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Ryuko #1
Ryuko, Volume 1
From creator Eldo Yoshimizu comes a stunning manga which tells the tale of Ryuko, a fierce woman of the Yakuza thirsty for revenge.
Ryuko is a hard-hitting, motorcycle-riding, high ranking member of the Japanese mafia stationed in the Middle-East. After a fierce battle with the government, she becomes embroiled with the Chinese and an unknown terrorist organisation. Everyone has their own agenda, but it becomes personal for Ryuko when her mother is kidnapped and she was forced to kill her father. What is the right thing to do in this morally complicated situation?
Ryuko has a choice to make, but it's tough when good and evil appear to be two sides of the same coin...
Ryuko is a hard-hitting, motorcycle-riding, high ranking member of the Japanese mafia stationed in the Middle-East. After a fierce battle with the government, she becomes embroiled with the Chinese and an unknown terrorist organisation. Everyone has their own agenda, but it becomes personal for Ryuko when her mother is kidnapped and she was forced to kill her father. What is the right thing to do in this morally complicated situation?
Ryuko has a choice to make, but it's tough when good and evil appear to be two sides of the same coin...
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
16 people are currently reading
260 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
February 16, 2020
Just a mess. The story jumps around constantly from the present day to a military coup in an imaginary country 18 years ago to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. There are heists, massacres, assassinations, and action galore -- usually over the top, often featuring young women in bikinis and/or high heels. Ostensibly, it's a convoluted revenge yarn, with dead and missing parents, secret princesses, disgraced yakuza, and bitter military veterans, but mostly it's just cheesy B-movie garbage.
There are occasionally striking images in the art, but the flow isn't very smooth, and often the artist just splashes everything with ink until it is hard to tell what the hell might be going on.
There are occasionally striking images in the art, but the flow isn't very smooth, and often the artist just splashes everything with ink until it is hard to tell what the hell might be going on.
January 19, 2022
This was terrible. I'm not sure why Hard Case Crime printed this as their first manga. The story is incoherent and is mainly fighting the military. Nothing about this was noir. The women are running around in bikinis and cowboy boots with guns. The action sequences are indecipherable. Yockimizu's idea of a action panel is to add a ton of ink until you can't even tell what's happening. Oof, this was awful.
August 18, 2019
I'm not sure what I just read...
The opening stanza is perfect; a betrayal, mafia connotations, and a cool kick-a$$ female heroine with loads of story potential; the action was intense and the level of urgency off the scale, I couldn't turn the pages quick enough, eating up panel after panel until we hit chapter 3...and then things started to go wayward with the author choosing to introduce a new character with a deep and involved backstory, essentially changing the face of the story in such a way that Ryuko became a second-rate character, almost forgotten in favor of a fresh direction which wasn't warranted.
Whilst the plot threads eventually reconcile, I'm not convinced the direction was the right one. All the early momentum of the story stalled and it felt like I was reading something different to the opening chapters (despite actually enjoying what I was reading).
Additionally, the art, cinematic as it was at times, was more confusing than complementary to the story. On numerous occasions I found myself backtracking and reading/looking at panels over and over to make sure I understood what was actually happening.
My rating: 3/5 stars. I don't think I'll be going back for volume 2 (even though vol 1 is left largely unresolved).
The opening stanza is perfect; a betrayal, mafia connotations, and a cool kick-a$$ female heroine with loads of story potential; the action was intense and the level of urgency off the scale, I couldn't turn the pages quick enough, eating up panel after panel until we hit chapter 3...and then things started to go wayward with the author choosing to introduce a new character with a deep and involved backstory, essentially changing the face of the story in such a way that Ryuko became a second-rate character, almost forgotten in favor of a fresh direction which wasn't warranted.
Whilst the plot threads eventually reconcile, I'm not convinced the direction was the right one. All the early momentum of the story stalled and it felt like I was reading something different to the opening chapters (despite actually enjoying what I was reading).
