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@ Large

Title: @ Large
Volume(s): 2
Creator(s): Ahmed Hoke
Format: Unflipped; Left-to-Right
Publisher: Tokyopop
MSRP: $9.95
Genre(s): Action/Drama
Rated: Older Teen (16+)



CONSUMER ADVICE
Parents be warned: This title is NOT sutable for children! This title contains a bunchof gangs, beatings, shooting, numorus uses of the f word and nigga, a good amount of violence, some sex scenes, and some actual nudity. Why this title wasn't nicked with a M (Mature) rating I don't know. Who this title is actually geared torwards I don't know, I gave up figuring that out after the third chapter.
I want to warn everyone of something before I get into this review: I am NOT the kind of person this series was created for! “@ Large” is the brain child of Ahmed Hoke, who has attempted to create the first manga to deal with L.A. street life. Tokyopop labels this as the first “hip hop” manga ever created, which may or may not be true, but since I’m not the type of person this series is geared for I’ll take their word for it. So what is “@ Large” about exactly? Well it’s about street life, the people who live street lives, and their daily conflicts. The first problem here is that there is no real protagonist, no one that stands out, and no problems we care about. In this series everyone (And I mean EVERYONE) talks in their hip hop slang, there is very little dialog that separates personality, and very little narrative to suggest that this will change. For example the white people talk the same way as the black people, the store clerks talk the same way as the gangsters, and the kids speak the same way as the thugs. NO ONE has their own personality in this series!

If we didn’t have drawings in this book there would be no way to tell these characters apart from each other. And the conflicts? Not really worth mentioning to tell you the truth, as none of these characters are likable anyway. I don’t know, I know there really should be more to talk about with this series, but the sad fact is I can’t find anything to REALLY talk about, this thing just go’s completely over my head! Aside from the fact that everyone talks the same, they all speak in the gangster ways that just baffles my mind. Several times when I was reading this I thought “Was there any English in those word balloons?” I’m guessing no, but for all I know the gobble-gobble in this series may very well be used in the real world (Especially since this series seems to be targeting the MTV generation). Sadly, the only real words I was able to understand were the dirty words, and boy were there dirty words in this book! There were so many dirty words in this book it seemed like a soft core “South Park” at times (Only with teens over kids).

One thing I did like was the art though, which defiantly get’s the hip hop/graffiti look down to a “t.” This guy is defiantly a talented artist, he just needs a better story (And characters) to go along with all that pretty art. One thing I should make another note of is the irresponsible rating that Tokyopop has slapped on this book. The back of the book claims that this is rated OT (Older Teen 16+), but on the front of the cover it has an “Explicit Content: Parental Advisory” sticker on it. Now why would they do that? You’d think the OT rating would be enough of a warning for everyone right? Well that sticker is there because this is really an M (Mature 18+) rated book in disguise. There are enough uses of the F word, LOTS of uses of the term nigga, some minor nudity, a hefty amount of violence, and lots more that would usually warrant a M rating. So why isn’t this rated M?

I’m guessing it wasn’t rated M because this was Tokyopop’s first English created manga (Excluding the “Rising Stars of Manga” books), and an M rating would have potentially hurt sales for this series. And we all know that it's much more exspensive to create a series from the ground up then it is to translate one, so the OT rating was probably put on in conjunction with the sticker to make it clear that this was a mature title, but at the same time make it look safe enough that no one would worry about the content withen the pages of the cover. Still people may want to be weary when picking this up thinking it won’t be too mature for them. Still even without all the bad language this would still be considered a pretty lousy series. Maybe I’m not the right person to be reviewing this series since I’m obviously not included in the target audience, but never-the-less I am convinced that you can do much better then “@ Large.” There are better series that has better characters, better dialog, and a better story.

Plus why is the title of this book named after the coffee shop in the series?

D

- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -