Thanks to barnesandnoble.com for the image.

Fourteen-year-old Yoshimori Sumimura is just a high school student, but the fate of his people rests on his shoulders in the manga, Kekkaishi from creator Yellow Tanabe.

A kekkaishi (the word means “barrier master”) is a demon hunter that specializes in creating magical barriers around his prey, and a Kekkaishi’s prey is usually a group of supernatural beings known as ayakashi, which are basically demons.  Passed down from one generation to the next, the job of a kekkaishi is to protect Karasumori Forest from the ayakashi.  Both Yoshimori and his neighbor Tokine Yukimura, a 16-year-old girl, are kekkaishi, although their families feud over which is the “true practitioner”.  Still, Yoshimori is clearly bursting with potential and great power.

Kekkaishi, Vol. 11 opens with the funeral for Gen, a friend of Yoshimori, killed in a battle with the ayakashi.  Yoshimori and his older brother, Masamori, feel the weight of Gen’s death in battle, and Yoshimori hungers for revenge.  When the ayakashi organization, Kokuboro, launches another attack, Yoshimori, is determined to use the invasion as a way into the heart of the organization and a chance to settle a score with Gen’s murderer.

THE LOWDOWN:  I’d like to believe that if Marvel Comics had actually fostered the imaginations of its creators long ago, Doctor Strange, might look something like Kekkaishi.  It’s filled with bracing battles between an imaginative array of wonderful and bizarre creatures, monsters, and villains fought by an equally remarkable collection of colorful heroes.  All of it is drawn in Yellow Tanabe’s beautiful art (which bears a passing resemblance to the work of both Bruce Timm and Darwyn Cooke).

Tanabe’s storytelling and character writing are also quite good.  The heroes are strong, but susceptible to grief and regret.  The villains are cool, confident, and visually stylish, but equally vulnerable and needy – desperate for the power that will maintain their existence.  By no means perfect (this volume features an extended dry section just before the midway point), Kekkaishi is a thrilling boys’ comic, full of fighting like Naruto and blazing with magic combat like Harry Potter.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  With its mixture of magic and a large ensemble cast, Kekkaishi may appeal to fans of Naruto, O-Parts, and especially D.Gray-Man.

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