Additionally, the art, cinematic as it was at times, was more confusing than complementary to the story. On numerous occasions I found myself backtracking and reading/looking at panels over and over to make sure I understood what was actually happening.
My rating: 3/5 stars. I don't think I'll be going back for volume 2 (even though vol 1 is left largely unresolved).
December 13, 2019
Hard Case Crime has presented us with its first Manga title, a form of very popular Japanese graphic novel in black and white format. The stark artwork is exciting, but the plot a bit hard to follow.
October 29, 2021
The artwork was too confusing to me. I couldn't tell what was going on.
September 27, 2021
He tardado en leerlo bastante más de lo que suelo tardar en leer un tomo de manga de estas dimensiones, no por que sea muy denso, sino porque la narración es bastante confusa y cuesta meterse en la historia.
Aunque el dibujo es espectacular, el exceso de escenas de acción y fan service me saca un poco de la historia... unido a lo que comentaba antes de que la narración es confusa y que además la historia no es que sea nada especial... pues eso, un dos y gracias.
Aunque el dibujo es espectacular, el exceso de escenas de acción y fan service me saca un poco de la historia... unido a lo que comentaba antes de que la narración es confusa y que además la historia no es que sea nada especial... pues eso, un dos y gracias.
November 27, 2019
This was my first manga. The illustrations were amazing but the story lost me a bit. As amazing as the artwork was, many of the people looked so similar I would get confused about who was who. I should also confess that after reading halfway I put it down and when I picked it back up again I started reading the wrong direction. This could of led to some of the confusion. Hahahaha!
August 25, 2019
The artwork is great however, I feel that the story was a little lost on me. I felt like there was just too much going on for me to not only follow the story but to be involved in it as much as I should be.
July 21, 2019
Eldo Yoshimizu has written and drawn a hi-octane action story with girls, guns and motorbikes (lovely technical rendering). What can go wrong? Nothing actually. It is gangster drama played out across international borders. The Titan books are fast and furious with it basic production values, which first grip you into the story. I have copies of the Japanese versions, which is bigger size and better paper; this makes Yoshimizu-san artwork looks even better. Roll on Book two from Titan
June 8, 2020
It was a fun action read with deep and bracing emotion infused.
His art is excellent and his panels are often set diagonally to add the tilt in "full-tilt" BUT I often couldn't tell what was going on in them because he scratches so much movement-fueled black that all line boundaries are compromised thus frustrating my eyes.
His art is excellent and his panels are often set diagonally to add the tilt in "full-tilt" BUT I often couldn't tell what was going on in them because he scratches so much movement-fueled black that all line boundaries are compromised thus frustrating my eyes.
August 13, 2019
Painfully ugly art and incoherent braindead plot.
Please don't let this turn you off of manga if this is your first exposure to the medium. There is some amazing stuff out there... just not this.
Please don't let this turn you off of manga if this is your first exposure to the medium. There is some amazing stuff out there... just not this.
August 19, 2019
Not sure what I expected, but this was quite crap. Even Kill Bill was better than this.
February 16, 2020
Stunning art but quite difficult plot to follow.
Too many intricated sub-plots spinning at the same high pace. But I'll definitely follow Yoshimizu's work.
Too many intricated sub-plots spinning at the same high pace. But I'll definitely follow Yoshimizu's work.
February 21, 2025
This book was so confusing. None of the plot line made sense. I mean for the first maybe quarter of the book it made sense but after that, there was tons of different time,skips with no clear tracking throughout the entire story. We’d go from the Afghan war to present date to somewhere in Japan just doesn’t make sense. I am giving it to stars because the art was absolutely phenomenal and the fight scenes were depicted quite well, but aside from that it was a muddled mess.
September 20, 2021
When I first saw Ryuko's cover in Diamond's Previews catalogue back in 2019 I was very intrigued by its cover and summary, plus I'm a real fan of spy stories so I decided to give the series a try.
