Louie the Rune Soldier, Vol. 1

Few would consider Louie to be a sorcerer - especially Melissa, Merrill and Genie. (After all, what kind of "sorcerer" spends his time drinking at bars and beating the stuffing out of the local street toughs?)But much to the chagrin of these three gorgeous female adventurers, divine will has dictated that Louie, the enchanter-gone-street fighter, is in fact a prophesized hero - who they must pledge themselves to serve! Could this bad-boy possibly have what it takes to be a hero? Or has the war god Mylee made a mistake? With a bevy of babes at his side, Louie launches into a series of adventures that range from the harrowing to the bizarre. Get ready for swords, magic, and lots of black eyes and broken noses, because when Louie fights, it's no holds barred!

Adult/High School–Louie is the foster son of Carwess, the great magician, next in line in a series of great mages. However, he prefers his fists to a magic wand and is content to frequent the local watering hole instead of the pages of his spell books. Content, that is, until three attractive devotees of the war god Mylee–a warrior, a priestess, and a thief (all accomplished swordsmen, so to speak)–show up at his bar and pick a fight with him. He ends up spending the night in prison, only to be told by them that Mylee has declared Louie their hero and that they are to serve him. Needless to say, they are not happy. They go on an adventure, seeking treasure in a ruin that turns out instead to be a goblin lair. More fighting ensues, and Louie, in all of his brash uncouth, turns out to be somewhat endearing after all. The story ends with the adventurers preparing for another daring escapade in volume two. The art will not disappoint manga devotees, nor will the action-packed story line. The plot is somewhat thin, though, and relies on numerous fight scenes and clichéd interactions among characters to move the story along. A quick read, little else.–J. M. Poole, East Rochester Public Library, NY
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Stop us if you've heard this one: a feckless antihero finds himself beset by a handful of sexy, powerful women who, for vague reasons, insist on accompanying and "serving" him through a series of absurd adventures, rife with male-female badinage and sexual titillation. This boy-and-babes formula is a familiar one in manga, seen in such hits as Tenchi Muyo! and Love Hina. Here, the setting is a thinly sketched sword-and-sorcery milieu, played strictly for laughs, while the protagonist is Louie, a brawler chosen by divine intervention to become the "hero" for three female adventurers. The trio recognize Louie is a clod, but are nonetheless fated to serve him. Louie, an amoral loser of faint prospects, is the kind of ne'er-do-well so popular among role-playing gamers; predictably, though, the story hints at his hidden depths. one of several new entries from the recently-launched ADV Manga line, this workwas originally published in Japan in 2000, and ties into the anime series Maho Senshi Riui (known here as Rune Soldier). The manga adaptation is the work of artist Sasameyuki, whose compositions are nigh on illegible and whose sense of atmosphere is nil (he gives no attention to creating a distinct world). Despite odd flashes of visual wit, the story is bankrupt and the storytelling confused, though manga diehards may stay the course.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.