artist.
The last chapter begins a new mystery, centred around Princess Akiko and introduces another one of the Divine Generals, Qinglong. So maybe matters will improve with more time devoted to the princess. For me, this volume – which mostly deals with supernatural battles testing the mettle of young MC Masahiro, aided by his shikigami Guren – doesn’t quite live up to the promise of the first volume. Volume 3 is due out in September.
Our review copy was provided by Yen Press.
