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武装錬金 [Buso Renkin] #2
Buso Renkin, Vol. 2
High school students heroic act turns into epic human vs. monster sword fight!
Buso Renkin is the story of teenager Kazuki Muto, who dies trying to save a girl who was being attacked by an eerie monster. The next morning, however, Kazuki is left wondering whether it was all a dream. Lo and behold, the girl, the monster, and his death are all real! The girl, Tokiko Tsumura, was actually trying to slay the homunculus (a beast that can take the form of humans, and whose main source of food is people), but Kazuki got in her way. To revive Kazuki, Tokiko replaces his heart with a "kakugane," an alchemic device that allows him to summon a lance with which to fight the monsters. It turns out that Tokiko is a member of the Alchemist Warriors, an organization sworn to protect the world from the diabolical creatures. Soon, Kazuki joins Tokiko in her quest to terminate the sinister being that creates and controls the homunculus.
With less than a week to go before the homunculus lodged in Tokiko's waist reaches her brain, Kazuki and Tokiko search for the creator of the dreaded homunculi. But little do they know that the evil genius behind the human flesh-eating monsters is an eccentric, terminally ill student at Kazuki's school!
Buso Renkin is the story of teenager Kazuki Muto, who dies trying to save a girl who was being attacked by an eerie monster. The next morning, however, Kazuki is left wondering whether it was all a dream. Lo and behold, the girl, the monster, and his death are all real! The girl, Tokiko Tsumura, was actually trying to slay the homunculus (a beast that can take the form of humans, and whose main source of food is people), but Kazuki got in her way. To revive Kazuki, Tokiko replaces his heart with a "kakugane," an alchemic device that allows him to summon a lance with which to fight the monsters. It turns out that Tokiko is a member of the Alchemist Warriors, an organization sworn to protect the world from the diabolical creatures. Soon, Kazuki joins Tokiko in her quest to terminate the sinister being that creates and controls the homunculus.
With less than a week to go before the homunculus lodged in Tokiko's waist reaches her brain, Kazuki and Tokiko search for the creator of the dreaded homunculi. But little do they know that the evil genius behind the human flesh-eating monsters is an eccentric, terminally ill student at Kazuki's school!
208 pages, Paperback
First published April 2, 2004
5 people are currently reading
107 people want to read
About the author
Nobuhiro Watsuki
246 books425 followersWatsuki Nobuhiro (和月伸宏) is a Japanese manga artist, best known for his samurai-themed series Rurouni Kenshin. He once worked as an assistant for his favorite author Takeshi Obata.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 29, 2020
This review is part of a personal challenge to: 1) read more French books; 2) improve my French; 3) read all the French manga novels from my mom's manga collection. Seeing as I read this book in French, the actual review will be in French (duh).
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Cette critique fait partie d'un défi personnel: d’améliorer mon français!
Ceci s'agit du deuxième volume de la série, mais il ressemblait au volume final. Ce volume contient principalement des scènes de combat. J'ai été un peu déçu par le manque d'implication de Tokiko dans ce volume. J'ai également été déçu par la manière rapide dont les choses se sont finalement résolues. Je pensais aussi que le Papillon était plutôt pervers ...
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Note moyenne de la série: 2.7/5
Critiques pour le reste de la série:
Tome 1 | Tome 2 | Tome 3 | Tome 4 | Tome 5 | Tome 6 | Tome 7 | Tome 8 | Tome 9 | Tome 10
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Cette critique fait partie d'un défi personnel: d’améliorer mon français!
Ceci s'agit du deuxième volume de la série, mais il ressemblait au volume final. Ce volume contient principalement des scènes de combat. J'ai été un peu déçu par le manque d'implication de Tokiko dans ce volume. J'ai également été déçu par la manière rapide dont les choses se sont finalement résolues. Je pensais aussi que le Papillon était plutôt pervers ...
