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Mech Cadet Yu #9-12
Mech Cadet Yu Vol. 3
A young boy gets the opportunity of a lifetime when he bonds with a giant sentient robot and joins the ranks of the illustrious Sky Corps Academy to protect the world from alien threats.
After relentless training and defying orders, the Mech Cadets find themselves on the front line of the Second Sharg War. Facing an uncompromising enemy they do not fully understand, Stanford, Park, Olivetti, and Sanchez are Earth’s last hope. With human existence at stake, their bond will have to match their courage if they are to protect everything they hold dear.
Bestselling author Greg Pak (The Hulk, Superman) and fan-favorite artist Takeshi Miyazawa (Runaways, Ms. Marvel), bring Stanford Yu’s journey to its stunning conclusion, as the young cadets come to realize the true sacrifice that comes with duty and service.
After relentless training and defying orders, the Mech Cadets find themselves on the front line of the Second Sharg War. Facing an uncompromising enemy they do not fully understand, Stanford, Park, Olivetti, and Sanchez are Earth’s last hope. With human existence at stake, their bond will have to match their courage if they are to protect everything they hold dear.
Bestselling author Greg Pak (The Hulk, Superman) and fan-favorite artist Takeshi Miyazawa (Runaways, Ms. Marvel), bring Stanford Yu’s journey to its stunning conclusion, as the young cadets come to realize the true sacrifice that comes with duty and service.
112 pages, Paperback
First published April 10, 2019
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45 people want to read
About the author
Greg Pak
1,634 books577 followersGreg Pak is an award-winning Korean American comic book writer and filmmaker currently writing "Lawful" for BOOM and "Sam Wilson: Captain America" (with Evan Narcisse) for Marvel. Pak wrote the "Princess Who Saved Herself" children's book and the “Code Monkey Save World” graphic novel based on the songs of Jonathan Coulton and co-wrote (with Fred Van Lente) the acclaimed “Make Comics Like the Pros” how-to book. Pak's other work includes "Planet Hulk," "Darth Vader," "Mech Cadet Yu," "Ronin Island," "Action Comics," and "Magneto Testament."
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
April 28, 2019
The final battle with the Sharg is upon us! Can Stanford Yu and the other Mech Cadets defeat the armada without sacrificing their mechs?
Greg Pak's adaptation of an anime that never existed ends in this volume. It's pretty much one long battle with the Sharg and with authorities on earth urging the cadets to sacrifice their mechs to activate the super mech. Honestly, it was kind of a letdown.
Spoilers - proceed with caution:
It felt like an issue and a half stretched into four. The mech combat was still good but Buddy trying to make a big sacrifice was long and drawn out, robbing it of emotion. The ending was a little too safe as well. The mech battles and designs were still great, though.
I liked the Mech Cadet Yu series quite a bit as a whole but the ending leaves something to be desired. Three out of five stars.
Greg Pak's adaptation of an anime that never existed ends in this volume. It's pretty much one long battle with the Sharg and with authorities on earth urging the cadets to sacrifice their mechs to activate the super mech. Honestly, it was kind of a letdown.
Spoilers - proceed with caution:
It felt like an issue and a half stretched into four. The mech combat was still good but Buddy trying to make a big sacrifice was long and drawn out, robbing it of emotion. The ending was a little too safe as well. The mech battles and designs were still great, though.
I liked the Mech Cadet Yu series quite a bit as a whole but the ending leaves something to be desired. Three out of five stars.
February 4, 2020
This picks up right where volume 2 left off, in the midst of the battle with the Sharg mothership. The meat of this book gets real tedious as the military wants to kill off the mechs to power off a supermech and our hero Yu refuses to. It drags on for a couple of issues. It starts feeling very middle school writing in the middle of this. Still overall this is like a good anime that never was.
July 11, 2021
The concluding volume in this comic series was one long, drawn-out, self-sacrificial stand off, complete with heroic speeches and tearful confrontations. It was cliche and missed the mark by completely changing the most compelling characters' traits in order to give the series a mushy heartfelt ending. It's no surprise it ended with a (mostly) happily ever after following a few boom and kapow action scenes. Overall, this vol sadly didn't do the rest of the series justice.
December 23, 2019
An exciting, bittersweet and satisfying ending to the Mech Cadet Yu series. The enemy sharg (uuugh I still can’t get over that name, why did you choose it Greg Pak??!) are getting closer to earth and the cadets, mechs and senior officers have to make some hard choices – and sacrifices – to save earth and everyone on it.
