This is another complicated bit of backstory: in 1979, Kaoru Kurimoto started a series of epic fantasy novels about a warrior-type named Guin who woke up amnesiac with a leopard mask permanently affixed to his face. There are at least a hundred and eighteen novels in the main series, plus some unspecified number of “side stories.” (I don’t know what makes them “side stories,” either.) One of those “side stories” was adapted into a manga series, and collected into three volumes. Now Vertical is in the middle of publishing the manga based on the side story based on the main story of the leopard-headed warrior named Guin. (Who lies in the house of Bedlam, Elizabeth Bishop would add.)

The first two volumes are out in English already; the third is scheduled to follow in March. And I read those first two volumes today (Thursday), to let you, the manga-starved hordes of ComicMix, know what they’re like.

And they’re OK.

Hm. You probably want more than that, right? All right. Guin is your standard post-Conan mightily-thewed barbarian type, with impossibly bulging muscles and a big sword he whips out and swings around phallicly at the appropriate moments. In the manga, his leopard “mask” looks just like a head – the jaw moves, the eyes move, and the whole thing is disconcertingly too small for his overmuscled body. Also in Conan fashion, he’s hacked his way to being king of a civilized nation, marrying the beautiful princess along the way. (Unlike Conan, though, the princess is not exceptionally enamored of her husband.) (more…)