Red Sprite

Author: Yagi Tomohiro

Alternative title: レッドスプライト

Type: Manga

Chapters: 14

Tags: action, shounen, historical, steampunk, sci-fi

Welcome to Edenia, militant country, which is lead by general Atlas who is not afraid of using slaves or life-human energy source to fulfil his dreams. But in his way stays Tatsu Frampt, leader of Magonia, flying nation of human thundercores, which rebels againts Edenia's slavery and aggression.

I must say idea of this story is freaking genius and I loved it much because it was something new or at least I haven't read much shounen manga with this kind of setting. Steampunkish WWII where people has different lightning powers. That just sounds cool! And even it was short it somehow managed to give the world setting some kind of life because it worked for me very well. There were only two different countries (three if we count the freshly new made Magonia) but their relantionship was pretty real. This would have an amazing potential but sadly it got canceled (why is Jump doing this to me???) so yeah there is not enough details, because there wasn't proper time for that but I'm sure I would love it. I welcome political things if they are balanced and in this it seemed like that's the case. The only thing I didn't like about this was the fact it sometimes felt pretty rushed, still it worked nicely but I would appreciate spending more time here and there (but I guess it was partly because Jump doucheness).

Artwork was great! All the fighting scenes were badass and those powers, damn, I just lowed to look at it! This would have been such an epic shounen fighting manga!!!

Characters. Well there wasn't much place for a development or trying to look at more than one or three characters bit deeply, which is sad, but I liked all the characters. Frampt was unusual shounen hero, he wasn't clumsy instead he was very clever and inteligent and I just fell in love with his fightning, with his planning and even negotiating. And of course Frampt started off pretty overpowered and that was another fun I enjoyed because there is so much ''from zero to hero'' types that find something original in them is very hard. Actualy I didn't mind lack of character development much maybe because Frampt was holding the story all by himself. But despite not gaining any much depth all characters were interesting, villains, Frampt's friends, Queen and I would love to read more about them.

Overall. Extremely potential manga which got me hooked just from the start but got killed by JUMP! Hate those guys!!

Rating: 9/10