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Sesho's Anime And Manga Reviews


Manga Review: Sorcerer Hunters Volume 10

Jun 28, 2010

​Manga review of Sorcerer Hunters Volume 10. Story by Satoru Akahori. Art by Ray Omishi. Translated by Anita Sengupta. Adapted by Mike Wellman. Orignal Publisher: Media Works. US Publisher: Tokyopop, $9.99, Rated OT 16+.

The opening of Volume 10 is an exercise in meta-fiction as the cast of the series tries to decide what genre of manga fans this installment will cater to. Will it be shojo, shonen, magical girl, etc? After these few brief arguments the rest of the book tells a story about Carrot and Marron's parents, Onion and Apricot. From what I can tell, its set about 20 years before the current storyline. In fact, Onion and Apricot aren't even married. They're just fellow Sorcerer Hunters. Even Lord Sacher, the Hunter's main nemesis for much of this series, is still a good guy, though he's already showing some Anakin-like moments.
Apricot is having second thoughts about being a Hunter, even if the sorcerers she's hunting deserve to die. For instance, the one she kills at the beginning of this tale was hunting parsoners for sport and murdering them in cold blood. Apricot feels there has to a better way to handle the problem and voices her concerns to Mother. In response, Onion and Apricot, along with Haz Knight Mille Feuille are sent to the valley of Galna-Galm, with no idea of what their mission is, but it might have to do with the mysterious origin of the Sorcerer Hunters.

The best description of Ray Omishi's art is economical. He doesn't waste a lot of time drawing things that are unneccesary to the story he's illustrating. Don't get me wrong, Omishi is a good artist, but for instance, while his characters have a lot of detail, his mostly absent backgrounds seem to fit more in the shojo style. He can flip from chibi-style comedy to drama to action at the drop of a hat. This makes him well suited to illustrate Akahori's manic and sometimes bi-polar writing. Again, don't get me wrong. Akahori has no problem transtitioning among all the different moods of the work. When the characters interact in a comedic way you laugh, but your heart also goes out to Apricot as she struggles to reconcile killing sorcerers with her notions of what is right and wrong.

Tokyopop orignally published this series in those old huge $17 manga editions flipped. It wasn't until later that they started re-releasing Hunters in the smaller unflipped editions. Unfortunately, out of 13 volumes, they stopped printing the new editions with this volume, which was printed 2 years ago. So I doubt Tokyopop will ever finish putting the other 4 books out. So you're left to your own devices finding the original versions.

My Grade: A