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Note moyenne de la série: 2.7/5
Critiques pour le reste de la série:
Tome 1 | Tome 2 | Tome 3 | Tome 4 | Tome 5 | Tome 6 | Tome 7 | Tome 8 | Tome 9 | Tome 10
February 9, 2010
My wife made a "Junk Food" folder on her goodreads account. If there ever has been a book/series that fit that description to a tee, it's this one. Light, fluffy, silly, cute, but completely shallow and without any nutritious value. If a person was a dedicated manga reader and hadn't read this one, I'd suggest it. Otherwise, move on.
July 12, 2016
This volume is sparse on content--other than nice pictures of the battle between Karuki, Tokiko and the final Humunculus serving Papilion Mask. The last chapter or two after the battle with the final humunculus is over redeem the volume enough to get to three stars.
September 24, 2021
Ini adalah volume kedua tapi seolah membaca ini volume terakhir. hha Untuk adegan pertempuran tiada masalah, Watsuki sensei sudah berpengalaman dg Rurouken. Namun harus diakui, kurangnya keterlibatan Tokiko dalam volume ini, memberi kekecewaan tersendiri dari sisi plot cerita. Belum lagi, semua seolah berlangsung terlalu cepat malah. Semoga dengan kehadiran pria berjubah ketua tim memberikan plot lebih segar uk jilid berikutnya..
January 3, 2019
From the creator of Rurouni Kenshin, This series is definitely far from the greatness of that manga! The plot and art was all over the place, Great at times and hard to stay with it at times... 👌😁💕
March 12, 2019
literally the only good thing about this manga is the villain
papillon, you have my full undivided attention.
papillon, you have my full undivided attention.
November 4, 2020
Slightly better than the first volume.
November 1, 2023
I think the author is so used to writing fight scene after fight scene that he just doesn't know how to do plot or story.
May 1, 2024
Another good volume of Buso Renkin. I really love to read the manga after watching the anime, I feel like it helps me bring it all together. Sometimes I have a hard time following the stories in just the manga or just the anime. Having both helps me a lot.
October 26, 2020
We're getting better, but we still aren't there.
I went on the journey of rereading some of my favorite childhood manga. I started with Rurouni Kenshin, Volume 01 My favorite as a teenager. I was very well pleased with the level of quality and it was a very tasteful jump back into the lazy nostalgia river of my past. I thought, well, I remember also loving Buso Renkin by the same author! Let's jump into it!
So, normally I don't do volume by volume reviews for manga. However, given Buso Renkin is just 10 volumes and I do plan on rereading the whole series I think I'm going to give it a go. Let's see if I stick with it.
So we dropped the villain of the week story format to basically dealing with the main baddie and his roided out Hawk simp. And yes, that was a joke. I don't typically enjoy shitting on things. I felt like the direction of the story was very loose and fast. Sometimes, the story kind of lost me in response to this. I knew everything that had happened, but I think Nobuhiro hung onto the idea of Kazuki having a normal life for way too long. Because the supporting cast in this is just really not interesting. They're boring. They slow up progression. I would have much rather he just have a sister and not a huge friend cast and let Nobuhiro's try and make them comedic characters. As I said in my review for Volume 1, the comedy just is really not great.
The highlight of this was the fights between the hawk dude VS Kazuki and Tokiko and Kazuki vs Papillion. I'll explain how one was great and the other felt like it was just kind of there. The hawk battle was just there in my eyes. We needed a sub boss. But I wasn't overly a fan of having Tokiko, the expert fighter, be nerfed for this fight. While Kazuki, who they make jokes about his screaming attacks and all he does is charge in and out of attacks, be the main focus. I get it, he's the main character. Just don't have him be up against someone he's much outclassed by. Though I know Kazuki used the attack much later, I don't see how he really got to the point of doing it. That could have been explored better. Why would he think to do that? There was no basis. It felt super contrived.
Papillion on the other hand is easily the most interesting character in this entire series. His revelation of how his entire family hates him because of an illness he didn't ask for is extremely telling of a personality he actually shares. Though his eyes are drawn ridiculously. He is a great foil to Kazuki who is meant to be a second chance character. Where he believes he needes to use his second chance to help those around him. Where papillion feels that he needs his second chance and he'll do anything to achieve it. His revenge upon his family and his realization that he had actually died a long time ago was splendid and the fight between Kazuki, having to borrow someone else's strength and that being the reason why he was able to defat Papillion who was only just two halves of himself was just great storytelling.
