悪性 －アクサガ－ 1

Blank Slate #1

by Aya Kanno, Aya Kanno

What does it take to find your true inner self? Zen's memory has been wiped, and he can't remember if he's a killer or a hero. And a lot of people will do anything they can to keep it that way.

Zen's unearthly charm attracts a veritable rogues' gallery. A bounty hunter becomes obsessed enough to become his new partner, while the daughter of General treats him like some sort of guru. But when he meets a mysterious doctor who may know him from the past, Zen learns that the secret of his lost memory is definitely more sinister than saintly.

What does it take to find your true inner self? Zen's memory has been wiped, and he can't remember if he's a killer or a hero. And a lot of people will do anything they can to keep it that way.

Genres: Manga, Graphic Novels, Comics, Shojo, Mystery, Comics Manga, Action

First published September 16, 2005

About the author

Aya Kanno (菅野文; Kanno Aya) is a Japanese shōjo manga artist.

Former assistant of mangaka Masashi Asaki of Psychometrer Eiji fame, she made her debut in the January 2001 issue of Hakusensha's magazine "Hana to Yume" with Soul Rescue. Her works include Otomen.

Reviews

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This first volume centers around a guy named Zen. A master criminal. He lives his life, doing what he wants, when he wants and how he wants. He seems to know nothing of his past and simply has an urge to destroy and create chaos.

An interesting manga series so far. I enjoyed the artwork quite a bit. but I am not sure of the characterization. Story seems to have good potential. I am surprised Shojo Beat is the one to publish this being its much more action oriented. Quite a bit actually. The romance is only hinted at as a possibility but so far has not gone anywhere. The focus is on why zen is wanted and who he really is. Mysterious intrigue like that is always something I have enjoyed.

I hope to enjoy reading volume 2 soon. This is a short, 2 volume series so it is a quick read.

[Mir · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall pretty disappointing, although it picked up enough at the end that I may get the next one just to see where it goes with the mystery aspect.

Chapter one opens with two characters who appear to be classic sociopaths, if not outright psychopaths. We have a bounty hunter (which Kanno appears to think is a government assassin) who is obsessed with controlling others and appears to be in no rush to take down his assigned target, in fact Zen is intriguing, maybe they will commit some crimes together first before he gets around to his job. Why not! And Zen, who is a super criminal but apparently motivated only by the desire for destruction even though he sometimes says he wants money. What he does with the money we don't know, mostly he just roams around looking pretty and shooting people and having implausible dialog. ANYWAY that episode ends abruptly and unresolvedly and part 2 features Zen kidnapping a poorly drawn and annoying and also implausible little rich blind girl who falls for him in a big way and apparently doesn't care that he is going to kill her bodyguard and maybe her, too. Hopefully Rian is older than she looks because she's engaged to a bad guy military officer plus she and Zen take off their clothes together (nothing happens) so we'll say she's past puberty although she doesn't look it. But in any case she also does not feature in the third and final segment although this time there is some plot continuity, with Zen going to get medical help for a wound incurred in the rescue of the hostage and the military coming after him. And then he and the doctor invade the military prison for unclear reasons Yes, to rescue the terrorists who were captured in part 2 but why do they care? and Zen meets a mysterious Colonel and finally we get some sign that there is more to this story than a murderous prettyboy causing havoc but then THE END.

[Gus · Rating 1 out of 5]

--- Blank Slate 1-2 ---
Plot: ...
Gambar: Ok.
Penokohan: ...

Baca sinopsisnya langsung ya^^.
Jadi akhir-akhir ini saya terlalu sibuk di malam hari-- sampai-sampai saya merasa kurang tidur. Tapi kadang, saat saya merasa harus beristirahat dan menghilangkan kepenatan, saya mencari bacaan sedap untuk dinikmati //bukannyatidur //malahbaca //ngeeeng. Blank Slate bertotalkan dua volume dengan nama besar mangaka yang terkenal pada judul Otomen. Rasanya ceritanya tidak akan mengecewakan-- apalagi mengingat saya dulu pernah membaca cuap-cuap penulis di forum mengenai judul ini.

Bullseye! //tapibohong.
Ternyata ekspektasi saya yang rendah dipatahkan dengan plot yang lebih buruk dari yang saya bayangkan!
Harusnya sinopsis memang dibaca lebih dulu, ya... u v u " ). Oh ya. Selera saya memang aneh, jadi mungkin kalian yang lain bisa menikmati lebih baik dari saya. Tapi. Saya. Tidak. Bisa.

