Apple Black, Volume 1 - Rockport Edition: Neo Freedom (1) (Saturday AM TANKS / Apple Black)

A good story for those into their anime and manga - decent artwork and a story that zips along at a good pace.

This manga reads quite well but the plot can be hard to follow at times. This is because there is quite a lot of information for the reader to grasp very quickly and the book is written in manga comics style. I am quite new to this style of reading and found it hard to follow at times as well as maintain attention and interest to continue reading.As I got more into the story, it became more catching and satisfying to read. Therefore, I do think it is a nice book and a quite nice story. I think people who are more into this style of writing would find it lovely to read.

I have never attempted reading manga style novels before and this was an engaging introduction for me, although at times I felt the dialogue rather awkward. An imaginative take on the boy wizard trope, the story fair rattled along, before ending on a cliffhanger.Well illustrated, the drawing style was crisp and sharp. The world building was intriguing with somewhat of a darker feel than other child magician stories.I think I still prefer less drawings and more words in my books, but if you like graphic novels, this is a very good one.

This is Volume 1 of a series of at least 2 books and contains a cliff-hanger ending that wants you want to continue reading.The story follows the cover character Sano Bengote Tamashii. The infinite night, “the greatest terror the world will ever experience”, is nigh, and the prophecy says that only one boy, known as the Trinity, can stop it. Sano is built up to be that boy. This book follows him as he joins Black Bottom Island’s Guild for Young Sorcerers and meets the characters there. He of course has issues with some of them, and there are fights, and there is good versus evil, and there are people out to get Sano with a bounty put upon him, and so on.There is quite a lot of text in this book for a comic book. And it is quite concept heavy, with concept built upon concept. But it does build up the tension well I think.Also, a note for the publisher should you be reading my humble review… when reading this on the train someone commented to me whether there was an anime made of this. I don’t think there is, I think this is in comic format only. But there is a demand for anime films to be made into comic books it seems, and maybe vice versa.⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is not quite in the same ballpark as Akira, Ghost In The Shell or even Attack On Titan but it is an entertaining and easy to dip into read.It will come as something of a culture shock to those who are not used to their visual medium being in black and white and although I would have preferred it to be read the right way from back to front this is still a really nice book.I've seen it described as Harry Potter with more drama and that is not an entirely unfair comparison except that in this world magic is dying and it needs a saviour from a world where magic is normal but becoming more limited as the progenitor black thins out of the blood following its disappearance, think the last Harry Potters with war as the beginning point for this story.Entertaining, amusing and a decent starting price under £8 makes this a good starting point to introduce somebody into the world of Manga before it gets too weird.

I’ve never heard of Apple Black before, apparently a web comic before making the leap to print, but the premise interested me so I decided to give it a go.The story is something quite interesting, it’s a world of magic where the source of magic (the apple black) has gone and the descendants of those who took it and became sorceries are gradually finding their power diluted with passing generations. There is now a power struggle in the world trying to bring back and control this source.The story is like a dark post war torn magical world meets Harry Potter. It’s like nothing I’ve seen and I’m interested to see how it plays out. Here again we have a magical saviour but it’s a very different world and a very different situation.There’s a lot packed in here, with plenty of dialogue. It has a few errors and the dialogue is a little clunky but it didn’t detract too much from an enjoyable start to the tale.My son is a huge fan of manga so I’ve been lucky enough to read plenty over the years. The manga influence on the set style here is very clear. It’s nice art though, dramatic with nice line work and great expression.Overall a promising start. Great ideas, great art, decent writing with some quirks. Well worth a read.

This manga-style graphic novel comes as a fairly chunky novel as is traditional with manga, rather than the larger thinner format DC and Marvel might use.The story concerns a world of magic and features a diverse range of characters, all drawn in that familiar manga style. The themes are familiar but the plot flows pretty well and kept my interest throughout, doing a good job as the first in a series with good potential for directions to take the story in in future instalments.The art is great, with the majority of the pages in stark black and white but there's a colour page every so often and it never looks too samey.I rate the visuals more than the dialogue and was impressed with the manga stylings, but having said that I'm probably not the target audience - my nephew is a big manga fan and he loved everything about it so I am happy to recommend Apple Black Volume 1 and look forward to Volume 2!

I don’t read many graphic novels/manga so this was very different for me. I love the lay out of these stories. Easy to read. Brilliant illustrations. Took me a while to get into this story but then I was hooked and finished this within a day. It ends on quite a cliffhanger so would love to get my hands on volume 2. Really enjoyed it in the end. Plenty to keep the reader hooked. Proving his worth. Fights. A powerful student with a powerful arm many want for themselves. A well deserved four stars from me.