However, this doesn't rectify the hawk dude being just another villain of the week, bland villain for Kazuki to defeat because he is the main character. The hawk dude covered the first half of the volume so I thought it was fair to represent that fairly in the rating.
So Overall, a 7/10 for me. It's getting better. The finally chapter and the line "Don't apologize, you hypocrite" was great. It was just as impactful as it was when I read it in my youth. I remember someone equating this series to Junk Food. I think that's a great comparison. It's enjoyable, it's not dense and it doesn't have to be the most nutritious thing you eat. However, it tastes great and makes you feel happy.....until you think about it and think against it later.
I went on the journey of rereading some of my favorite childhood manga. I started with Rurouni Kenshin, Volume 01 My favorite as a teenager. I was very well pleased with the level of quality and it was a very tasteful jump back into the lazy nostalgia river of my past. I thought, well, I remember also loving Buso Renkin by the same author! Let's jump into it!
So, normally I don't do volume by volume reviews for manga. However, given Buso Renkin is just 10 volumes and I do plan on rereading the whole series I think I'm going to give it a go. Let's see if I stick with it.
So we dropped the villain of the week story format to basically dealing with the main baddie and his roided out Hawk simp. And yes, that was a joke. I don't typically enjoy shitting on things. I felt like the direction of the story was very loose and fast. Sometimes, the story kind of lost me in response to this. I knew everything that had happened, but I think Nobuhiro hung onto the idea of Kazuki having a normal life for way too long. Because the supporting cast in this is just really not interesting. They're boring. They slow up progression. I would have much rather he just have a sister and not a huge friend cast and let Nobuhiro's try and make them comedic characters. As I said in my review for Volume 1, the comedy just is really not great.
The highlight of this was the fights between the hawk dude VS Kazuki and Tokiko and Kazuki vs Papillion. I'll explain how one was great and the other felt like it was just kind of there. The hawk battle was just there in my eyes. We needed a sub boss. But I wasn't overly a fan of having Tokiko, the expert fighter, be nerfed for this fight. While Kazuki, who they make jokes about his screaming attacks and all he does is charge in and out of attacks, be the main focus. I get it, he's the main character. Just don't have him be up against someone he's much outclassed by. Though I know Kazuki used the attack much later, I don't see how he really got to the point of doing it. That could have been explored better. Why would he think to do that? There was no basis. It felt super contrived.
Papillion on the other hand is easily the most interesting character in this entire series. His revelation of how his entire family hates him because of an illness he didn't ask for is extremely telling of a personality he actually shares. Though his eyes are drawn ridiculously. He is a great foil to Kazuki who is meant to be a second chance character. Where he believes he needes to use his second chance to help those around him. Where papillion feels that he needs his second chance and he'll do anything to achieve it. His revenge upon his family and his realization that he had actually died a long time ago was splendid and the fight between Kazuki, having to borrow someone else's strength and that being the reason why he was able to defat Papillion who was only just two halves of himself was just great storytelling.
However, this doesn't rectify the hawk dude being just another villain of the week, bland villain for Kazuki to defeat because he is the main character. The hawk dude covered the first half of the volume so I thought it was fair to represent that fairly in the rating.
So Overall, a 7/10 for me. It's getting better. The finally chapter and the line "Don't apologize, you hypocrite" was great. It was just as impactful as it was when I read it in my youth. I remember someone equating this series to Junk Food. I think that's a great comparison. It's enjoyable, it's not dense and it doesn't have to be the most nutritious thing you eat. However, it tastes great and makes you feel happy.....until you think about it and think against it later.
January 31, 2014
I decided to pick up the “New 52” (that reboot has been active for two years now, so we really ought to stop calling it that, I guess) issues of Superman. This comic is set five years after the ongoing Action Comics title by British comics writer Grant Morrison. In other words, while Morrison's work is set at the very beginning of “the age of heroes” - marked by the beginning of the careers of Superman and Batman – Superman is set five years later during the “present day”.
