Musashi’s world was invaded by demons generations ago and, while most people believe that demons are benevolent overlords, he knows the “truth”: demons are evil and that bands of bushi warriors did their best to fight off the demonic invasion. Musashi wants to be one of those modern bushi but it looks like he’s been locked into a job as a miner, toiling away for the demons instead.
But wait, what if Musashi has actually been using all of this time to train for the day he inevitably comes face to face with a demon?
Shinobu Ohtaka’s previous series, Magi, ended up being a huge story about what it means to rule, imposing ideals on others, and a wild story about a dead world. Orient looks like it might incorporate some similar ideas, especially with the similar conflict between blind obedience to the demon overlords vs choosing a more difficult life in fighting against them, but so far it looks like this conflict might be on a smaller scale. The art in some ways looks like it’s on a “smaller scale” at least; by the end of Magi there were quite a few chapters with sprawling spreads of giant armies, fight scenes with rather complicated costume designs, and just generally a lot of things going on in each page. For those returning readers, it’s immediately obvious that the amount of “stuff” on-page in Orient has been reduced; Ohtaka switched publishers for this work and I know that in some instances manga assistants are paid for by the publisher, not the manga-ka directly, and I wonder if Ohtaka simply has less assistance this time around. She’s still got quite a bit of flair for creating eye-catching pages, and a good sense of what scenes really need the most flash, so it’s not as if her art has suffered from the sudden increase in white space in her art (and the object and monster designs are even wilder than I expected). Her characters do look rather similar to characters from Magi however. Lead character Musashi looks a bit like a combination of a young Sinbad and Alibaba which frankly is a decent description of his personality as well.
While there might not be a lot going on visually on every single page, there is certainly a lot going on story-wise in this first volume; Musashi has accidentally ended up fighting his first demon, and bringing his childhood friend and bushi descendant Kojiro along for the ride, and we get our first look at the Mad Max: Fury Road-ish world that lies outside the closed, demon-controlled town the story started in. It’s stylish, fast-paced, and very engaging as both characters and readers see just how enormous a challenge it will be to oust the demons from their position of power.
It looks like we’re in for some very well-trod shonen tropes starting in the next volume. I’m betting this demon the characters are currently fighting is only a “small fry” or such in the grand scheme of things, but I want to stick with this crazy ride for at least a few more volumes.