Publisher: Yen Press
Release Date: January 20, 2015
Price: $20.00
Creator: Etorouji Shiono
Format: 448 pgs., Black & White, Trade Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-3163-8048-5
Age Rating: 17+
ICv2 Rating: 2 Stars out of 5
I love a good epic fantasy that is filled with swords, magic and battles of good vs. evil which is why I was so excited to check out Ubel Blatt by Etorouji Shiono. Billed as 'an epic fantasy on the grandest of scales,' this book certainly does its best to live up to that but sadly doesn't really come close.
In the first volume of this series, the story is essentially about a young anti-hero named Koinzell who seeks revenge against one of the seven heroes, Glenn, for one reason or another. You'll notice that I was a bit vague with my plot description there and that would be because that's about how vague the story presentation is within this book.
From page one, Ubel Blatt attempts to be an incredibly fantasy tale but fails due to simple errors in storytelling. Within the first 100 pages, a small army of characters are introduced but to say that I felt like I knew any of them would be a lie. Within 200 pages I knew a few more characters and had witnessed plenty of bloody violence, death and destruction but I still didn't feel like I knew who the characters were or what their motivations were. It was just kind of a mess of action and dialogue.
Add to this that the story was constantly shifting from the present time to the past without so much as a mention that the change was being made and by the time I was 300 pages into the book I was very confused and feeling like I needed a chart to keep track of everything that was happening.
Ubel Blatt is a fantasy series that might work as an anime but as a printed visual story it fails on most levels. This is a story for readers who are used to big, grand, epic fantasy adventures and keeping track of a dozen or more characters at any given moment. If you're not comfortable with that kind of mental commitment, you're likely better off skipping this one.
--L.B. Bryant