Japanator review: Aventura Vol. 1

10:30 AM on 11.27.2007   |   Dale North

If you've been to one "magic school," you've been to them all, right? Anyone else would feel that way, but as anime and manga fans, we've become used to conventional story settings and types, and the "magic school with magic students" is an up-and-coming story type these days. Aventura does fall into a Harry Potter-ish category, but does it have enough magic to levitate above the other magic titles out there?

While similar, the Gaius School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is definitely more interesting than Harry Potter's Hogwarts. The campus is divided in half, with swordsmen and magic users separated. The story is set in a deep forest, in a castle-like not-really-Earth-but-close setting where talking mops and candelabras go about their daily business among the magical students, and things like flying, self-returning books are the norm. Visiting Hogwarts students would simply think of this as the school down the street. 

Hit the jump to read the full review on Aventura Vol. 1. 

Aventura Vol 1
Manga by Shin Midorikawa
Published by Del Ray, Released Novemver 2007

The story follows a boy named Lewin Randit, a dedicated student who loves to please but has always had difficulty mastering magic, despite some past experiences with some latent natural ability. Being magically challenged, Lewin was a natural for the swordsman's program. It's too bad that he is constantly picked on by his classmates for his lack of magical ability, as well as for his red hair and his crappy hand-me-down sword. 

School life has always a bit of a drag for Lewin until he meets two students from the magical side of the school. They quickly become friends and get into a bit of magical trouble, and after some undead creatures are accidentally summoned, Lewin finally gets a chance to shine.

For as much as there is to like about the deep fantasy setting, its a real shame that the story's characters aren't more likable. In fact, they're fairly boring and often painfully predictable. We all know this "nobody loves me" character that Lewin is supposed to be, but the problem is that he makes himself hard to love with his bratty "feel sorry for me" attitude. Even worse, it seems that no effort was put into Lewin's magic friends (other than visual effort, which we'll get to later), and I found myself wanting to push through their dialogue as quickly as possible. A few characters, like the school's mysterious professor Qualfer Riventzel, have the beginnings of interesting backgrounds, but unfortunately these characters aren't fleshed out in the first volume. 

What the characters lack in depth is made up for in visuals, as Aventura is a beautiful manga. I found myself often returning to each cell after a page was read to marvel at the detail and depth of the illustrations. The characters' hair styles are all impossibly wispy, and their clothing is distinctive and creative. It is sometimes difficult to identify characters under all of that hair, but coming back and looking again really makes you appreciate the detail of the work. The castle-like locales, endless stairways and bookcases, and weathered stone walls and backdrops are all sights to behold, and the specialized magic-related diagrams are all wonderfully intricate, and do their part to bring the reader deeper into the daily happenings at Gaius School. The only real downfall to the art is that action scenes become a bit confusing, but again, having to look twice at such detailed work isn't a bad thing.

The story makes it obvious that Lewin has incredible hidden abilities, but there's not much here to make the reader want to know what those abilities are. The bland writing makes it difficult to care about any of the characters, and it's really hard to shake the feeling that you already know the entire story before you've even finished. That being said, if you're a fan of fantasy magic schools or incredibly detailed and beautiful art, then Aventura will probably be worth your time. 

Score: 6.5 

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