Synopsis
Jason Thompson, Level 14 Shaman/Oozemaster and author of Manga: The Complete Guide, joins forces with Victor Hao to deliver a wickedly funny send-up of manga and gamer culture. Roll up your character and get ready!
THE GREATEST GAMER ON EARTH
At the University of California, Escondido, no one would guess that freshman Shesh Maccabee is a hard-core gamer—and in recovery to boot, following a court order, a wireless ban, and months of therapy (all because of one little seven-day Internet café episode). His friend Mike—who personally prefers Japanese-console RPGs—is tasked with keeping Shesh far away from any computer with access to World of Warfare.
Everything's going according to plan—until a Ren Faire fangirl introduces them to the campus gaming club, where they meet Theodore, a fanatical tabletop game master whose single goal in life is to run the greatest Mages & Monsters game in the world. And there just happens to be room for two more players. Soon Shesh and Mike are dragged into the dungeon of hard-core gaming—and cops, baboon men, Sri Lankan cave roaches, and Gothémon card collectors converge in the zaniest adventure that ever involved twenty-sided dice!
Reviews
This comedy manga takes on the world of tabletop gaming by way of the shonen sports genre. Hardcore computer gamer Shesh Maccabee arrives for his freshman year of college banned by court order from the virtual universe he so loves. Despite his friend Mike's efforts to protect him from the Internet's siren song, Shesh finds the university gaming club, only to discover that Mages & Monsters is an analogue game, requiring dice, cards... and imagination. The two boys reluctantly join a game run by Theodore Dudek, a game master who goes to superhuman lengths to bring verisimilitude to the interactive stories he creates. As Shesh becomes more deeply immersed, Theodore realizes Shesh has the potential to become the greatest role player of all time. Thompson's enthusiasm for the subject matter is explosive and one can sometimes feel Hao's artwork rushing to keep up. With so much going on (sometimes on multiple, simultaneous, interrelated abstract levels of action), the narrative fights to stay coherent. None of this takes away from the best moments, always in the depths of a game, when the plot turns smartly on a hinge, and the intended audience for this manga is reminded why they first became gamers. (Jan.)
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