However, it didn't reach my expectations. Ryuko's Volume 1 is a mess. Although we can get the grasp of the main plot-line, the story keeps going back and forth between present and past, and the action scenes are very close one another before you can become familiar with any of the characters.
The art doesn't help the story either. I have to admit that a few of the panels are beautifully sketched and the faces can at times become very emotional. However most of the time, there are no clear-drawn details, and it gives the impression that there has been ink spilled all over the panels.
However, it didn't reach my expectations. Ryuko's Volume 1 is a mess. Although we can get the grasp of the main plot-line, the story keeps going back and forth between present and past, and the action scenes are very close one another before you can become familiar with any of the characters.
The art doesn't help the story either. I have to admit that a few of the panels are beautifully sketched and the faces can at times become very emotional. However most of the time, there are no clear-drawn details, and it gives the impression that there has been ink spilled all over the panels.
September 7, 2021
This story is a joyride on a fast motorcycle! Hold on!
Read
September 20, 2025Here only for the beautiful drawings of the female characters. A resounding "huh?" at the rest.
April 4, 2021
A little confusing at times, but in a style I can't help but love.
November 4, 2019
Solid 3-3.5 stars. Wild artwork that is just rad to look at. Story is operatic and convoluted in that epic mafia soap opera way that’s very fun and insanely implausible and frequently makes little sense while making all the sense it needs and desires to. Sometimes the leaps and twists were a bit too fast too furious though, where a few more beats and a tad more character would have made this engine absolutely purr and roar.
March 4, 2020
Interesting graphic novel, kind of a Japanese take on Modesty Blaise. Problem with this graphic novel is the fact it is artsy. Don't get me wrong I like artsy stuff but sometimes this can come up as a problem because not everyone sees the world in the same way especially when it comes to artistic presentations of inner turmoils.
As a consequence although art is truly one of the better ones I saw in manga sometimes it is so shrouded in darkness and ink blots that it truly takes a lot of concentration to figure out what is going on. As a consequence reader will lose the thread and might be in ??? mode because story is standard Yakuza/Criminal/Revenge opera with great accent on action and movement and not that much on dialogs. So visual presentation counts.
Story wise we follow Ryuko, daughter of deposed Yakuza boss as she fends off the criminal gangs in imaginary Middle Eastern country when suddenly she is told her mother is alive and kept prisoner. Story gets a little bit convoluted because we constantly move between present time and past (1980's and Russia's war in Afghanistan) so it requires the reader to concentrate in order not to miss anything.
In general very interesting graphic novel but slightly affected by artistic touch [in a negative way at least for me].
Recommended to all fans of manga and crime stories in vein of Crying Freeman.
As a consequence although art is truly one of the better ones I saw in manga sometimes it is so shrouded in darkness and ink blots that it truly takes a lot of concentration to figure out what is going on. As a consequence reader will lose the thread and might be in ??? mode because story is standard Yakuza/Criminal/Revenge opera with great accent on action and movement and not that much on dialogs. So visual presentation counts.
Story wise we follow Ryuko, daughter of deposed Yakuza boss as she fends off the criminal gangs in imaginary Middle Eastern country when suddenly she is told her mother is alive and kept prisoner. Story gets a little bit convoluted because we constantly move between present time and past (1980's and Russia's war in Afghanistan) so it requires the reader to concentrate in order not to miss anything.
In general very interesting graphic novel but slightly affected by artistic touch [in a negative way at least for me].
Recommended to all fans of manga and crime stories in vein of Crying Freeman.
April 6, 2021
Well, it isn't boring...
This gorgeous mess of a manga is the work of a renowned sculptor and is very much a visual experience. There may be a plot here, but I couldn't spot it, whether because of the translation or the original script I couldn't say.
So we're left with the art, brilliant but nerve-jangling, busy and messy by design. It is not for all comers, and the various gunsels in bikinis and barely there dresses could be divisive as well.
