Luuna Volume 1

Luuna review Art: Naked people..oh you wanted the style right. The artwork is ok highly exaggerated cartoonish but the ways the animals and wolves look is fluid and cool while the humans look almost disney like or extremely cartoony B-Characters: Luuna and her totem animals and three forest spirit friends. Luuna is the character that moves the story along there really isn't much too her personality wise she is like Pocahontas mixed with brother bear characters you don't get a feel for who she is and this works towards disconnecting the reader from her. Her totem animals are cool twin wolves one black with white around his eye and one white with black around his eye the ying and yang of luuna while the white one doesn't talk that much and you really don't get a feel for their personality's either they are still really fun to look at. Lastly her three forest spirit friends....should jump off a cliff they are annoying and don't add anything to the story at all they could be written out and nothing would change they are there as the sidekick animals and really are annoying pains C+Story: Wonderful idea horrible execution of said idea. The idea here is similar to Disney's “Brother bear” where luuna goes to get her totem animal. Simple straight forward and could be used for anything instead we get a slightly confusing plot. The first 50 pages of the comic are about her getting her totem animals and then being cursed pretty much the devil and God both want her soul and decide to share her she then needs to fix this (or so she thinks) and goes and looks for the great elk to give her wisdom to fix this confused? Yeah you will be we are given no background story as to why unkui (their version of the devil) is out that night, or why he wants her or even who he is! He also has a cult fallowing type tribe which isn't given much of a backstory as to why they became a cult in the first place. We are also given no background story as to why they need totem animals in the first place or why she can't have two or why hohopah (the heart of the forest kind of like God and grandmother willow in this story) didn't protect her better or even why her tribe (since this seems to be WELL KNOWN about this demon thing) sent her out on that night to get her totem so the first 50 pages are that. The next half of the story (24 pages) are her on her journey and like all journey stories there is a detour with an old man. This half of the story is worse then the first 50 pages everything is why? And the end is a major WHAT? And what just happened? While the action was good and the wolves and concept cool the lack of proper flow, plot, well done art, killed the story. It's interesting but doesn't keep you interested enough and is easy to put down and forget about. Also the nudity in this is off the scale and unnecessary we also never understand why in some cases while nothing is shown and two cases (her bathing and an after the full moon shift) are understandable flashback upon flashback of the old man while he was young naked does not make for a fun reading expiration DCover: Luuna on a rock face with a staff during an eclipse, shifted with both her wolves next to her. While this is a nice picture there is a lot of why's and misdoings. Why is she naked for this? She never has a staff like that, her shift's take place during a full moon not and eclipse just to name a few this is however striking and eye catching and will intrigue readers to pick it up B-Rating: YA? (it didn't have a rating on the back if I had to guess I'd say OT for older teens)Company: Tokyopop (out of business) My rating : 3 of 5. I'm so disappointed with this book! It seemed like a good idea but wasn't easy to get into also the nudity totally turned me off as well as the confusing aspects mentioned above also it was to easy to put down in one day I put it down over 5 times at least the idea had so much to offer but was ruined with fan service and fan disservice and a confusing storyline that didn't give enough background information or clue us in as to what was going on!