Immortal Rain/Meteor Methuselah Mini Review (manga)
September 27th, 2007 by Nothayama
PG-13/16 for violence, darkness, maybe sexuality…I forget; official series website
Take Trigun, then turn Wolfwood into a semi-pubescent girl. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but Immortal Rain takes situations, character archetypes, and even particular poses and panels directly from its popular predecessor. Everything about this manga is well-constructed and pretty, but every plot point, every sudden revelation, and even the art style is very reminiscent of other manga/anime and a number of RPGs. People new to manga or the sci-fi western genre will probably like it a lot, but seasoned fans have seen this before many, many times.
Educated impression: Worth a try for genre newbies, otherwise don’t bother. (NotHayama)
Hi! I agree with your review, in that Immortal Rain is similar to Trigun in many ways. I read a lot of your other reviews and totally loved them! ^^ I really enjoy your thoughts on a lot of these series, whether I agree completely with them, or disagree, getting a new viewpoint on things.
If you read farther into Immortal Rain, though, past volumes one and two, up to three and four, and beyond, it really begins to stand out, making itself separate from the same-old same-old similarities it shares with Trigun and other series.
The characters are amazingly vivid and well-portrayed, even the creepy Yuca, who I can’t help but love. (Is it wrong to love a deeply disturbed little kid? Hehe, probably.)
You may have already read all of the series so far, in which case this is little more than pointless rambling, but if you haven’t, I highly recommend it. (Eight volumes have been released so far. Release speed is slow both here, and in Japan.) Of course, I may not have been exposed to enough manga to understand when something is just a carbon copy of others, but in many places, Immortal Rain seems refreshingly original and interesting, despite some similarities to Trigun. It makes itself stand out by relating over-used situations to well-developed characters and making them that much better.
Actually… if I’d started at the beginning, I probably wouldn’t love Immortal Rain as much as I do now. I actually picked up the fourth volume because of its cover illustration while sitting on the floor and bored to tears, when dragged along, unwillingly, with my Magic the Gathering obsessed family to a card shop.
Umm… I’m sorry for rambling. I’d be honored if you had a chance to reply. I’m overly obsessed with this underrated manga, and can’t find anyone to talk to about it. I’d love to hear someone else’s thoughts.
Man, I love Immortal Rain. I thought it looked nice and so I picked up the first four volumes. Now I’m dying to read the rest of it. Give me more Immortal Rain!
Thank you both for your comments. I totally understand why you would like Immortal Rain — it’s one of those series that I think I would have liked a lot had I read it earlier. I was a big, big Trigun fan about six years ago, and if I didn’t know that series so well it probably wouldn’t have bothered me that Immortal Rain takes so much from Trigun. But as it was, I couldn’t get into Immortal Rain at all — the obvious borrowing of major plot points and even individual panels was really distracting to me. The five-or-so volumes of Immortal Rain I read just felt like a prettier, sanitized rip-off of a series I loved. I haven’t read the latest volumes, and maybe the story takes a dramatic turn in volumes six-through-eight. If I have a chance I might take another look at it, but I probably won’t have the time for a while.