Jumbled timelines, clumsy exposition, and some themes of guilt are just things to hang the action sequences on, so if you don't vibe with the style, you're in for a tough time. All that said, I had a good time and will read the second volume, though I doubt it will bring clarity to the series.
This gorgeous mess of a manga is the work of a renowned sculptor and is very much a visual experience. There may be a plot here, but I couldn't spot it, whether because of the translation or the original script I couldn't say.
So we're left with the art, brilliant but nerve-jangling, busy and messy by design. It is not for all comers, and the various gunsels in bikinis and barely there dresses could be divisive as well.
Jumbled timelines, clumsy exposition, and some themes of guilt are just things to hang the action sequences on, so if you don't vibe with the style, you're in for a tough time. All that said, I had a good time and will read the second volume, though I doubt it will bring clarity to the series.
November 3, 2019
One of the first mangas I've read outside of Akira and Gantz. It was sold to be very "Paul Pope"-esque. Unfortunately, while there's some decent art--the composition and layouts are a mess. The story didn't intereste me at all other than "femme fatale"-revenge plot.
I was very excited for this story, but unfortunately by anticipation didn't match the reality.
I was very excited for this story, but unfortunately by anticipation didn't match the reality.
September 14, 2019
I did not particularly care for this. I had a difficult time following the art. The story was alright but not great and at times also was a bit convoluted. Will not be reading part 2.
December 23, 2019
The art's nice, but it's so kinetic it kind of obscures the story. Maybe it's not me, it's just that the plot is actually confusing? The skipping around in time doesn't help.
January 31, 2020
I have no idea what I just read, but the art is awesome.
December 17, 2020
Very stylish, frenetic, retro pulp.
April 26, 2020
Ryuko is the female head of the Yakuza in a small fictional Arabic nation on the coast of the Black Sea. It is a position she won by killing her own father while trying to protect her adopted child, Valer. She is fueled by guilt over this action, all the more so when she learns that her father had been secretly trying to ransom her mother from captivity for over a decade.
The story opens with Valer, now 18 years old, trying to rebelliously hijack a train car full of gold out from under her mother's own men. It is an incident which sparks a war between Yakuza and the local government, forcing Ryuko and Valer to return back to Japan.
This story is an action-fueled bloody epic with a large cast of characters that spans from the Middle East to Japan, Russia, and Afghanistan. It makes frequent use of extended flashbacks to reveal complicated layers of backstory for every main character. The black-and-white illustrations in traditional manga style are luscious and vivid.
The biggest flaw in the book, however, is that the complicated story lines really do not allow the reader to come to sympathize with or care about any single character. There are car chases, gun battles, betrayals, explosions, and beheadings galore, but it feels like an empty B-movie action flick.
When Hard Case Crime announced it was translating this book for an American audience, the publicity articles invariably compared it to Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. It is shame that Eldo did not learn from Tarantino how to ground his martial arts revenge tale by first establishing the audience's sympathy with one or two lead characters.
One interesting aspect of the translation is that you have to read the panels and dialogue bubbles from right to left in the Japanese style. The Kindle version of this book scrolls the pages right to left, which takes a bit of getting used to.
Ryuko was written and illustrated by Eldo Yoshimizu, who is a world-renowned Japanese sculptor (he is also a musician and an art photographer). On his website, he sums up the theme of the graphic novel this way: "There is good and evil on both sides of the same currency. The author thinks that each righteousness is the same as the number of humans…. This story is not a moral trial or a mere revenge play. It is the story of men and women who discover or lose sight of each righteousness."
The story opens with Valer, now 18 years old, trying to rebelliously hijack a train car full of gold out from under her mother's own men. It is an incident which sparks a war between Yakuza and the local government, forcing Ryuko and Valer to return back to Japan.
This story is an action-fueled bloody epic with a large cast of characters that spans from the Middle East to Japan, Russia, and Afghanistan. It makes frequent use of extended flashbacks to reveal complicated layers of backstory for every main character. The black-and-white illustrations in traditional manga style are luscious and vivid.
