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The Legend of Whomper: Dreamcrafter

The Legend of Whomper, Book 3: Dreamcrafter by Chris Farrington

The third installment of author Chris Farrington’s The Legend of Whomper series opens with the titular protagonist, a chubby blue fox, seeking a healer for his instructor, the Edgemaster (or just “Edgemaster” as he’s awkwardly called throughout the graphic novel). After finding a temple of healers in comas, Whomper dreams of interacting with the rabbit Remmy, one of the eponymous Dreamcrafters, with he and Skyla flying to the jungle to another shrine where they sleep and enter the Dreamscape. Whomper reunites with Remmy while dreaming and is shown a system of visible dreams and nightmares where he can battle imaginary monsters.

Grescam, the Dreamdragon, attacks the dream city of Lagos-4 with Whomper and Skyla training so they can better deal with him. This includes tasks such as the fox fighting a doppelgänger in his dreams. Grescam reappears, after which Whomper travels to the god Lord Hypnos’ chamber, where the backstory on the Dreamdragon is revealed. Meanwhile, Remmy and Skyla battle the Lord of Nightmares, and Whomper retaliates against the Dreamdragon with help from a mystical hammer called the Dreamsmasher. After the conflicts, Whomper and Skyla travel to Hammer Forge, where the latter goes to a bar to discuss her lover’s youth.

The third entry concludes with an entertaining look at Whomper and Skyla in prehistoric life, followed by a nice anecdote featuring minor characters. In summary, I enjoyed this graphic novel, an excellent continuation of its predecessors, given the second entry’s foreshadowing of its events. As before, Farrington’s character designs are cute, colorful, and unique, even if the story isn’t wholly family-friendly. Moreover, issues from its precursors return, like awkward dialogue and punctuation errors. Furthermore, all text is capitalized, making it vague whether important terms are capitalized at their beginnings. The story also didn’t fit my entire iPad, but I would recommend installment number three to those who enjoyed previous books.

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The Legend of Whomper: A Thousand Men

Posted on April 7 by Remy St. Gallen

The Legend of Whomper, Book 2: A Thousand Men by Chris Farrington
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The second entry of Chris Farrington’s Whomper graphical novel series, mostly a collection of previous comics sharing an overarching story, opens with the eponymous pudgy fox protagonist training with his new master, the Edgemaster. Meanwhile, his partner and dragoness love interest Kayla is at magic school, given the advice to purge her “logical side.” Furthermore, the armies of the hostile nation of Menevo are on the march, with Whomper yearning to confront them and their enigmatic leader, Emperor Nocturn. However, the Edgemaster warns him not to rush into combat, with the Emperor’s three generals having conquered many nations.

After reuniting, Whomper and Skyla fly to Valgus, battling a pig captain and his unit of earth elementals. Following this conflict, they receive information about Emperor Nocturn’s generals, which include the black female science-loving unicorn Limerick, the male “undefeated” tiger Haiku, and the vague and possibly two-headed Couplet. After battling a few more unit captains, they fly to Fox City, with Whomper reuniting with his father, with the vulpine warrior running away from his family when he was seven. The novel further reveals Whomper’s backstory, encompassing his training with Gryzak and Lyktor.

The imperial army invades Fox City, with Whomper and Skyla flying to Emperor Nocturn’s airborne fortress, where they battle his generals (whose backstories come to light) and confront the imperial leader himself, with the graphic novel exposing secrets that include his appearance and species. After the conflict, more of Whomper’s backstory is revealed, including what became of his mother and what motivated him to become a warrior. The graphic novel concludes with Whomper confronting a priest worshipping Xilinx in a Raccoon City graveyard, followed by an anecdote with Dextrose and his wild cat, Taffy.

Overall, I enjoyed the second installment of Farrington’s graphic novel series, having enjoyed its predecessor. While the animal character designs are beyond cute, there is some mature content, like occasional cannibalism and blood, exemplifying the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” The action is easy to follow, the continuity between it and the first book is clear, humor abounds, the character backstories are intricate, and the battle scenes are astounding. However, issues exist like the often-unreadable font and maybe some name inconsistencies. Regardless, those who liked its precursor will enjoy the sequel, and I will continue reading the series.

