I’m not a very good artist. What’s worse, whenever I’ve tried to draw manga, it somehow comes out looking Western, even though I don’t like how most Western GNs look! Maybe I should take lessons from Toni Valente, a French mangaka, whose ongoing series, Radiant, actually managed to get an anime adaption in Japan. Viz Media has brought us English speakers this series, so let’s see if it’s any good.
In Radiant, the world is plagued by Nemesis, who is not a hungry waifu, but a hungry race of demons. These demons are repelled by wizards, who sadly, only earn blatant disrespect from citizens and the Inquisition. But hey, Seth has a dream, and it’s to defeat the Nemeses at the source; the mythical, titular realm known as Radiant.
It’s not surprising that Radiant is a battle shounen, which is the most internationally recognized (and almost synonymous with) anime genre of all time. Fortunately, Radiant actually manages to capture the spirit of the genre in a way that doesn’t come off as mockery.
In fact, it feels almost too shounen-esque, as in- say it with me- it’s a bit generic. Valente doesn’t really put any “French”-ness in this manga at all (I know that Hiro Mashima said that there is in one of the afterwords, but I have no clue what he’s seeing that I’m not). The comedy and personality are all there, but it’s stuff you’ve seen before. I guess I’ve learned that humans really, truly all have the same desires and interests when it comes down to brass tacks.
Some of the characters are pretty uninspired. Seth is a generic battle shounen boy, Doc is comic relief, and Grimm is the mysterious guy. The series is at least graced by the presence of Best Girl Melie, who is a spiritual successor of Lunch from Dragon Ball in that she has a crazy good and crazy mean split personality. She’s just about as much of a hoot as Lunch was, and she’s still pretty powerful even when she’s in nice mode. Strangely enough, most of the minor characters seem to have the more interesting personalities, such as the conman headmaster of the Artemis Institute, or this old guy who can never list off two reasons for anything without mumbling the second one.
At the very least, Radiant is set in a lovely world. Every town is situated on a sky island of some sort, like in Zelda Skyward Sword, and each island has its own distinct personality. There are also some fun setpieces down on Earth itself, such as a forest which acts as the hyperbolic time chamber from Dragon Ball.
The art in Radiant is great. Valente clearly understands the subtle distinctions that make a manga a manga and a comic a comic, and is able to make something that is clearly the former while also giving it its own style. The character designs are great and their faces are super expressive. If only I could be just as good…
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Current Verdict: 7.75/10
Radiant is a good manga from an unexpected source, but said unexpected source is really the only thing it has going for it. If you just handed this to me with no context, I would’ve seen a fun but typical battle shounen manga. Read it if you want, but there are many better works from Japan: the country that understands manga better than anywhere else.
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