The biggest flaw in the book, however, is that the complicated story lines really do not allow the reader to come to sympathize with or care about any single character. There are car chases, gun battles, betrayals, explosions, and beheadings galore, but it feels like an empty B-movie action flick.
When Hard Case Crime announced it was translating this book for an American audience, the publicity articles invariably compared it to Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. It is shame that Eldo did not learn from Tarantino how to ground his martial arts revenge tale by first establishing the audience's sympathy with one or two lead characters.
One interesting aspect of the translation is that you have to read the panels and dialogue bubbles from right to left in the Japanese style. The Kindle version of this book scrolls the pages right to left, which takes a bit of getting used to.
Ryuko was written and illustrated by Eldo Yoshimizu, who is a world-renowned Japanese sculptor (he is also a musician and an art photographer). On his website, he sums up the theme of the graphic novel this way: "There is good and evil on both sides of the same currency. The author thinks that each righteousness is the same as the number of humans…. This story is not a moral trial or a mere revenge play. It is the story of men and women who discover or lose sight of each righteousness."
January 7, 2023
Ryuko es la líder de una rama de la Yakuza en Oriente Medio. En mitad de un golpe de estado y con todo el caos generado, ella descubre que su madre, a la que creía muerta, está viva y presa por los enemigos de su padre. Ella, junto con su discípula, decide trasladarse a Yokohama para liberarla. Pero no será fácil y tendrá que pelear contra la mafia china y otras organizaciones criminales que se va a encontrar por su camino.
En este primer volumen tenemos pocos personajes. Ryuko es la protagonista, una chica de armas tomar que se ha hecho líder de una banda criminal. Otro personajes es Barrel, una joven que acaba de cumplir 18 años. Esta, desconociendo su origen, quiere independencia y se vuelve bastante rebelde. Esta compartirá un cierto protagonismo con Ryuko. Todos los personajes tienen un trasfondo bastante atormentado, estando muy bien perfilados. Lo más interesante es que son personajes con luces y sombras, con una moral que siguen pero donde el bien y el mal conviven dentro de toas las personas.
La trama es bastante negra y gira principalmente en torno a la venganza. Una trama donde los tiros y la violencia acampan a sus anchas. Tendremos varias líneas temporales, el pasado con varios flashbacks donde conoceremos a la familia de Ryuko y el golpe de estado en el reino cercano al Mar Negro. El ritmo es un no parar, un completo frenesí donde constantemente ocurren momentos de acción.
El arte del autor es bastante significativo, pues parece más una película. Se trata de un dibujo muy personal, a veces muy detallado y otras con simples rayones, y bastante oscuro, muy acorde con la trama. El arte es uno de los puntos más fuertes de este manga, con unos ángulos y unas perspectivas asombrosas y maravillosas por completo.
https://lagranbibliotecadedavid.blogs...
En este primer volumen tenemos pocos personajes. Ryuko es la protagonista, una chica de armas tomar que se ha hecho líder de una banda criminal. Otro personajes es Barrel, una joven que acaba de cumplir 18 años. Esta, desconociendo su origen, quiere independencia y se vuelve bastante rebelde. Esta compartirá un cierto protagonismo con Ryuko. Todos los personajes tienen un trasfondo bastante atormentado, estando muy bien perfilados. Lo más interesante es que son personajes con luces y sombras, con una moral que siguen pero donde el bien y el mal conviven dentro de toas las personas.
La trama es bastante negra y gira principalmente en torno a la venganza. Una trama donde los tiros y la violencia acampan a sus anchas. Tendremos varias líneas temporales, el pasado con varios flashbacks donde conoceremos a la familia de Ryuko y el golpe de estado en el reino cercano al Mar Negro. El ritmo es un no parar, un completo frenesí donde constantemente ocurren momentos de acción.
