Volume #373 ~ ALIVE #2

ALIVE #2
by: Adachitoka & Kawashima Tadashi

Kodansha/Del Rey/shounen - $10.99 - Rated 13+

Things are bad enough with global climate change, but when aliens or some extraterrestrial force suddenly decides to rain in on Earth switching humanity’s internal suicide clocks on, then I start thinking…Al Gore was not looking deep enough into the future with his projections of doom!

In ALIVE volume 2, people are no longer killing themselves. Instead they are putting their murderous intent into action by killing others. Taking the idea of haves and have nots to an extreme, young people whose biological clocks have turned on have decided to speed up evolution and are congregating up north to plan the ultimate end of the homo sapiens sapiens. Luckily for all of us some of these newtypes are shounen, so they are instinctually programmed to fight for good and friendship, and eventually convert their former enemies into honorable citizens in the process.

ALIVE started off crazy–crazy good. It reminded me of seinen sci-fi with twists of 60’s and 70’s horror. Unfortunately, it has quickly moved into standard shounen fare and I am starting to lose interest. It’s lead never really resonated with me, so I was looking forward to more from the supporting cast, which was removed from any significant page time this volume. And the action… Well it is poorly rendered despite the author’s creative concepts esper-jitsu. So what was too good for shounen is now not up to par with the better boys titles out there. Sigh.

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Up Next… He’s My Master, 10 Deadly Assassins, Two Flowers for the Dragon