Plotnya cepat dan tegas. Tokoh utamanya orang yang berhati dingin dan nyaris tak berperasaan (baiklah, sepertinya masih ada 0.0000005% kebaikan hatinya). Kelakuannya kejam dan keji. Tapi seolah ingin memperlihatkan kalau tokoh utama tidak jahat-jahat amat, plotnya digulir sedemikian rupa sehingga. Bagi saya, tokoh utamanya tetap kejam dan keji, seorang antihero. Saya bahkan tidak akan membenarkan tindakannya, sebagaimanapun perbuatannya. Enak saja sedikit guliran plot membuat catatan kriminalnya jadi agak bersih. NO IN A FREAKIN' WAY! - _ -)

Ps: Bahkan tokoh kesukaan saya dari komik kesukaan saya yang awalnya-tokoh-jahat-kemudian-jadi-baik, tetap mempunyai dosa dalam komik yang tetap akan saya perhitungkan.

Tokohnya tidak ada yang likeable maupun lovable (untuk saya).
Saya juga jengkel dengan plot akhirnya.

Di kala teman-teman satu forum berbahagia karena seorang gadis pemeran sampingan tewas (mungkin), saya malah menyayangkannya. Sepertinya saya dan para penikmat Blank Slate di forum memiliki gelombang minat yang kontras berbeda di judul ini (haha) ^^.
Terakhir: saya sedikit bersyukur saya membacanya dulu. Bukan asal sabet.
[6/10]

[Abby · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe it's just because I don't read much manga but it drove me insane how almost no sentence could be completed in just one word bubble in one panel. The author would draw out ONE UTTERANCE over 2 whole pages, with the use of lots of elliptical periods -- it is CRAZY-MAKING. Is this typical for manga? If so, I doubt I'll be reading many other series.

[Cornerofmadness · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the one I thought I’d like in spite of it being shojo. While shojo really just means ‘girl manga’ (loosely translated there), it usually has some sort of romance base. From the back blurb, this one had Zen, a young man who might be a killer or a hero, who had something bad happen to him and he’s lost his memory. I’m a sucker for boys with tragic pasts so I thought I’d like this one.

Yeah, I didn’t. For one, it’s very choppy and there’s no character growth. And apparently it’s being bound in a different order than it was originally ran in (which makes even less sense since I have no idea how anyone followed it when it was out of order. The mangaka didn’t think it would be more than a one-shot so started the story somewhere deeper into the story line). And it’s an ultra-violent story which I never really expected to see in a shojo. And so far there’s no romance unless you count the two men who are utterly fascinated with Zen (and hey we meet him working as a bisexual prostitute).

It opens with a bounty hunter talking to a fortune teller about meeting Zen in the aforementioned high end brothel (technically illegal under the new military regime). The bounty hunter wanted to kill and bring in Zen. Something very different happened. The rest of the book is a little more coherent (but you wouldn’t have known who Zen was and the rules of this world without that first chapter that the original readers didn’t get). Zen meets up with the blind daughter of one of the important generals and gets swept up into her kidnapping. Not that he much cares. The only thing he seems to like is destroying everything he can. This leads him to being shot and receiving care from an unlicensed doctor, Hakka, who is helping the people the new government repressed. Zen naturally isn’t content letting the doctor have his place in the world and why Hakka would suddenly chose to follow Zen, well read and find out (and is Viz calling anything with romance shojo even if it might be Yaoi? I’m not sure since the strongest hints of romance were definitely coming from the bounty hunter and the doc). The art is pretty but the characters have no real depth. I found I didn’t really care what Zen’s problems were since I didn’t really like him. I doubt I’ll be buying another.

[Astri · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good introduction to what sadly turned out to be a very short and rushed series. Too bad, it had potential.

[Zare · Rating 3 out of 5]

Manga stories are like every reading materiel - from time to time there are great works to be read but majority tend to be good art but weird story or vice versa.

This one falls into the category of good art but weird story. While main character is rather androgynous he is also quite a psychopath. Known as a master criminal Zen he sows mayhem around him and kills or destroys everything that finds itself on its path.

So when accidental kidnapping starts to unravel Zen's personal history, dark parts of countries past start to surface.

In general story is little bit too gothic/depressive (constant "destroy your world to come out free"?!?) for my taste. Way story goes, some weird romance budding between Zen and almost everyone else (due to his out of this world beauty) is rather disconcerting. I think story itself might be aimed to younger audience. For me (old man as I am :)) everything seems a little bit too far fetched.

Art is pretty good. again this is one of those mangas with extremely lanky characters. Again not exactly my cup of tea but close ups and environment look pretty good.

Recommended to fans of political thrillers but keep in mind entire look and feel is rather depressive/gothic - so if you like this all the better for you :)

[Ashley (gotbookcitement) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This manga was okay. I loved the art style. I'm definitely curious about the plot of it all.
I had trouble with how to feel about our main guy Zen. He's lost his memories, and he's had the urge to act like a bad guy ever since he woke up from whatever mystery was his past. It can be hard to feel for him sometimes.
The story could be confusing at times too. The first chapter did not do a great job of introducing us to Zen. The other chapters had more of a flow towards them, which I appreciated.
The dialogue doesn't really do much for me either.
This has a dystopian sort of world building, which is okay.
This is only a two volume series, so I'm going to finish it.
This first volume was just meh.

