Review: BROKEN BLADE

BROKEN BLADE (Bureiku Bureido), by Yunosuke Yoshinaga.  First published in 2007 and first published in North America in 2009.

PLOT:

Rygart Arrow is a one-in-a-million sort of guy.  He lives in a world where people can manipulate quartz to obtain magic energy and fight an endless war, but Rygart is completely unable to do so.  His father even went so far as to send Rygart to military school to try and develop some sort of ability, but all Rygart got out of it was a lot of debt and some friends in high places.

Years later, Rygart is summoned by one of those old school friends, who now happens to be king.  It seems that the military discovered an ancient mech suit in a quartz mine, but no one has been able to start it.  When Rygart climbs in, the suit comes to life, but now Rygart finds himself in a battle against a massive army as well as another old friend.

STORY:

I was honestly surprised to learn that Broken Blade was an original story and NOT an adaptation of a light novel.  I say this not because it's bad, but because its approach to world-building feels closer to that than anything else.

I get it, to a degree.  Sci-fi stories always require a lot of set-up.  You have to explain the technology and the world around them to some degree or else the audience will be lost.  Good writers can weave this information into their narratives deftly and organically.  This is not an example of one of those works.

Instead, it's closer to the light novel-model of exposition, where people talk to one another in long, tedious spiels explaining things that they should already know for the sake of their unseen audience.  It's clunky and forced and it's a method that does Broken Blade no favors.    I swear, two-thirds of this volume is nothing but characters explaining their own technology to one another.   It also doesn't help that the premise isn't far removed from the "boring guy at magic school who has no obvious power but actually has a super power (and also a harem of girls)" premise that was all the rage in the light novel world only a few years down the line from its original release.

There is one part of the story that is written well, and that's the friendship between Rygart, the royal couple, and their mutual friend (and general for the opposing side) Zess.  We don't get a lot of glimpses of their time together at school, but the tone of the conversation between Rygart and the royals manages is enough to communicate to the audience how close they are without clobbering the readers with the obvious.  There's even a bit of lingering romantic tension between Rygart and the queen for a touch of additional drama.   If only it weren't so obvious to see what will happen to these guys, or to guess Zess's sudden yet inevitable heelturn.  It's a solid beginning to a sci-fi story, but it's also regrettably a predictable and sometimes clunky one as well.

ART:

Broken Blade's art is pretty much on par with its storytelling.  The characters are a bit on the bland side, but they're expressive enough and Yoshinaga does put some care into their costumes and shading.  The backgrounds are mostly barren buttes and rocks, but it lends the story the sort of desolate atmosphere it needs.  The mechanical designs aren't half-bad, with the Blades resembling what would happen if a Gundam had a drunken one-night-stand with a suit of armor.  Sadly, action is not his strong suit.  The mech battles all seem to be drowning in speed lines in a vain attempt to convey motion.

RATING:

Broken Blade manages to prop up its lackluster story with some decent art and character writing, but it can't quite save itself from getting lost in its own technobabble.

This series was published by CMX.  This series is ongoing in Japan, with 16 volumes available.  3 volumes were published and are currently out of print.