Mao, Volume 1 by Rumiko Takahashi

 I was reading a blurb about Mao Volume 1 in the December 2021 edition of School Library Journal in an article by Brigid Alverson and Robin Brenner reviewing their best picks for school age kids of manga from 2021......and the summary of the plot left me shaking my head....."This is a damn Inuyasha rip-off....wait what was the author's na......ooooooh!" So the fabled Rumiko Takahashi returns, she of living legend status, writer and illustrator of Inuyahsa, Ranma 1/2 and many other works. Most authors of a manga series I like don't really catch fire with me with any other series, so the fact that Takahashi-Sama already has had two series I've enjoyed made me really hopeful she'll pull off a hat trick....which no other Mangaka has been able to achieve in my personal estimation. 

So; having read the first volume of Mao, I'm definitely going to keep going with it. The story is interesting enough, and the sense of mystery surrounding the main character's family has me pulled in. I feel that the two leads are still a little underdeveloped after just the first volume, but Takahashi-Sama gets two more volumes to really hook me than a normal Mangaka gets before I move onto the next series. 

My one criticism of the book is kind of a two-edged sword, but it's the art. Rumiko Takahashi has a very distinctive art style that she's preserved for her very illustrious career, and I'm very glad she has done so. I've been reading very modernly illustrated series lately (MHA, Spy X Family, The Way of the House Husband, Chainsaw Man, The Quintessential Quintuplets, Etc.) and Mao looks like it could've been drawn ten, twenty, or even thirty years ago. To a degree, this helps the story of the book since it's about a girl who travels to a different world where time is inconsistent when she moves back to her world, so a feeling of timelessness and drift helps the story flow But, the faces especially are less expressive than some other series I've read recently, which might be contributing to my lack of connection with the characters after one volume as well. 

Definitely worth a read, and I'm looking forward to where the story goes next. 

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