Initial Rating: 8/10-8.5/10 (Close to a 9/10, a really good manga, but there were some parts I could have done without. Or without them lasting as long as they did at least. A "10" would have to be "earth shattering," something really different and without flaws, rare even among manga I love.)
http://www.mangatraders.com/manga/series/63My own summary, because the MT one is kind of useless (at this time I went and updated the MT summary to be this one, I felt the poor English and grammar of the last summary wasn't doing the series justice. It was just a rehash of the first chapter, and seemed to be the sort of thing you'd get from an online translator if you fed some Japanese into one).....
Jin is a mysterious kid who looks to be about 6-10 years old being taken care of by his beggar grandfather. He has a totally unknown past, we see him beating up thugs and purse snatchers early on (for a 10,000 yen reward), but in the next scene his grandfather has to explain to him the importance of money, and the meaning of love, kindness, death, and other common sense parts of life.
Their idyllic life is interrupted by a mysterious monster much stronger than Jin. He kills Jin's grandfather, but not before dying himself (courtesy of gramps). Jin doesn't understand death, and ends up being taken care of by Akemi, a girl who he rescued before. We also learn that Jin isn't exactly human and seems to have superhuman strength and regeneration. He is called Zet by several men who are searching for him from the Amagi corporation, a classic "super-company," immensely powerful and with many different branches, including some suspect research involving creating a "perfect human."
Zetman moves quickly, Jin's life is constantly being shattered by the struggle between the monsters (Players) and the enormously powerful Amagi corporation. Other central characters include Kouga and Konoha Amagi, brothers and sisters approximately Jin's age. Their father runs Amagi corp, and their grandfather is heavily involved with Jin and the Players. By volume 8, which was just recently completed, there have been several time jumps and Jin is now "about 17" by his own estimate. There is a long and complicated relationship between Jin and Konoha, though because of various factors they haven't been able to talk or be together much over the years.
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Now for my review. Stop reading if you are interested by the summary and want to read it, I don't want to spoil you! This might not be as long as it could be, I'm not really in the mood to cover everything I thought about this manga at this time. A bit tired, and I want to read the last chapter of B. Reaction too. Anyway, here goes.
Zetman really grabbed my attention early, and it barely wavered. Jin is a really interesting character, I love the internal struggles he goes through. It's also sad how his good faith in humanity keeps getting shattered, I really hope he can learn to get past his sorrows and become the hero. Definitely a well written character, I've been rooting for him from the start.
A good and bad thing about this manga is there's a lot left to your interpretation. What I mean is you see the things that certain characters do, and you have to figure out their feelings yourself. Well, not all the time, but enough that it can get confusing. There are a lot of characters that I can't tell which side they're on. Almost everyone murders someone at some point, or wants to leave someone to die. Tons of evil scientists are revealed to have corrupt motives, etc etc.... I'm not sure if it's meant to be this way, but it's VERY difficult to decide if a character is good or evil in Zetman.
Which reminds me of Kouga. I'm pretty sick of him at this point tbh, but I wasn't at first. I think his struggle is really interesting to read, but I would prefer it if he ended up with a warped sense of justice or working on the wrong "side." I thought they were moving towards this when he first started this whole superhero business, but after all that crap they pulled in the underground lab, I'm not so sure. I could have *sworn* that guy was going to succeed in making him into a sort of "vigilante," but unfortunately they went all cliche at the end, and he just saved the girl without really doing the self-evaluation he needed.
I'm still hoping for him to become a "dark" hero, but like I said, I'm freaking sick of his personal evolution at this point since it's gotten so cliche. I could have done without having him be the protagonist for 30 chapters. What was the point of that? In the end he's still a weak, semi-minor character, and we didn't get to see anything about Jin for entire VOLUMES because of it. Jin is 100x better than Kouga as a character, I was really annoyed that he got shoved out of the picture for such an extended period of time (sorta like what ruined Tenjou Tenge for me, with that ridiculous flashback that lasted 14 out of 26 episodes).
But lets talk about Konoha. I like her as a character, it's kind of frustrating that she doesn't get much face time. The only thing I don't entirely understand is her complete opposition to her brother. I don't see much wrong with his view of the world, or his ambition, but she's always 100% against it for some reason.... In one chapter she thinks "Is he doing this for justice or for attention?" When it's painfully obvious that he truly wants to help the world. He hates the image his father forces on him, but she just doesn't seem to get that. I think we'll see some more about this in the future of the manga, so I'm withholding final judgment, but right now that's the only thing I don't love about Konoha.
Like I said though, with the stuff they've focused on, it's been really slow for her in terms of development, especially with Jin. Pissed me off so much when they FINALLY seem to be realizing feelings for each other (well she's realizing, Jin's just showing, he has no clue yet), then I try to go to the next chapter and it isn't there! Argh, how did it take 8 full volumes for this to happen? I love them as a couple, it would be great to see them together more, it just doesn't freaking happen fast enough!
I don't blame them though, I blame freaking Kouga. He's sucked up probably close to literally half of this manga, when Jin's the main character. I don't see the point to developing him at all yet, hopefully it'll come into play later on in the series, but it better be soon. He can still be there, I just hate him for taking so much from the main event (Jin and Konoha's stories). Considering how freaking short most of the chapters are (and how little happens in a lot of them), it just seems to me that we could be a lot farther along if Kouga's arc was more condensed. If not farther along, at least better explained. A lot of stuff in this manga has yet to be explained:
Why he melts as a perfect human? is he the perfect human? how big/organized is Evol? what are their eventual goals (mostly regarding Zetman, humans, and the Players' roll in the world)? what are the ulterior motives and projects of the Amagi corp? Is Zetman a good or bad thing? If good, why does he have to go into a rage and get hurt to transform? Is it a good thing to be working with Amagi corp and the Amagi grandfather? Why the hell did those events "2 years ago" cause him to be "99.25% human?" What % was he before and what would have happened naturally if the Amagi's didn't force things? Is grandfather Amagi "using" Jin or truly doing something good for him?
There are more I'm sure, but we'll leave it at those. Those are my main problems with this manga, it's a bit slow paced to begin with, then they go and waste 30 chapters on a side character, so now we're left with barely a clue to what's really going on behind the spin and lies (after 90 chapters), and to top it all off Konoha has like never talked to Jin since they were kids!
