Tokyo Tribes

Publisher
Tokyopop
Writer
Santa Inoue
Artist
Santa Inoue
Country of origin
Japan
Year
2004

Tokyo Tribes Volume 1

By Shabbir
27th Aug 07

It's interesting how music and culture can have such an effect on people. One such person is Santa Inoue, born Japanese but influenced right to the heart with hip-hop music and culture. He has made a few other manga with hip-hop themes, and Tokyo Tribes follows but as a more violent gang warfare based in right in Tokyo.

As the title of the manga suggests, it is about "tribes" within Tokyo. These tribes are actually gangs, but not on the same level as the Yakuza. They control small portions of each part of Tokyo: Sara rule Shibuya, The Hands rule Shinjyuku, Musashino Sara rule Musashinokuni and the Wu-Ronz rule Bukuro. The first two gangs have a hundred members, and the last has two-hundred. Our main gang that we are concerned with, The Musashino Sara only have fifty members.

The manga is fairly violent in the plot, which isn't surprising as it does deal with pure gangster warfare. The Musashino Sara are what seem to be our "heroes" in the story, with a member named Kai. We follow Kai around as he finds three of his friends are murdered in the Bukuro area as they were attempting to go to a club. What deepens is that the leader of the Wu-Ronz is Mera, and Kai and Mera seem to have some sort of past connection.

The drawings of the manga are not the best you'll find around. In fact, the drawings are somewhat closer to childish than should be, and display a false sense of theme to the other grim pictures and at times, extremely explicit scenes. Tokyo Pop has put a stop to the explicit content and completely censored out anything picture-wise, although the swearing is still dominant in various dialogues. The artwork doesn't help to portray the correct theme, even though it is clear as to what's happening in the story and what the moods are of each character. Maybe Santa was attempting something fresh, but in my opinion, it doesn't suit the topic.

Despite the somewhat cartoon-like drawings, Tokyo Tribes does seem to have some promise. The plot thickens as we realise there's more to this gangster turf control than meets the eye as Kai and Mera have a connection; a once great friendship ruined because of an incident which no one knows the truth to. The manga has bits where the page is shaded in black - these represent the past memories, mainly of Kai and Mera, revealing some of their personalities and always hinting what may have happened between them to break up their once great friendship.

This first volume doesn't concern itself with getting too much into the other two gangs besides the Wu-Ronz and the Musashino Sara, although they do make a small appearance, which will lead to some sort of major event in the second volume. However, the main concern is that of Kai and Mera, and we find out exactly what Mera does, as well as Kai's extremely relaxed lifestyle.

The volume sets itself quite nicely for events to follow, leaving on a cliff hanger. However, I felt that there are solid foundations for a deep plot that reminds me slightly of Tenjou Tenge with the character relation, but much is left to be decided by the later part of the series.

As a book itself, it did portray a false sense of theme when I picked it off the shelf to find three happy faces smiling on the front with the embossed title. When I turned over and read the description, I first thought it will be mainly comedy with bits of action to make it into a gang-based manga. However when I started to read, I realised just how wrong I was. I'd like to see an improvement in art style, although I doubt this will happen since the series is complete in Japan. The book does not have a great deal of extras, just a few pages of "The Making of Tokyo Tribes" which is in the format of a conversation between two of the characters and the author.

The later volumes will certainly decide upon just how interesting this manga will be. The whole series is 11 volumes long, which indicates that despite the seemingly deep but short plot, other unexpected events will follow to make the series more interesting.

3/5

Originally published on www.mangaview.net

-- Shabbir 27th Aug 07