El arte del autor es bastante significativo, pues parece más una película. Se trata de un dibujo muy personal, a veces muy detallado y otras con simples rayones, y bastante oscuro, muy acorde con la trama. El arte es uno de los puntos más fuertes de este manga, con unos ángulos y unas perspectivas asombrosas y maravillosas por completo.
https://lagranbibliotecadedavid.blogs...
September 5, 2023
The main appeal of this volume is the artwork. Yoshimizu is an extremely talented artist. However, that does not always translate to being a good comic book artist.
Action scenes are often confusing due to how dark they are. This is exacerbated by the action on a page being drawn as a single composition as opposed to making sense as a sequence of panels. These compositions are interesting and resemble movie posters for the way they fuse a bunch of disparate elements into something eye-catching. However, they don't really convey what is going on too well. Funnily enough, when nothing is happening, the pages flow a lot better and are often at their best. Mechanical objects look especially good and are highly detailed. Some of the artwork even rivals Nihei Tsutomu's best work (BLAME!, early Biomega).
The plot is serviceable. While being fairly generic, the globe trotting and non linear narrative keep it interesting. The sequence in Afghanistan is a highlight. Overall, it's a little bit of a mixed bag but if you like the theme and can appreciate the artwork, as incoherent as it sometimes is, then you'll enjoy it.
Action scenes are often confusing due to how dark they are. This is exacerbated by the action on a page being drawn as a single composition as opposed to making sense as a sequence of panels. These compositions are interesting and resemble movie posters for the way they fuse a bunch of disparate elements into something eye-catching. However, they don't really convey what is going on too well. Funnily enough, when nothing is happening, the pages flow a lot better and are often at their best. Mechanical objects look especially good and are highly detailed. Some of the artwork even rivals Nihei Tsutomu's best work (BLAME!, early Biomega).
The plot is serviceable. While being fairly generic, the globe trotting and non linear narrative keep it interesting. The sequence in Afghanistan is a highlight. Overall, it's a little bit of a mixed bag but if you like the theme and can appreciate the artwork, as incoherent as it sometimes is, then you'll enjoy it.
January 6, 2023
(Zero spoiler review)
I really thought I would have enjoyed this more. At least I wanted to. I mean gorgeous women in bikinis running around the Japanese underworld, killing Yakuza, enacting vengeance for past wrongs. What's not to like. Ok, it sounds cheesy, but the amazing, which is absolutely the highlight of this book, grounds it in reality with its dark and violent tones. What really let this book down, just like with the majority of manga was the story, or lack there of.
Without a stronger narrative to ground it, it comes across as just too abstract and messy. Whatever narrative there is frequently skips large spans of time from panel to panel, making it far more difficult to follow than it should have been. When we actually get a few pages of reliable, coherent dialogue, things naturally pick up, and had me hoping and praying it would continue from there on. But it was soon back to the sloppy, disjointed story. Leaving me to appreciate the art, and the potential it had, but mourning it's flawed execution. Here's hoping the second one is better. 3/5
OmniBen.
I really thought I would have enjoyed this more. At least I wanted to. I mean gorgeous women in bikinis running around the Japanese underworld, killing Yakuza, enacting vengeance for past wrongs. What's not to like. Ok, it sounds cheesy, but the amazing, which is absolutely the highlight of this book, grounds it in reality with its dark and violent tones. What really let this book down, just like with the majority of manga was the story, or lack there of.
Without a stronger narrative to ground it, it comes across as just too abstract and messy. Whatever narrative there is frequently skips large spans of time from panel to panel, making it far more difficult to follow than it should have been. When we actually get a few pages of reliable, coherent dialogue, things naturally pick up, and had me hoping and praying it would continue from there on. But it was soon back to the sloppy, disjointed story. Leaving me to appreciate the art, and the potential it had, but mourning it's flawed execution. Here's hoping the second one is better. 3/5
OmniBen.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews