The Fall 2019 Manga Guide

Levius /est

What's It About? 

After the fight between Levius and AJ, the mechanized super-soldier representing the weapons corporation Amethyst, ends is his victory, Levius is now a member of the thirteen most powerful Mechanical Martial Arts fighters in the world. However, he is badly wounded and in recovery. He won't be able to stay in such a state for long, though, as in the wake of the fight tensions have begun to flair between nations, and Amethyst is once again consolidating its power. It appears might be preparing to go to war with the rest of the world. And so, Levius must prepare himself to enter the ring once again, to rise to the top of the most powerful group the world has ever known, all while the war looms on the horizon.

Levius/est is the sequel series to Haruhisa Nakata's Levius. It is published by Viz Media and will release in November, for $12.99 physically,

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Levius/est doesn't quite pack the punch of its predecessor series. In some ways that's simply because it's trying very hard to pick up where the other left off, and so most of the first two chapters are reminding us who Levius is, what he went through in the war, what A.J.'s deal is, and the whole fiasco of their final fight. Once that's taken care of, then we can get down to the business of moving ahead…kind of. Rather than truly making progress, what feels like a slightly excessive amount of time is instead spent on having Zack and A.J. have an emotional pseudo-reunion, with Zack coming off as oddly caring more for A.J. than for Levius, who is currently not doing all that well. As it turns out, A.J.'s returning memory is integral to saving Levius, but the whole thing ends up feeling more like a way to sort of force in a romantic subplot for the two MMA fighters once Levius finally does get back on his feet.

Likewise the reveal about what happened to Hugo after the events of the first series feels like a bit of a letdown. It isn't a surprise, necessarily, but Hugo's out-of-body experiences talking to Levius were an important piece of that last fight, so to remove him completely from the story is a disappointment. Instead we meet Natalia, a young woman whose sole existence may be to cause problems for Levius with her obsession with him. She's the opposite of A.J. – rash, impulsive, and utterly driven by her emotions. In another story she'd feel fine as a romantic rival, but here she simply appears to be misplaced, or perhaps added in in order to make the story more mainstream with an additional female character.

While the artwork is still a fascinating combination of delicate and detailed, the use of focus has been eliminated, which again is a little too bad. The new series is allowing for more world building, which is a good thing, if only because we can better understand the tech that was only alluded to in the previous book, but on the whole, Levius/est feels like a let-down after Levius.

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Faye Hopper

Rating:

Levius/est takes everything I didn't like about Levius's initial run, doubles down it, and mostly does away with the things that intrigued and compelled me. It's focused on its Shounen rise-to-the-top and its uninteresting worldbuilding stakes to its utter detriment.

It also feels somewhat needless. The narrative of Levius, what little there was, presented a clear arc: Levius is fated to shake the world to its very foundation as a result of past trauma, through means of combat, and he succeeds, saving another from a life of exploitation and pain in the process. There are world-building details and character work that can be used as a jumping-off point for a sequel (which is what Levius/est does), but those were also Levius's weakest aspects. Levius had flat characterization, and world-building I barely understood. So, continuing to cement those things as the core of Levius's narrative only distances me more and more from this world and these characters, especially as their arcs and rolls become far more standard. Levius has entered into the world of the top thirteen Mechanical Martial Arts fighters, and must now make his way through them and also fight the last vestiges of the the PMC Amethyst on his further rise to prominence. I have seen this story so many times, and with the weird flourishes and art of Levius in tow it only heightens the disconnect.

Also, why is there suddenly a love triangle? If the point of Levius/est is to wrap-up the narrative loose-end of the original run, then why are we suddenly being introduced to a hyperactive, my-entire-being-is-wrapped-up-in-love-for-Levius stereotype who doesn't fit with the bleak tone at all? The character of Natalia feels like she stepped straight out of Fairy Tail, and aside from how crummily she's treated by the other cast, she just does not fit with the world or the goals of this first volume. It's such an odd choice, but it is a choice I have seen many other, far more standardly presented manga make. Maybe that's the reason for her inclusion.

At the end of the day, Levius/est is another step in the franchise's ongoing process of bowing more and more to traditional sci-fi Seinen convention. On the one hand, it does make it more palatable, but it also strips away the last vestiges of what had me initially intrigued. If you liked the first volume and are curious about the state of Levius's world and how the characters carry on after the final fight, then you'll probably like this. But as someone who was mostly bewildered by Levius's myriad tonal inconsistencies and weird storytelling, this really didn't help me come around.