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Beastars, Volume 22

Posted on August 26 by Remy St. Gallen

BEASTARS, Vol. 22 by Paru Itagaki
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As with its predecessors, the final installment of Paru Itagaki’s Beastars manga opens with a synopsis of preceding entries and a visual depiction of the dramatis personae. The main action begins with the media questioning a gazelle who claims to be the father of the half-gazelle, half-leopard villain Melon, and proves to be the key to stopping the riots that have ensued around the black market. The gray wolf Legoshi continues to battle Melon, who invites his lupine adversary to kill him. Gosha, the Komodo dragon, recalls his interspecies relationship with his wolf wife, Toki, which included obsessive disinfection given his poison.

The citizens get a good view of the black market, with Louis, the red deer, wanting the carnivores and herbivores to glimpse the truth. However, their reaction is surprising as Legoshi and Melon continue their battle, with the underground district changing in recent years. Louis wants to involve himself in his friend’s battle, with Melon doubting that carnivores and herbivores will never be at peace. After the black market turf war, Legoshi prepares to bid farewell to his spotted seal apartment neighbor, Sagwan, who yearns to return to the seas. Meanwhile, Louis must choose between his deer fiance, Azuki, and his school girlfriend, Juno, the wolf.

Legoshi’s relationship with his girlfriend, the Netherland dwarf rabbit Haru, receives resolution, as do many of the other notable characters of the Beastars universe. After the main chapters, Itagaki reflects upon creating her magnum opus, including a deleted scene where Legoshi interacts with Gosha, the giant panda psychiatrist who worked in the black market. Overall, the twenty-second volume nicely resolves the Beastars manga, with the carnivore/herbivore relations reflecting racial tensions in human society. However, the biggest issue remains the absence of any mention of omnivorism, which exists beyond the human world.

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Beastars, Volume 21

Posted on August 20 by Remy St. Gallen

BEASTARS, Vol. 21 by Paru Itagaki
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The penultimate entry of mangaka Paru Itagaki’s Beastars series opens with a synopsis of recent events and visual depictions of the dramatis personae. Protagonist Legoshi, the gray wolf, wins the trust of the Doku-gumi populated by Komodo dragons, becoming an official turf war contender, the leonine Shishi-gumi keeping watch on him while facing the Madara-gumi composed of jaguars. The lupine’s next opponents are the vixens of the Inari-gumi; however, Legoshi struggles due to his reluctance to battle females, ultimately settling on dressing in drag to battle on equal terms, which he finds difficult.

During the war, rain begins to precipitate despite no prior indicators of cloudy weather, a so-called “sun shower” that extinguishes all torches in the black market. The main antagonist Melon, the offspring of a male gazelle and female jaguar, has flashbacks of when his mother wanted to take baths with him, which involves a childhood trauma of seeing the backprints on her fur resembling swarming insects. Meanwhile, Louis continues his press conference as the new president of his adoptive father’s business, the Horns Conglomerate, where he openly speaks about the black market and accuses members of the press of having been to it alongside other carnivores in the city.

Consequentially, the madness transpiring in the black market begins in the city streets, with a battle for supremacy between carnivores and herbivores. The rain causes a blackout that gives the former group an advantage, with the current Beastar, Yahya, the horse, walking between them as a gesture to the carnivores. The power does return, with Legoshi continuing his battle with Melon; the Shishi-gumi also use Legoshi’s rabbit trainer, Kyu, as bait, in which case she attempts to escape. Louis is eventually forced from his address for inciting riots, although the Shishi-gumi come to his rescue, the police giving chase as well.

The twenty-first volume ends with Legoshi and Melon’s battle undecided, with Itagaki afterward including story panels where she ponders the conclusion of her manga, along with brief bios of the Inari-gami and Madara-gami. Following these is a Japanese word chain game and a list of the background music the mangaka listened to while producing her series. In summation, this entry of the Beastars series is enjoyable as its precursors, with endearing characters, action, and twists. However, as before, Itagaki ignores the gray area between carnivores and herbivores since omnivores do appear outside the human race in the animal kingdom.

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Beastars, Volume 20

Posted on August 17 by Remy St. Gallen

BEASTARS, Vol. 20 by Paru Itagaki
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The twentieth volume of Paru Itagaki’s Beastars manga opens, like its precursors, with a synopsis of recent events and visuals of the main characters. The opening action features gray wolf Legoshi defining the term “tableclothing” as when the snouts of beasts wrinkle and they lose control of their emotions, as he is during his training with the rabbit Kyu. Legoshi had felt the same way when battling the bear Riz, now in an attempt to stop Kyu from rebreaking a giraffe’s neck in a cast, which she feels is essential to his training.