The exciting finale feels just like the nostalgic robot/tech movies and shows growing up, with Miyazawa’s art firing on all cylinders (pun intended) to keep the pages moving quickly. He’s really good at robot fights and space battles, and even though the sharg have an unnecessarily terrible name, he still draws them so, so well:
The final volume of MCY really delivers on action, explosions, robot fights, and a whole lot of emotion – about as much as you would expect in an anime – in this final volume. There are a few emotional, melodramatic monologues, as well as some unnecessary exposition that really feel like a YA book (and at times, an anime) – it took me out of the story a little bit but it’s also endearing in that way anime/manga storytelling can be. Yu, Park and the other cadets have to be prepared to sacrifice their lives – and/or the lives of their mechs – to save the world, which is pretty heavy stuff, and as you might imagine, there’s some parental issues with those kinds of decisions as well! This finale might very likely tug at your heartstrings, though it still ends in a way you might not have guessed.
Certain characters like the mechanics chief, and the Big Bad General (also a woman) who keeps pushing for the mechs to be sacrificed, become more important (Yu’s mom, less so), along with Obi Wan figure Skip Tanaka. Like I mentioned last time, the diversity is great for a genre that’s usually all boys, and even though Yu is the clear protagonist, it’s evenly distributed among the cadets as a whole.
There are still many unanswered questions, even with a big reveal about how the sharg and mechs are connected, that’s sort of dropped and then left hanging. The sharg remain a very low-hanging-fruit villain, just Big Bad Aliens looking to take over and colonize the earth (think Independence Day). We still don’t spend enough time with cadets Olivetti and Sanchez, who are very much just window dressings behind Yu and Park, who do get some nice work here, even if it’s a little melodramatic at times. And finally, we still don’t know where the mechs come from and why they help humans – it would have been interesting for Yu to ask Buddy directly. With that in mind, even Yu and Buddy’s relationship could have used a bit more time considering what happens this book. (The ongoing mech questions do remind me of IG quite a bit.)
Maybe we’ll get a sequel series someday, and while the story has a clear ending, there are definitely enough questions for a sequel. But for now, it’s an easy book to recommend for YA readers into robots, and anyone looking for some Irom Giant/Gundam/Transformers nostalgia.
This review and more on my blog, Reading Art!
The exciting finale feels just like the nostalgic robot/tech movies and shows growing up, with Miyazawa’s art firing on all cylinders (pun intended) to keep the pages moving quickly. He’s really good at robot fights and space battles, and even though the sharg have an unnecessarily terrible name, he still draws them so, so well:
The final volume of MCY really delivers on action, explosions, robot fights, and a whole lot of emotion – about as much as you would expect in an anime – in this final volume. There are a few emotional, melodramatic monologues, as well as some unnecessary exposition that really feel like a YA book (and at times, an anime) – it took me out of the story a little bit but it’s also endearing in that way anime/manga storytelling can be. Yu, Park and the other cadets have to be prepared to sacrifice their lives – and/or the lives of their mechs – to save the world, which is pretty heavy stuff, and as you might imagine, there’s some parental issues with those kinds of decisions as well! This finale might very likely tug at your heartstrings, though it still ends in a way you might not have guessed.
Certain characters like the mechanics chief, and the Big Bad General (also a woman) who keeps pushing for the mechs to be sacrificed, become more important (Yu’s mom, less so), along with Obi Wan figure Skip Tanaka. Like I mentioned last time, the diversity is great for a genre that’s usually all boys, and even though Yu is the clear protagonist, it’s evenly distributed among the cadets as a whole.
There are still many unanswered questions, even with a big reveal about how the sharg and mechs are connected, that’s sort of dropped and then left hanging. The sharg remain a very low-hanging-fruit villain, just Big Bad Aliens looking to take over and colonize the earth (think Independence Day). We still don’t spend enough time with cadets Olivetti and Sanchez, who are very much just window dressings behind Yu and Park, who do get some nice work here, even if it’s a little melodramatic at times. And finally, we still don’t know where the mechs come from and why they help humans – it would have been interesting for Yu to ask Buddy directly. With that in mind, even Yu and Buddy’s relationship could have used a bit more time considering what happens this book. (The ongoing mech questions do remind me of IG quite a bit.)
Maybe we’ll get a sequel series someday, and while the story has a clear ending, there are definitely enough questions for a sequel. But for now, it’s an easy book to recommend for YA readers into robots, and anyone looking for some Irom Giant/Gundam/Transformers nostalgia.
This review and more on my blog, Reading Art!
August 1, 2019
This concluding volume of the Mech Cadet Yu series picks up right in the middle of the action - if you haven't read volume two recently, maybe give it a quick perusal. I was lost in space.
Still, when the plot is all action, it's fairly easy to catch on. Someone needs to power up the supramech and the only way to do that is to sacrifice a lesser mech! Characters trying to sacrifice themselves gets drawn out through four increasingly tiresome issues. Quick read, decent action, bland conclusion. The last handful of pages would probably have been real touching if I was more invested in this series.