[Haley Kilgour · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just honestly not the manga for me.

The first chapter was very confusing. And given the character from who’s pov the story was being told… it wasn’t a good opening as to what was going on.

As far as Zen is concerned, I like his character but I can’t relate to his motivations. Not that I can truly find any motivations for what he’s doing.

Towards chapter 4 the story did pick up and it became more enjoyable, but not enough for me to continue with the series.

[Jenny Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

A dark manga for sure, with spotty world building. The author does say she didn't originally intend for it to be more than one chapter, and that shows. The world feels completely different after that. This is also not a typical shojo, as it has lots of violence and blood and most of the characters are not really good.

Check out my YouTube channel for bookish videos and monthly wrap ups!

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was never sure where the story was going! Direction and motivation seem to change from chapter to chapter. There's some cute guys and a lot more gun violence than you'd normally see in a series from Shojo Beat.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 stars. Surprisingly more interesting than I thought.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bad guy wakes up with no memory of his past but retains urges to do bad things. Good first volume but didn't enjoy it enough to pick up another volume.

[Gabby · Rating 4 out of 5]

New red flag crush unlocked 🤣❤️

[Purpleflower · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember back in high school wanting to read this. I read this first chapter in a Shojo Beat Magazine. I thought it was pretty good. As a teenager I could not find this volume anywhere. But now as an adult I found this on Amazon. I am so glad I got to read this.

I would be lying if I said that I wasn't drawn to this volume because I thought Zen was hot. The art is amazing and his hotness stands out. I can tell this is targeting women. I also like that Zen is more of a rebel without a cause sort of guy. I like that he just do things because he feel like it. It's a refresher than all the protagonist I read that want something deep. He is powerful enough to just live how he pleases.

I do notice a slight inconsistency with the first chapter and the rest of the volume. I read in the side notes by the author that she did not plan for this to become serialized. I will be leaned on that but I think it would have been cool to continue running with a Zen that fights a bunch of bounty hunters. But I am not the author.

I do still like how the plot turned out. I applaud the focus on the effects of war on people. I feel like Zen's neutral nature helped people to voice their inner thoughts and desires. It also served as a way for people to open their eyes to war and the effects of war.

[Amanda McCoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is probably the darkest, grittiest Shojo I've ever read. The main character is totally a criminal. And I don't mean the swashbuckling hansom pirate type, I mean like the type you don't want to meet in a dark alley. Though I usually don't go for this kind of manga, I have to admit the story is really interesting and the artwork is great.

[Lucy Larsen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story was written by the same author as Otomen which is why I read it. I really enjoyed Otomen and wanted to see how a writer of a shoujo series would do with action.

Honestly, I was rather disappointed with this series if I’m going to be honest. It wasn’t long. It was a duology – just two volumes of manga. I’ve read plenty of duologies and even stand-alone books that were very good, but this one just wasn’t very good at pacing itself. We spent the whole book setting up characters and places just like a longer manga series would. Then we spent part of the second book doing the same and then just wrapped everything up in 2 short chapters at the very end. It made no sense.

It also felt like all the sudden at the end the author was like, “Aha! Here is the deep and poignant point about war that I was trying to make all along!” But there was no hinting at all in the rest of the story that was the point of the story. In fact, the story actually hinted at a different meaning than the one revealed at the end, which bothered me. Writing short stories/series is difficult and I was wondering if they could pull it off and they did not. Spicy level 1.

Overall, I give this book a 2.5 out of 5 star rating. The art was interesting, I did find the characters interesting even if the writing and pacing wasn’t great.

[Derek O'Gorman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is the second book that I have read by Aya Kanno. I bought the first book of "Requiem of the Rose King" at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, where I met Aya Kanno and she signed it for me. I was drawn first by Kanno's beautiful artwork. I also found that I was intrigued by the story in "Rose King", and I wanted to read more. So I picked up the first book of "Blank Slate" with high hopes. The story sounded interesting, and it had more of Kanno's stunning artwork. I was not disappointed in the artwork, but a little bit thrown off by the story. Maybe it isn't the story, but the translation. I'm not sure. I found that a lot of the speech in the word balloons was broken up by awkward suspension points, and it happened so much that it made it seem choppy or stuttered when I was reading. I don't know if it was presented the same way in the original Japanese, or if it is more of a result of the translation. I just found it a little awkward, and it lessened my enjoyment of the book somewhat. I still gave the book a rating of four stars though, because I still loved the art, and I enjoyed the story, other than the choppy and distracting rhythm I felt when reading it. I am still curious to see what happens in the next book in the series, and enjoy more of Kanno's art.