During his pursuit, Legoshi gets Kyu’s head into his jaws, having removed his dentures before doing so, with the rabbit feeling close to death, remembering when her parents had sold her to the black market. Fasting is also a final component in the wolf’s training. Furthermore, he wishes Kyu to command him to “stay” as a human in real life would a domestic dog, and she agrees. Meanwhile, Legoshi’s apartment neighbor, Sagwan the spotted seal, tries checking on his friend, he and the sheep Seven, another resident, worrying about him.

Seven deals with a carnivorous client, with his gesture of a handshake frowned upon by others, alongside his openly mentioning the black market. Legoshi and the half-leopard, half-gazelle Melon plan to duel on Happy Meat Day, which is also the Rexmas holiday, where beasts honor a tyrannosaurus rex that received wings after the extinction of the dinosaurs and rejuvenating the world. Haru, the Netherland dwarf rabbit, walks the city streets alone, which is seen as dangerous since the carnivores are showing delinquent behavior, and she can only converse with her love interest Legoshi through his apartment door.

Legoshi continues to train in his apartment, scratching the floor with his claws and understanding that many beasts in winter can survive for extended periods w/o food or drink, with Haru being his source of sustenance. After he leaves, police investigate his apartment, now bloodstained with red deer blood, with Louis, the cervine fitting the bill, believed murdered. On the eve of his forthcoming duel, Melon has nightmares about his mother and notices that his leopard spots have greatly multiplied, attempting to gouge them as the black market turf wars officially commence.

Contrary to what the police and media believe, Louis is alive and begins to speak at his first press conference as head of the Horns Conglomerate with the cover story that he gave blood for charity and wishes to talk about the black market, which has received a giant blockading gate due to the danger posed by the turf wars. Legoshi enters the black market battles proper and begins by fighting the Doku-gumi, consisting of Komodo dragons, which last until the end of the volume. A visualization of a typical Rexmas celebration comes after the main chapters.

Overall, this is another enjoyable volume of the Beastars manga, with its characters continuing to be endearing and satisfactorily concluding Legoshi’s training under Kyu, which diverges from what he had received under the giant panda Gohin. However, some elements abound that only Japanese readers would understand, like herbivores seeing the River Sanzu when close to death, and Itagaki, as before, overlooks the gray area between carnivorous and herbivorous diets called omnivorism. Regardless, the manga’s action intensifies with this installment, and I recommend it to those who have enjoyed its precursors.

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Beastars, Volume 18

Posted on August 11 by Remy St. Gallen

BEASTARS, Vol. 18 by Paru Itagaki

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Unsurprisingly, the eighteenth entry of the Beastars manga opens with a synopsis of prior events and visual depictions of dramatis personae. The comic begins with a flashback of Gosha telling his grandson Legoshi to enroll at Cherryton Academy, with his best friend Jack taking him and introducing him to his canid roommates. Back to the present, Legoshi is aware his status as a registered meat offender prevents him from going out openly in public. However, his former roommates invite him to stay with them. Cherryton has, since a recent devouring, segregated carnivorous and herbivorous students, with the drama club remaining one of the few integrated school clubs.

When Legoshi visits his former dormmates at Cherryton, Jack is in a depressed mood and is contemplating suicide by eating an onion, poisonous to canids, with the wolf seeking to stop him. Despite the school’s segregation, the dining hall remains integrated since carnivorous and herbivorous students ate with their brethren anyway. Jack is in a small elite class at Cherryton where they learn about the history, dating back to the Carnivore-Herbivore War a century before the manga’s events, carnivores then termed “life eaters” and herbivores “nature eaters,” with the former protective of the latter upon first encounter. The appearance of a whale ended the conflict, although that which did so refuses to share his wisdom with the world again.

In the meantime, Bill the tiger becomes head of the drama club, and, when dining with his friends, cracks open an egg to find it contains a chick in development, a “trauma egg,” which they aim to rescue and ultimately take to a local police station. At the black market, the Shishi-gumi mourn their fallen comrade given the posthumous name Lion Glasses and observe how the district has changed, with turf wars imminent and the head of the leonine Shishi-gumi, the half-leopard, half-gazelle Melon wanting to claim the area of the city for his gang. Red deer Louis, saved from the black market by his adoptive father, talks with his foster son, who quickly visits the area with a visible price on him.

Louis and Legoshi proceed to the abandoned tower of the organization that had initially held the latter captive for devouring, where they discover his old cellmates, the doe rabbit Kyu and the llama San. Kyu agrees to take Legoshi as her disciple in eventually taking on Melon. However, the wolf’s reluctance to punch females is one of his weaknesses, with the rabbit entertaining the idea of creating an “imaginary chimera” to aid combat. Thus ends the manga proper, after which is a humorous scene of Legoshi and his friends eating monja at a restaurant, a comical take on an older chapter, an anecdote about Itagaki purchasing the wrong drawing paper, and an indicator of canid muzzle length being concurrent to age.

