Weekly Review: Karakuridoji Ultimo manga

Commonly known as Ultimo, it's a story by Hiroyuki Takei and Stan Lee. It began to be serialized in 2009 in Jump Square magazine.

It was originally thought that the story wouldn't have much success since colaborations between Japanese authors and American authors never turned out well because of the differences in style. As we know, Western comics tend to exaggerate everything, the muscles, the looks of the characters, the plots are too simple, whereas manga displays characters with the stylized look we are used to and there's always an emphasis in a solid plot that has nothing to envy to academic novels.

But Ultimo is definitely the exception to this rule. If you wanted to read a good old-school Marvel-type story without compromising the proper Japanese manga style, this is it.

Stan Lee's signature is all over this manga in terms of story. He gets to the basics: there always must be a conflict between good and evil, but what can be deemed 'good' and what can be deemed 'evil'?

We find out with the story of Yamato Agari, a 16 year old high school student who just wants to get by on his life and buy his girlfriend Sayama-san a present for her birthday.

Until he goes to an antique shop and when he sees a mysterious ancient doll (doji) from the 12th century, he suddenly begins to remember everything about his previous life as a samurai bandit, and how he met this doll that turns into a super battle robot that represents Ultimate Good and has the ability to twist time at the will of its master.

The robot was created by an old man called 'Dunstan', presumably a space-time traveller criminal from the 30th century who created all these machines so he could have the ultimate conflict between 'good' and 'evil'.

So there you have it, Stan Lee's persona was shoehorned in the story and it wasn't a bad idea after all. He's the supreme author experimenting with all the concepts.

The story is really fascinating but there's still a lot to reveal about the characters. I read all the way through chapter 16 and couldn't get enough.