Priest

Publisher
Tokyopop
Writer
Min-Woo Hyung
Artist
Min-Woo Hyung
Country of origin
Korea
Length
15 volumes
Year
1998

Priest vol 1

By otaku_kei
13th Oct 04

Tokyopop have published this manwha from Min-Woo Hyung of Korea, Priest follows the story of a Priest who sold his soul to the devil for the right to take his revenge upon the world that wronged him.

The Priest travels across a demon populated Wild West dealing out his own brand of (un)holy justice from the barrels of his sawn-off 12-gauge. The Priest takes his crusade across the West running into a horde of beasties aboard a train that a group of bandits have commandeered. Then commences the slaughter.

As a first volume this book is light on characterisation. Whilst we are given a bit of insight into what caused the priest to fall so far that he ended up in hell selling his soul for vengeance, this information is clearly going to be divulged in more detail over the course of the series. We are also introduced to Lizzie the young female leader of the banditos: the rebel angels! She also is given little room to develop as almost 90% of the GN is devoted to the violent, brutal action. Almost every other character introduced is nothing more than disposable meat either for the monsters or for the priest to kill. That is apart from the bad guys: the devil who continues to haunt the mind of our anti-hero, and also the demon/sorcerer Jarbilong who is the source of most of this monster madness.

The art is good, with the action looking both graceful and visceral in equal measure. Really there is very little that could be seen as a drawback in the artwork apart from the rather bland character designs, with the only realm stand out design being for the stereotypical Mexican bandit with BIG Mexican moustache. The Priest design is standard brooding anti-hero all long hair, trenchcoat and guns, nothing that hasn't been seen before and nothing that hasn't been done better elsewhere. The cover art is much better than much of the interior work, a painted design of the troubled priest with the devil standing over his shoulder all in rust colours signifying the decay and rot of the souls of all the characters in the book. I have to admit that I was hooked into the title and bought it almost completely on the graphics of the cover. Damned marketing.

Well I'm not really looking forward to the rest of this series from the showing of just this volume, although I am willing to give it a chance to change my mind so will pick up vol 2. If you enjoy stories of righteous vengeance upon the denizens of the underworld then this is probably for you but I'm not going to recommend this too widely as I just don't think its worth most peoples time.

6/10

-- otaku_kei 13th Oct 04