Master Keaton volume 8 has the usual mix of chapters typical to the series — some period Cold War adventures where Keaton has to stop an assassination; some heartstring-tugging family mysteries, where Keaton has to reunite relatives who have misunderstood each other; some life-or-death struggles, where Keaton’s military training is all that keeps the stubborn alive. But the chapter that stood out to me most in this collection was the one where we find out how he became an insurance […]

As a mature series, Master Keaton has settled into a groove that I find more enjoyable than I thought I would. That makes sense, since this volume seven is just past the halfway point of the eventual 12-volume Viz English run. (Assuming I’ve counted correctly. The Japanese series ran 18 books of 8 chapters each, but each translated volume contains 12 chapters, meaning that this volume 7 collects the original volume 10 and half of 11.) Each of these chapters […]

The Master Keaton series has hit its stride with these volumes, now that the title character has settled into a groove as a globe-trotting adventurer. He mentions, at times, his theory of culture development or his love of academia, but he now seems resigned to his investigation work, where his skills as a former special forces soldier come into play. Some of the stories have also gotten longer, which allows for more development of characters and plots, a welcome change. […]

I was concerned about this in my review of volume 2, but Master Keaton volume 3, aside from a couple of brief nods to archaeology, has turned Taichi Hiraga Keaton into a globe-trotting adventurer, which makes the stories more generic and seemingly more of their time. Several times while reading through the encounters in this installment, I found myself thinking, “oh, yeah, that was a thing we were concerned about in the 80s, wasn’t it?” In one two-parter, Keaton serves […]

Naoki Urasawa is a modern manga master, well-known here for his works Monster, 20th Century Boys, and Pluto. That reputation means we get the pleasure of seeing his earlier, more adventure-oriented stories in Master Keaton. Urasawa was the artist here, with story by Hokusei Katsushika and later, Takashi Nagasaki. Originally published beginning in 1988, this series is being released in deluxe, oversized volumes (matching the Monster re-release) with color pages. Viz is calling the series “post-Cold War detective suspense” — […]

Monster originally ran from 1994-2001 in Japan, and Viz serialized it in English from 2006-2008. Those volumes, out of print, have been in demand for two reasons. First, author Naoki Urasawa is now better known in the US, winning a couple of Eisner Awards for 20th Century Boys and gathering a great deal of critical praise for Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka. Plus, Monster may become an HBO TV series. So Viz has done the smart thing. They’re reprinting Monster in […]