Overall, Volume 18 is another enjoyable addition to the Beastars manga, with plenty of action and character development, not to mention a backstory well before the Carnivore-Herbivore War that occurred a century before the manga’s present day. The reunion of Louis with his herbivorous cellmates from earlier in the manga is also a nice callback. However, the need for Legoshi to undergo another round of training somewhat recalls what he had under Gohin. The absence of a gray area between herbivores and carnivores known as omnivores is further unmentioned. Regardless, those into mature animal-themed stories will enjoy this manga.

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Beastars, Volume 17

Posted on August 5 by Remy St. Gallen

BEASTARS, Vol. 17 by Paru Itagaki
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As with its predecessors, Volume 17 of the Beastars manga opens with a synopsis of events from prior volumes and a visual depiction of the dramatis personae. The red deer Louis is in college and spends more time with his fiancée Azuki, her father being an executive, and seeks reinvolvement with the Shishi-gumi. Louis introduces his gray wolf friend Legoshi to the triad’s leonine members, whose numbers had dwindled since he had last headed the group. They visit the black market to seek the leader of the Kopi Luwak, a musk cat named Deshico who specializes in producing coffee beans.

Meanwhile, Melon has become an adjunct professor at Haru’s college, lecturing about the first herbivore-carnivore war that destroyed the harmony between the two dietary factions. The gazelle/leopard hybrid openly expresses his desire to devour the dwarf rabbit. Throughout his criminal past, Melon’s horns had gotten him off scot-free for his heinous acts so long as he wore his facemask to conceal his leopard portion. Back to Legoshi, he returns to his apartment to find Haru, with whom he wants to be more honest.

Legoshi ultimately decides to take down Melon himself, their battle starting at the Shishi-gumi headquarters before proceeding through the black market and then Central Street, where the police become involved and automatically target the wolf since they still perceive Melon as an herbivore. Itagaki follows with depictions of Legoshi’s biological changes as he aged, along with the metamorphosis of a two-page comic panel from a previous volume. This installment of the Beastars manga was like its predecessors enjoyable, although the lack of gray between carnivores and herbivores is still noticeable.

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Beastars, Volume 1

Posted on February 12, 2023 by Remy St. Gallen

Beastars, Vol. 1 by Paru Itagaki
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ever since I watched the original Fullmetal Alchemist, Japanimation, colloquially called anime, has fascinated me, although I wouldn’t realize that most Japanese animated series derived from manga, Japan’s equivalent of comic books, with the Land of the Rising Sun, in fact, the origin point for what would ultimately become contemporary comics. One particular modern anime that would catch my attention is mangaka Paru Itagaki’s Beastars, with my first exposure being the anime adaptation, of which I have a positive impression, and, upon the official English release of all volumes, make it the honor of being my first manga.

The first volume occurs in a world inhabited by anthropomorphic animals, divided based on whether they’re herbivores or carnivores, starting with the brutal devouring by one of the latter beasts of an alpaca student at Cherryton Academy named Tem, with even more hostility consequentially arising between meat-eaters and vegetarians. Legoshi the wolf, active in the school’s drama club as a crewmember, hears news of this and gives Els the alpaca a love letter that Tem wrote before his demise, although naturally, she is wary of the lupine and fears he will devour her.

The actors in the drama club are rehearsing for a school performance of a play focused on a grim reaper named Adler, with Tem initially having a role in it. Further active in the acting troupe is the red deer Louis, who admires Legoshi’s ferocity and wants him to be a lookout for Zoe the goat, Tem’s replacement in the play. Legoshi soon has a run-in with a rabbit named Haru, with whom he seems to share a special connection, with the lapine fearing the wolf will devour her. Haru herself faces ostracization from other herbivores such as a harlequin rabbit.

That night, Legoshi fitfully sleeps, and has conflicted feelings about Haru, with his instincts insisting he devours her, although in the animanga’s world, eating meat is a crime, with school cafeterias attempting to compensate for the nutritional shortcomings carnivores consequentially face; baring fangs is also taboo for meat-eaters. Animals exemplifying the best characteristics of society receive the eponymous title of Beastar, with Louis wanting the play to send a message to the polarized society. The first manga volume ends with Legoshi meeting Haru in the school garden, and it was for me a solid experience, with some quirky extra content after the main comic.

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