Maken X Another Manga

Maken X Another is a manga written by Kyu Hayashida, first serialized during 2001 by Magazine Z which is published by Kodansha. It consists of twenty-one separate chapters as well as a few pages hyping up the pending release of Maken Shou on the PS2. The manga was translated and complied into three separate books in 2004 by a German company called Planet Manga. Each collection sold for 7,95 €. Here's an English version of what the manga is about from Kodansha:

"Due to an accident at her father's scientific research institute, Kay, an ordinary teenager, is forced to become the owner of "Machina," a strange shaped sword with the power to capture human souls. This is a surrealistic, psychedelic manga work in which Kay fights against freakish fiends in a world of "Images," a horrible place formed by the each character's imagination. In this world of "Images," values are confused: enemies become friends, good becomes evil, and vice-versa. Kay must continue her battle in a place called "5 Minutes into the Future.

Kyu Hayashida, a sensational visual artist created this manga, based on a highly popular action adventure game, "Maken X Another" ((c)1999 ATLUS) made by the great game creating duo, Cozy Okada and Kazuma Kaneko."

The manga itself follows the events contained within Maken X. Some characters are further developed (some surprisingly less so) and it goes into extra details, particularly when dealing with what is inside the mind's of the people who are "brain jacked". Unfortunately, a good portion of the time the manga manages to be rather confusing. It jumps around a lot, some characters are barely referred to, the main enemy is extremely underdeveloped and you have no idea what his goals are and so forth. It doesn't help that the manga skips over what would be considered the final battle, only to jump into a happy ending.

The art is a more anime-ish take on the orginal designs from the video game. The manga is far stronger in this department than it is with the story telling aspects, in my opinion. Characters are recognizable from the game, the worlds inside of the minds of others are well developed and the violent aspects are absolutely brutal at times. There are segments where it feels like a bit too much is going on, but that's largely dependant on the reader. My favorite portions of this manga were the large spreads.

There's worse manga out there, that's for sure. However, it is difficult to recommend hunting this out considering how difficult it would be to obtain for most English readers out there. If you are capable of reading German, however, it might be worth borrowing and flipping through in an hour or so. Maken X Another, according to some information I've gathered, has also been translated into Italian and Korean. It's worth mentioning in here that there is a English fan translation of this title available on the internet through Omanga.

Artwork

European Covers