I was hesitant to pick this up because I have heard a lot of bad things about the story. To say that Perez's work on this title was much criticized would be a huge understatement. I wanted to sift through that, to “separate the wheat from the chaff”, to use a biblical term, because I knew that much criticism would be due to those who generally dislike the reboot as a whole.
Well, I read it and.... I have mixed reactions to it. I think that the personal interactions, the story of Clark Kent relating to the other characters, especially Lois and Jimmy, was really neat. But I also did not like the Superman part of the tale. It seemed to be, well, not very “Superman-like”, if you will. The dark and brooding one is supposed to be Batman, not Supes. In many ways, it seemed that Clark and Supes were not the same person. Clark was much friendlier than Supes was, when usually both are really friendly.
I was kind of surprised that this was written by the famed George Perez, whose past work included the much-lauded reboot of Wonder Woman and work on The Teen Titans, both in the '80's. Of course, the friction that he had with some of the editors at DC, as well as with Grant Morrison may have contributed to the lackluster quality of the title. Who knows.
This really wasn't bad at all. Those who make it out to be so are kind of over the top, in my opinion. But neither is it the high-quality writing that so many have come to expect from George Perez, either.
I was hesitant to pick this up because I have heard a lot of bad things about the story. To say that Perez's work on this title was much criticized would be a huge understatement. I wanted to sift through that, to “separate the wheat from the chaff”, to use a biblical term, because I knew that much criticism would be due to those who generally dislike the reboot as a whole.
Well, I read it and.... I have mixed reactions to it. I think that the personal interactions, the story of Clark Kent relating to the other characters, especially Lois and Jimmy, was really neat. But I also did not like the Superman part of the tale. It seemed to be, well, not very “Superman-like”, if you will. The dark and brooding one is supposed to be Batman, not Supes. In many ways, it seemed that Clark and Supes were not the same person. Clark was much friendlier than Supes was, when usually both are really friendly.
I was kind of surprised that this was written by the famed George Perez, whose past work included the much-lauded reboot of Wonder Woman and work on The Teen Titans, both in the '80's. Of course, the friction that he had with some of the editors at DC, as well as with Grant Morrison may have contributed to the lackluster quality of the title. Who knows.
This really wasn't bad at all. Those who make it out to be so are kind of over the top, in my opinion. But neither is it the high-quality writing that so many have come to expect from George Perez, either.
April 4, 2016
Volume two builds on the tension from volume one, completing the first arc of the series about the homonculus lodged in Tokiko's side. The plot bumbles along, drawing on numerous shonen stereotypes, and after reading it, I couldn't quite remember it, because it reminded me of so many other things that I'd read. Like the male character dead-set on protecting the female lead. Always always always.
The most notable bit is Tokiko, because of her scar. Normally heroines are intensely beautiful, perfect, etc etc and I really liked that she had a scar on her face. I also liked that the scar wasn't a big deal, that the other characters didn't focus on it constantly as if she was lacking something for having it. Yay! This continues from the first volume and I appreciate it just as much in volume two.
Unfortunately, the rest of the series just didn't hold up for me. Everything felt contrived, there were no serious consequences because Kazuki magically solved everything, and I felt very distant from the characters. I've got another volume lying around, so I'll definitely check that out, but I'm not sure I'd go out of my way to read more.
The most notable bit is Tokiko, because of her scar. Normally heroines are intensely beautiful, perfect, etc etc and I really liked that she had a scar on her face. I also liked that the scar wasn't a big deal, that the other characters didn't focus on it constantly as if she was lacking something for having it. Yay! This continues from the first volume and I appreciate it just as much in volume two.
Unfortunately, the rest of the series just didn't hold up for me. Everything felt contrived, there were no serious consequences because Kazuki magically solved everything, and I felt very distant from the characters. I've got another volume lying around, so I'll definitely check that out, but I'm not sure I'd go out of my way to read more.
July 14, 2009
First one was better by a bit.
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July 5, 2010F WAT br v.2
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews