Soul Rescue Volume 1

We had our first yard sale of the summer. Here at Ogremoot, even the yard sales are geeky, with comics, manga, board games, Magic cards, and a ton of SF/fantasy books. We did well, but there were  expected long stretches without customers, so I grabbed one of the manga volumes I had up for sale somewhat at random (I looked for books that were the first volume in their series). These are mostly books I haven't read. I picked them up to sell online, and suspended online sales to put them in the yard sale.

So this is what I ended up reading today in between yard sale customers and helping my son manage his lemonade stand.

Title: Soul Rescue
Issue: Volume 1
Date: 2006
Publisher: Tokyopop
Writer: Aya Kanno
Artist: Aya Kanno

When warrior-angel Renshi disobeys orders one time too many, he is hauled before a sort of heavenly court-martial and is exiled to Earth by God Himself (depicted here as a dude in a weird helmet with tubes and goggles).

Renshi is stripped of much of his angelic power and given the gift of soul rescue, a power of complete physical and spiritual healing. So the warrior needs to learn to live and think as a healer. Furthermore, he will not be allowed to return to Heaven until he has healed 10,000 souls. This does a nice job of setting up the potential for this to be a very long series. Especially since he only successfully uses the power twice. So, two down, and 9,998 to go.

After the introductory scenario, the volume basically can be broken into three stand-alone stories. All three are good. In the first, Renshi and his heavenly-assigned assistant, Kaito, encounter a young woman and her two young siblings. A friendship quickly forms, but just as quickly, the woman's dark past begins to catch up with her.

In the second story, Renshi finds his soul rescue power unable to cure the ailment of a dying princess. He uncovers a deadly plot, which had a nice twist that I never saw coming.

The third story introduces devils to the mix, as the forces of Hell stir up trouble in a town that has been pushed to the breaking point by a greedy feudal lord.

This was a good start to a series with a ton of potential, and it provided three quality tales. The only weakness was the fight scenes, where it could get hard to tell what was going on until they were resolved.

Rating: 8/10