Ral O Grad, Vol. 1

by Takeshi Obata and Tsuneo Takano

He's out to save the world, one rack at a time

In the midst of a war, a child is born during a bloody battle at the cost of his mother's life. From this baby comes forth a huge and powerful dragon born of Shadow. Within minutes the dragon lays waste to the landscape, but a quick-thinking knight locks the baby in a cage of darkness, where he grows to be a young man, knowing only the kindness of his young female tutor. Until the day the Shadows...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1421518902
• ISBN13: 9781421518909
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: Viz Media
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.0" x 7.5"
• Age Range: 16 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 11 to 12

Customer Reviews

Honors, in equal parts, the worlds of fantasy and adolescence, sex and violence

Shadows are bad news, at least in the world of Ral & Grad.Demonlike creatures born in the world of darkness, they have no dimension, no form, have an insatiable appetite for living creatures, can possess human beings, and are generally up to no darn good. When a tragedy-struck teenager named Ral befriends the shadow inside him--a giant blue dragon named Grad--he is tasked with saving the world, protecting his kingdom from evil shadows that wish to destroy it. Ral & Grad--from cowriters Tsuneo Takano and Takeshi Obata--is full of mainstream, giddy delights, breathtaking artwork, a completely comprehensible narrative, and lots of breasts (teen Ral is absolutely obsessed with them). Its storytelling moves lightning-fast, with plenty of corkscrew surprises and unexpected turns, drawing much of its accessibility from employing traditional fantasy tropes and videogame totems. Ral comes with a fascinating backstory. Having spent the first 15 years of his life locked in a cage, because the king so feared the power of his shadow dragon, Ral is now nearly deified because the king needs his fearsome powers to defeat the evil Queen Bira. But Ral's dilemma and journey are complex and rich. The books may find Ral devoting a hair too much time to his overactive libido. Too often, Ral is more Beavis than Naruto. Still, the basic mythology of Ral & Grad is solid, mainstream stuff--bits and pieces of Western classics like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are in abundance, making the books a fairly easy read for Westerners or manga newbies. That said, the series' cosmology can be dizzying. Takano and Obata require plenty of space and time to explain, for example, the world and function of the Shadows before allowing their story's primary conflict to unfurl. Obata's artwork is absolutely sumptuous, full of action and detail, dark fantasy, and elegant humanity. Fantasy touches--and the renderings of dragon Grad--set high standards for other manga. This is truly superlative work. For all the labyrinthine storytelling and thrilling action, the poignant backstory and dark touches, the little boy's world of Ral & Grad is offered great, if occasionally redundant, touches of levity, thanks to Ral's juvenile obsession with breasts. Kudos to Takano and Obata for creating a book that honors, in equal parts, the worlds of fantasy and adolescence, sex and violence. Good stuff for older teen readers. -- J. Rentilly

Deeper than it looks

As a Death Note fan, I had to read this. And while the story appears to be a standard boy-saves-the-world fare, it's actually deeper than that. As a manga superstar, Obata-san can pick whatever projects he wants to do. He showed he wanted to explore morality in Death Note (is it a good act to kill all criminals?). Now he's exploring psychological personality integration. In Jungian psychology, all those things that we do not like about ourselves are stuffed down and repressed into what Jung calls the Shadow. (Think all those times you said to yourself "I shouldn't be greedy" even though you wanted to be greedy and just repressed it.) Repressing the Shadow takes energy from our lives. Jung says that we should acknowledge that we have these dark impulses and accept them but not necessarily act on them. (So acknowledge you have this greedy impulse and be with it, but not act out of a reaction to the impulse--just feel the feeling and it will dissolve.) This insight is repeated throughout Hinduism, Buddhism, Gnostic Christianity, etc. In Ral & Grad, all the shadows consume the individual, that is except for Ral (and some others) that have developed an open relationship with (i.e., integrated) their Shadow. This is juicy stuff. The art is also fantastic. Because Death Note was mostly set in modern-day Tokyo, the art by necessity had to be realistic. Obata-san was able to make something magnificent because of the framing and layout of the different panels and scenes. He still has those same tools plus the ability to do incredible fantasy art. He has been released to create a whole world and it's incredible. I haven't seen a world this detailed and original since Miyazaki's Nausicaa manga. Certainly, as some of the other reviewers mentioned, Ral's breast-squeezing obsession may be a little too much and if you take it as just Japanese humor relief (Haruhi squeezing Mikuru's breasts for yuks, anyone?), it's more passable. Hopefully it will be toned-down over time. We already saw in vol 2 that Ral is becoming a smart judge of character who prefers a strategic outcome over squeezing a queen's breasts. But if it does not, I'll have to wait to let my 12 yo daughter read this. In the meantime, I don't have to share this with her :)

A good start, but...

I'm concerned as to which way this series could end up going. I bought it simply for Takeshi Obata's artwork, as I was suffering extreme Death Note withdrawal. Even going into the series knowing it's likely going to be at least a decade before something as exciting and new as Death Note comes along again (the previous obsession having been Neon Genesis Evangelion), I was pleasantly surprised by the intricities of the storyline. Ral's first reactions to being freed from the pitch black prison he'd been in since birth, particularly his fifteen-year-old hormones and obsession with the opposite sex, are handled somewhat well and realistically. Ral's continued obsession with breasts, boobs, tits (not helped by his older female tutor's unfortunate use of the phrase 'tit for tat,' leading him to believe that everytime he drives off a shadow creature, he is in fact entitled to play with the tits of whomever he's saved afterwards) however, leads me to be concerned that this series will walk the fine line of a sex obsessed manga. Only time will tell if Ral and Grad is going to become a cringeworthy constant joke about tits. So far it kinda is, but one hopes Ral will actually grow out of this phase, or at least ratchet it down to acceptable levels instead of having it as his driving force for doing good deeds timely. The artwork is beautiful as expected. It's not Death Note, but neither is this manga. It has a different feel altogether that works well with the plot. I'd give the artwork 5 stars and the story an optimistic 3 1/2 stars in the hopes that Ral does grow as a character.

An action-packed, intelligently presented story.

Drawn by the artist of the cult hit manga "Death Note", the debut volume of Ral & Grad (actually written using the "omega" symbol instead of an ampersand - search for it by writer's name Tsuneo Takano if a title search doesn't produce results) is an action-packed, netherworldly Japanese manga in the same gung-ho vein as "Bastard!" and other titles with antiheroes whose main redeeming feature is that they're nowhere near as dastardly as their vile enemies. In a medieval world besieged by "shadows", beings that live in the shadows of flesh-and-blood mortals and who frequently consume them body and soul, Ral and Grad are an anomaly - a human-shadow team who support and work with each other as friends do, rather than existing as host and parasite or worse. The diabolical shadow queen has forsaken the world of shadow to exterminate the human race; Grad the shadow dragon wants to depose the queen and restore the two-dimensional world of shadow, where all shadows who have not contaminated themselves by devouring humans can return; and Ral is a teenage boy who has just discovered the pleasure of squeezing women's breasts! Ral and Grad are a team - Grad provides the raw power, while Ral provides human wisdom and cunning, such as they are. Aided by Ral's female teacher, who (often unsuccessfully) strives to keep his lecherous ways in check, as well as a young girl bonded to a shadow scout, the two set out overthrow the queen once and for all! Ral & Grad is most assuredly for older teens and adults due to violence and rampant boob-squeezing, yet balancing the moments of guilty pleasure is an action-packed, intelligently presented story.