Still, when the plot is all action, it's fairly easy to catch on. Someone needs to power up the supramech and the only way to do that is to sacrifice a lesser mech! Characters trying to sacrifice themselves gets drawn out through four increasingly tiresome issues. Quick read, decent action, bland conclusion. The last handful of pages would probably have been real touching if I was more invested in this series.
January 23, 2023
This volume goes full stupid. Honestly a series with decent potential that turned into trash on top of trash.
*spoilers & offensive language follow*
The zerg have 9 motherships. The only thing that can save earth is a super-transformer. But the super-transformer won't work without the hearts of all the Highlanders, I mean mechs. This will kill all the Highlanders and just leave the One super-transformer.
There is a complex circle jerk involving Stanford, Park, their mechs, Tanaka and HIS mech. Everyone would rather sacrifice themselves than sacrifice anyone else... except for the dumbshit generals who pretty much want to sacrifice everyone because... herp derp... the world is about to end. But secondarily the dumbshit generals are all bad people who want to rule the world and kick puppies and the alien mechs would somehow stand in their way AND a bunch of cadets somehow realize that in the middle of a space battle / circle jerk.
So essentially Optimus Prime grows two battery terminals which other mechs can grab onto to give him power. None of the mechs are smart enough to realize that if they all combine their power like Voltron or Captain Planet or the Ultimate Power Ranger or whatever the fuck then no-one at all has to die. But one of the kids (at this point it doesn't fucking matter who because I'm retching at this fucking idiotic excuse for a plot) gets the idea.
Optimus Prime then wins the war in about five seconds, and then a bunch of deep, plot-y stuff happens like the evil dumbshit generals wanting to court martial everyone, except that the mechs don't like it, so they cut to some really deep heavy shit (sarcasm) of Stanford (what a fucking stupid name) putting flowers on his father's grave.
I think this 12-episode comic mini-series is a product of abjectly woke writing. They manage to make giant killer robots and giant space Zerg utterly boring as a concept. But, they expect us to cry a little every time Yu's mom speaks Cantonese because... "Herp Derp, it's cultural AND progressive."
General Park is absolutely not a stereotypical nepotistic power hungry North Korean. The only white guy is a useless fat kid.
*spoilers & offensive language follow*
The zerg have 9 motherships. The only thing that can save earth is a super-transformer. But the super-transformer won't work without the hearts of all the Highlanders, I mean mechs. This will kill all the Highlanders and just leave the One super-transformer.
There is a complex circle jerk involving Stanford, Park, their mechs, Tanaka and HIS mech. Everyone would rather sacrifice themselves than sacrifice anyone else... except for the dumbshit generals who pretty much want to sacrifice everyone because... herp derp... the world is about to end. But secondarily the dumbshit generals are all bad people who want to rule the world and kick puppies and the alien mechs would somehow stand in their way AND a bunch of cadets somehow realize that in the middle of a space battle / circle jerk.
So essentially Optimus Prime grows two battery terminals which other mechs can grab onto to give him power. None of the mechs are smart enough to realize that if they all combine their power like Voltron or Captain Planet or the Ultimate Power Ranger or whatever the fuck then no-one at all has to die. But one of the kids (at this point it doesn't fucking matter who because I'm retching at this fucking idiotic excuse for a plot) gets the idea.
Optimus Prime then wins the war in about five seconds, and then a bunch of deep, plot-y stuff happens like the evil dumbshit generals wanting to court martial everyone, except that the mechs don't like it, so they cut to some really deep heavy shit (sarcasm) of Stanford (what a fucking stupid name) putting flowers on his father's grave.
I think this 12-episode comic mini-series is a product of abjectly woke writing. They manage to make giant killer robots and giant space Zerg utterly boring as a concept. But, they expect us to cry a little every time Yu's mom speaks Cantonese because... "Herp Derp, it's cultural AND progressive."
General Park is absolutely not a stereotypical nepotistic power hungry North Korean. The only white guy is a useless fat kid.
February 14, 2020
Man, what an ending. Why’d they have to make me want to cry like that.
Anyway, watching the Robo Crew connect over these three volumes was honestly really fun. Stanford and Buddy’s bond is one I always like to see - big alien robot becomes dedicated to keeping tiny human safe. Nice. Wholesome.
Mechs are not a new concept, but it is pretty rad to see it incorporated with young adults in an academy style setting. It’s an honor to have one of the Robos, something that became even more apparent as the series went on and their connections to them were formed. Of course you wouldn’t want to give them up - in a lot of ways, they became their best friends.
