» Review - Ikebana

Introduction
Ikebana is a manga comic done mostly by Momo Toe with some help from Enkida. The story is a supernatural one, revolving primarily around Prince Tar, a demon who escaped from hell and is now hiding in a teenage girl's home, living as if he is her brother. He is accompanied on this journey by Subuki, a woman who, in all likelihood, encouarged Prince Tar to escape for her own, unrevealed reasons. Once on earth, the two take up human guises. Prince Tar becomes Tar Lee, older brother to Mia Lee, who accidentally witnessed the demons' arrival. Subuki, meanwhile, becomes the teacher at Mia's highschool. One quick mind spell later, and everyone is used to both Tar and Subuki. Everyone, that is, except Mia, who must struggle with accepting these two demons into her once-normal life.

The Positive Aspects
I won't kid around with you. Momo Toe has what it takes. The comic looks very professional, and could almost be bound and sold at any respectable manga dealer. The pacing of the story, the careful blending of High-school and super-natural elements, and the plot lines that are developing speak to a true sense for what it takes. The comic just reeks of quasi-professionalism. The template is fantastic looking, making the comic feel very professional in both form and presentation. The custom pages are well labeled, easy to use, and largely up-to-date, making the characters page (for example) a good resource to the comic. The archive is exactly what all chapter-based comics should seek to have, with the chapter-breaks being given a premium spot (and the individual pages still being perfectly accessible.). All in all, it's a beautifully done bit of work.

The Criticisms
In many comics, there is a dark cloud of problems surrounded by a silver-lining of goodness. Ikebana has the exact opposite problem. For every bit of fantasticness, there's a pretty jarring tiny problem to go with it. While the art is fantastic, the sound effects that appear are sometimes nonsensical in nature ("Ta-Da", "Dom", "Dm", and "Doom", as examples), and often they are hidden by the characters or clipped by the edge of the panel, making them appear to be little more than letters in the background. In the future, some time should be given to making sure that all the effects are readable and logical. While the plot is well paced and interesting, the combat scenes are often difficult to understand, and come off as being rushed (This can be most easily fixed by slowing down the pace slightly and making sure that whatever happens is making sense visually). And while the comic reeks of professionalism, there are way, way, way, way too many ads. There are little blurbs on each and every page about something entirely non-story related (like checking out the forum, or that the comic has reached some landmark page-count). There's even one blurb that promises a double-sized shot that's coming up. The worst ad I noticed was a full page spread that appears in the middle of a combat sequence. In the first page, our hero is jumping, and the next page is an ad. The page after that shows the target he's attacking recoiling from the punch. It's just entirely unnecessary. While I'm sure this was just filler art at its best, I do think there should be a time when these pieces of errant art are removed and archived away from the comic. As for the blurbs, they would be best suited being placed outside the comic entirely, either in the borders of the comic-image where they could then be cut out later, or in the news section of the site. One more minor comment is that the very large banner at the top of the site often forces readers to scroll down just to read the first panel. This is a minor annoyance, but one that should be commented on.

The Conclusion
If there was a way to remove all the blurbs without impacting the comic quality, it is my humble opinion that this comic could sit with pride on the shelves next to other Manga comics at your local bookstore. It's that close to being ready for unrestricted mass-consumption.

(You can read Ikebana at http://ikebana.smackjeeves.com )

- Joe