Holiday Review #11: DUR-AN-KI by The Manga Test Drive / Anime Blog Tracker

Holiday Review #11: DUR-AN-KI

There was some original fantasy manga to be found in 2025. Fittingly enough, some of it came from the team that helped to craft one of manga's greatest fantasy epics.DUR-AN-KI (Duruanki), written by Kentaro Miura with art by Studio Gaga. First published in 2019 and first published in North America in 2025.PLOT:Long ago, the gods of ancient Greece and the Fertile Crescent combined their waning powers to create a child with the qualities of both man and god, man and woman. This child, Usumgal, grows up carefree in the hillsides among the livestock and natural spirits. Eventually they make friends with some of the boys from the local village, using their talent to make helpful devices and aid them on their hunts. The more Usumgal spends time with other people, the more they learn about the human world for both good and ill.STORY:Nothing is more frustrating than reviewing an unfinished work. That goes double for an unfinished work by the late Kentaro Miura, although it was his team of assistants who did much of the actual work. Dur-An-Ki is one of his last, a story that began as his own riff on isekai and ended as a mish-mass of ancient Greek and Mesopotamian mythology and history. It's just hard to tell precisely where they were going with it all.It would seem to be a tale about the loss of innocence for both Usumgal in particular and humanity as a whole. The more time Usumgal spends with the humans in the village, the further away he gets from the peace of the natural world and the world of the old gods. In turn, the more knowledge the villagers seek (be it of their own initiative or through Usumgal), the more they use it to fight among themselves for power and land. Or maybe it's a more personal loss of innocence, considering so much of this book is focused on the budding friendship between Usumgal and Kirta, the leader of the boys who turns out to be the prince of the region. Both of them are at the metaphorical crossroads between childhood and adulthood, where the freedoms and attachments of youth gives way to the responsibilities and burdens of being an adult. In Kirta's case that burden is even greater since becoming an adult means taking up the sword and taking on some of his father's responsibilities towards the community at large. Yet he can't help but find himself drawn to Usumgal in a way that could be a crush or could be some dawning awareness of Usumgal's unearthly nature. Sadly, just as things are getting exciting and the two find themselves facing off against a manticore...it just stops. This manga had only run sporadically for a few years before Miura died, and the editors and his team of assistants chose to stop it and publish it as-is. This choice casts a sad pall over the entire book, its unfinished state serving as a memorial to a career cut off all too soon and potential that will now never be achieved.ART:Do I even have to say that this book looks great? Of course it does, it's drawn by the team that's spent literal decades honing their craft on freaking Berserk. The backgrounds are lush and the character designs are lovingly detailed and wonderfully naturalistic in their poses. I do wonder if they struggled a little with the fact that most of the cast are children. It's not so much of an issue with Usumgal, who is positively cherubic in their androgynous beauty, but more so with Kirta and his friends. There's an awkwardness in their proportions which might be purposeful (since they are children on the verge of adolescence) but also just might be the mark of a team more used to drawing adults. At the very least, it's hard to look at Kirta's dark, spiky hair, serious face, and overgrown eyebrows and not be reminded of a very young Guts.If there's anything wrong here, it's that Dark Horse published this in the standard tankobon size. This is art that's meant to be published at magazine scale, if simply to give this art some breathing space. In its current state it feels cramped and dense, to the point that it's almost a little hard to parse. PRESENTATION:The last quarter of this volume is taken up with concept sketches and the script for Miura's original concept of this story, back when it was called "Amazones." It's kind of a shame that we didn't get this version, as I would have certainly been curious to see Miura and his team take on such a modern, trendy genre like isekai fantasy in their own particular fashion.RATING:Dur-An-Ki is a handsome and intriguing book, but anyone who isn't a die-hard Miura fan will likely look upon its unfinished state and regard it as nothing more than a curiosity.This book is published by Dark Horse Comics. It is currently in print.There's only two weeks left in our Holiday Review Giveaway! To find out more and potentially win a $25 Bookshop.org gift certificate, click the link above.

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