I’m also heavily biased because Takeshi Miyazawa has been one of my favorite comic artists since I was young, since the Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane days. It’s hard for me to ever dislike anything he works on - he’s just that good, in my opinion. My very subjective opinion.
Anyway! This was action packed, fast paced, and incredibly heartwarming at the same time. If the concept intrigues you, I absolutely recommend this series. It’s definitely a quick read! I enjoyed it a lot. Perhaps I’ll come back to get my heart broken again sometime in the future. 🤖
Anyway, watching the Robo Crew connect over these three volumes was honestly really fun. Stanford and Buddy’s bond is one I always like to see - big alien robot becomes dedicated to keeping tiny human safe. Nice. Wholesome.
Mechs are not a new concept, but it is pretty rad to see it incorporated with young adults in an academy style setting. It’s an honor to have one of the Robos, something that became even more apparent as the series went on and their connections to them were formed. Of course you wouldn’t want to give them up - in a lot of ways, they became their best friends.
I’m also heavily biased because Takeshi Miyazawa has been one of my favorite comic artists since I was young, since the Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane days. It’s hard for me to ever dislike anything he works on - he’s just that good, in my opinion. My very subjective opinion.
Anyway! This was action packed, fast paced, and incredibly heartwarming at the same time. If the concept intrigues you, I absolutely recommend this series. It’s definitely a quick read! I enjoyed it a lot. Perhaps I’ll come back to get my heart broken again sometime in the future. 🤖
February 20, 2021
This series had me intrigued throughout. Yet it felt rushed and it was a bit too short. Characters weren't fleshed out much, nor was the whole deal with the mechs and the Skrag and really anything. It really did not have much substance beyond these humans bond with mechs and they need to make tough choices to defeat the threat of the Skrag because its their duty (which I did not like. Was the point to praise loyalty and duty or to idealize rebellion against orders or a weird mix of both? It's quite muddled what I'm meant to feel from this) There are definitely some high points, like the art, the main character Yu and his mother Dolly and the concept.
May 14, 2019
I really wish I had reread the second volume of this series before I read this volume. I feel like it would have made it mean more. Instead I was thrust right back into the battle with the shargs, which I had kind of, I hate to admit, forgotten about. Whoops.
Anyway, I still highly recommend this transformers/gundam mash up. The characters are great and the friendships are a lot of fun. Plus intergalactic robot buddies!
Anyway, I still highly recommend this transformers/gundam mash up. The characters are great and the friendships are a lot of fun. Plus intergalactic robot buddies!
January 15, 2020
Mech Cadet Yu ends (I believe) with a all or nothing battle against their alien invaders. The cadets are center stage and they get time with their Robos to defend the planet. There is a ton of posturing and the book is cliched but I liked it. It was refreshing. I'm sure the entire 12 issue series reads better in one collection. The art by Miyazawa is very good for the book. Overall, a fun read for all ages.
November 4, 2020
In sintesi di tutto ciò, la storia poteva essere svolta meglio e seppure le basi non siano male e riesca a non ricalcare Pacif Rim, ci si trova davanti a scelte abbastanza prevedibili intraprese con il quasi unico scopo di smuovere l'emotività del lettore.
Grandi tematiche potevano nascere ma la conclusione rimane leggermente scialba e soprattutto frettolosa andando a dare un tono negativo alla serie nella tua globalità.
Grandi tematiche potevano nascere ma la conclusione rimane leggermente scialba e soprattutto frettolosa andando a dare un tono negativo alla serie nella tua globalità.
August 17, 2025
Really love how this story came together and ended. I remember collecting these issues as they came out, but I never finished reading it. I absolutely love a team themed story and how working together helps you overcome anything.
February 14, 2019
Review forthcoming.
May 6, 2019
There are still some characters that definitely need more development but I am enjoying the storyline thus far. Hopefully more secrets will be revealed!
March 30, 2020
A bit repetitive with the sacrificial volunteering at the end but I wish there was more.
April 30, 2020
K. Sooo while the infighting at the end could’ve taken a little less time and the final fight could’ve taken a little more, I just really like this little series :D
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 19, 2021
A great end to the series. Lots of action and a satisfying conclusion.
September 25, 2023
Who will win the final battle between the Sharg and Mech Cadets and their Robos? Volume 3 brings the story to an end but clearly leaves a path open for more comic books to come!
December 5, 2023
3.5 stars
May 3, 2024
Issue #9 - 4 stars
Issue #10 - 2 stars
Issue #11 - 2 stars
Issue #12 - 4 stars
Issue #10 - 2 stars
Issue #11 - 2 stars
Issue #12 - 4 stars
May 12, 2022
Rep: Chinese mc
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews