Title: Legendz Volume(s): 3+ Author(s): Makoto Haruno/Rin Hirai Format: Unflipped; Right-to-Left Publisher: VIZ, LLC. MSRP: $7.99 Genre(s): Action Rated: All Ages

I shouldn't even be wasting my time writing this review. I've reviewed this series SO many freaking times that I'm starting to get sick! Oh no, I haven't reviewed "Legendz" itself yet, but I've read so many of the series that this series copies, that reading "Legendz" long enough to finish it was quite a chore to do. "Legendz" is a story about a popular game called (you guessed it) Legendz, where kids use special monster's that are trapped in crystals to use in the ultamte roleplaying game. Well, okay, it's not really a role playing game, it's just a game where two monster's pop out of these crytals and fight each other. Yawn! The main hero is Ken Kazaki, who is the ultimate Legendz player. Why? Because he considers his Legendz monster to be his best friend, and believes that these toys are living things. Hmm, I wonder where I've heard that one before? Yep, this is practically a clone of "Megaman: NT Warrior," which was a clone of about another dossen or so other "merchendise inspired" manga.

The difference between "Legendz" and most of the other merchendise inspired manga is that other manga series of this nature at least TRIED to be appealing on some level! Digimon with it's story, Pokemon because the games were fun (and the show was funny), Monster Rancher because of the cool CD feature (some say gimmick, but either way it worked), and Yu-Gi-Oh! because of the dark story and themes. All you need to do is pick one of these shows from random, and you can at least see why said property would be a kick amoung kids, and where there is some artistic merrit to be found. "Legendz" has none. The game isn't interesting...in fact, far as I could see there isn't even any set rules to the game. The monsters come out, they fight, and the winner celebrates. Ken keeps claiming that his Legendz is his best friend, but you never so much as actually see the Legendz unless he is using it to fight. He spends the rest of his book talking to his crytal tube like he was a 2 year old talking to his teddy bear, giving us such advice like "If a owner's crying in his heart then the Legendz is crying too." That's pure Shakespear right there I tell you. A few rivals show up, but aside from being mad all the time, they don't really have any depth to their personality what-so-ever. Ken makes friends with a girl and a boy early on in the series. The girl developes a crush on Ken, while the boy spends all his screen time complaining that he's bored and has nothing to do (trust me kid, I actually feel for you).

The artwork in "Legendz" is completely uninspired. Ken has typical "Shonen Jump" hero spiked hair, everyone has bigger then usual manga eye's, and the backgrounds are static and devoid of life. Nothing in this may be poorly drawn, but none of the artwork is inspired or memorable either. Even the Legendz monster's themselves are forgettable, and seeing as how monster designs are supposed to sell monster stories of this sort...well, let's just say the artist gets a big F for the poorist effort in designing toy monster's I've seen in a LONG time! In short, "Legendz" is pure crap. Even the $7.99 "Shonen Jump" price tag is far too much money to pay for this series, as you can buy "Yu-Gi-Oh!" for the same amount of money, and "Yu-Gi-Oh!" is one hundred times better and more entertaining then "Legendz" is. In fact, "Legendz" is bad from beginning to end. It's insepid, it's lifeless, it's devoid of all creativity and fun, it's artistically bankrupt, and it's so bad you can't even laugh at how bad it is. Just stay away from "Legendz." It's also funny to note that Viz themselves don't even appear to be too impressed with the series, seeing as how they have done almost nothing to promote the series. Of course, if they really are embarressed to be associated with such a turd of a series, I have to wonder why they bothered to lisence it in the first place.

- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -