Saturday Revue September 12: Jikoshia

Ladies And Gentlemen! Boys And Girls!
Hurry Hurry Hurry!
Behind The Portal Lies...

ADVENTURE!!!

Worlds in peril. Lives on the line. Heroes are called...

whether they want to be or not...heh heh heh. And the hero who said 'not'? That's Nifty. She only meant to prove she wasn't a chicken, but now she's found herself in the center of a battle between powers beyond her comprehension, caught between two worlds, and becoming a figure of legend.

And she still has to get her homework done when she gets home.

Nifty's tale is told in Jikoshia, a wonderful tale by Emily R. Gillis that can be found here.

The Rating

A wonderfully fun and frolicksome tale

The Raves

To begin with, the comic is JUST SO PRETTY! From beautiful site design to lovely artwork, the entire comic is a treat for the eyes. The color palettes employed are used adroitly to emphasize story elements, the painting style practically jumps off the page, and the sense of form and anatomy is spot on. Some really creative things are done when creating a look for magic, and the sound, emotion and movement effects are well done and interesting. The sense of layout and framing to each strip is wonderful to see. Expression and character body language are also skills in this comic's repertoire, great visuals for a story that, while it doesn't do anything you've never seen before, does everything it does with wit, flare and humor. The story jogs along at a great pace; despite the need for a fair amount of explanation, it never falters. The dialogue is sweet, tight and fun, managing to squeeze a great amount of characterization into as few words as possible and doing it in fine form.

The Razzes

My main complaint with Jikoshia is nothing so easy as 'fix hands' or 'get better at faces'. It's simply that, as I read, I didn't see anything I hadn't seen before.Throughout the comic, I found myself thinking 'oh cute, that's just like Avatar.' and 'oh hey, it's just like Tamora Pierce' or 'it's just like...' you get the idea. The comic doesn't do anything badly per se, but it doesn't do...anything. There's no important message, no stunning themes to impart, no innovative take on ideas; it feels as if it's been really skillfully built out of stock tropes. The creator seems on some level to notice this, and even makes fun of it in some clever ways. There's nothing necessarily 'wrong', but I'd love to see somebody as skilled as the creator stretch themselves for a story that could reach beyond the fantasy shelves.

The Revue

A good ol' fantasy adventure story and a good read.