[Liviania · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zen can't remember who he is or what he's done. The only thing he knows is he feels like he needs to destroy - a fairly clear sign that he wasn't a nice person before he lost his memory. The book begins not with the original first chapter, but with a side-story that replaced it when Kanno realized her story was going to be more than a oneshot.

I enjoyed the story, but feel it might not have been the best introduction. The series is only two volumes long, making the story fairly tight, but Zen is the only character set-up in the chapter. The secondary characters don't arrive until the next chapter. I wish I knew how the original opening went, but all the new one does is establish that Zen is wanted, doesn't know who he is, and dangerous. It also portrays him as a bit more capricious than he is in the rest of the story.

Things really begin when he kidnaps Rian, the blind and protected daughter of a general. She blossoms in her kidnapping because her small, sheltered life chafes her and someone is finally reacting to her without kid gloves. This misadventure leads Zen to the pacifist doctor Hakka, who might be able to help Zen discover the truth of his past.

[lady cherise · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story about a guy named Zen with no memory of the past 20 years who's a killing machine in a colonized society. There are anti-imperialism overtones despite the main character being aloof about it all. His excuse for helping the doctor aid the Amatans against the imperialistic Galayans is his urge to kill. He moves fast, has exceptional strength, and so his Humanity is questioned several times. It becomes something that even Zen wants to explore because he defends his freedom fiercely, and would not want to be a prisoner of his own past/urges.

I'm curious to see where this will go from here, although I'm guessing that Zen himself is a genetic product of the colonization since his unusual pale skin + dark hair combo is pointed out at least twice in this volume.

The art is beautiful and so are the characters.

[Francine · Rating 3 out of 5]

6 October 2015: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
__

1 May 2024: ⭐️⭐️✨️

A decade ago I gave this four stars, but I didn't write a review, so I have NO idea what my past self was thinking. I mean, I can take a wild guess and assume I liked the black/white trope, like, the two protagonists are evil/good, badguy/goodboi and, judging by this volume alone, it seems like they will be influenced by each other and land somewhere in the middle at the end of the story. Okay, I can imagine why I liked this as a young adult. 😂 I always had good feelings toward this manga whenever I saw it on my shelves, and I could never blindly sell it, but I think it's time to let this one go. Gonna read the next volume (which I think is also the final volume) first and report back to youse.

[Nisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting start to a shoujo manga. I doubt there would be any real romance here, but there is a bit of hope with the introduction of Rian. She has a sort of chemistry with Zen, that I feel is teasing me to read more.

The art is gorgeous, though nothing but pieces of Zen's past are thrown in, so no real plot. There is a 2nd volume, which explains a lot more, so it's obviously required to enjoy the story.

[Misty · Rating 3 out of 5]

When you say what you've read first for the year I always feel like it should be some grand life changing book that's going to define your reading year. But in my reality it's really just better to start...go here's a start and it was an ok one. This book surprised me and this kind of genre isn't really my thing but it was pretty good. https://31.media.tumblr.com/d4483d274...

[JalapenoSoup · Rating 5 out of 5]

2024
Zen is actually just a TERRIBLE person in book one. Like, I'm not on the Alayan government's side, but this man is a menace, and NOT in a fun way.

2019
The storyline may be confusing at times (it's sometimes hard to tell who is saying what) but these characters are awesome and the setting and plot is dark and twisty, yet still retains heart and humor. I've read these books more times than I can remember. Just awesome.

[K T · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh. Picked it up at the library on a whim, not much substance. The art is serviceable but not great. The plot and action scenes just kind of go through the motions without actually making much sense or going into detail. The world feels very generic crappy future made-up countries. It's just the first volume, maybe it gets better, but I don't think I'll bother to continue.

[edel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The artwork was really nice. I didn't expect it for a shojo. The characters were definitely "wooden" as some others have said. Everything was really rushed, so there wasn't room for character growth. But I love the concept. I really do know what happened to Zen, but, eh. I don't think I'll be buying the second volume.

[Ashes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the idea of the plot and characters but I think it could have been executed better. Zen was a very boring character and really had no depth to him so I didn't want to find out more about him, I'd really like a different story on the doctor or the blind girl rather than him. Though the art was lovely.

[Samii Diaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not terrible. It had a good story line for the most part but it really didn't capture and keep my attention throughout the volume. The artwork is nice and clean but the panel-changing was slightly confusing. I had to re-read some parts a couple times. I'd probably buy future volumes but I am not going to rush to buy more.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

So far an interesting manga about a guy who can't remember any of his past, his first memory is waking up and wanting to destroy everything...so he becomes a super criminal. He meets a doctor who seems to know something about him and starts to try and figure out who he is.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first action manga book I've read. It was a little confusing, but I eventually got used to it. The story seems like it could get interesting. I'd like to know about Zen's past so I think I'll keep reading.