Sanctuary Book 1 - 9

Grade:

I am reworking this review because Sanctuary is not a story to be read in parts. If you just bought book 5, you would be completely lost as to who the characters are and what is going on. The story is so rich, the art so detailed, the ideas so great, only by having all 9 volumes in hand makes the experience complete.

The book is a teamup of two of the most talanted people working in Japan, Sho Fumimura (Fist of North Star) and Ryoichi Ikegami (Crying Freeman, Strain). The plot is large and complex, friendship, politicians, the mob, love, and violence all come up throughout the story. Although the story is long, around 3000 pages, nothing ever feels drawn out. After all, getting to the top takes time and Sanctuary shows you all the steps.

To the credit of Viz, it took a lot of guts to bring over a story about Japanese politics, although they are not the focus of the story. Finally, some material other than Mecha, samurai/ninja, and action are being brought over. Sanctuary shows that Manga offers so much more that those limited subjects. Back to the story though, to buy all 9 volumes is not cheap, the grand total is $156.55 plus tax. Is it worth is? My answer is yes, with a warning. Unless you have a ton of money laying around or find a great deal on e-bay, you will probably wont buy all the volumes at once. Collecting all 9 volumes takes a while, and if you are like me you probably don't buy more than 1 or 2 TPB's in a month, if that. So know that either you will miss out on a ton of other great TPB's for 9 months, or it will take you about 5 years to buy all the parts. I went the second route, and believe me its tough deciding between that Sin City TPB or another chapter in Sanctuary. Be warned before starting the series of the commitment involved, you will get sucked into the story.