Tomahawk Angel Volume 1

The art stuns you at every page and if the author sees this I came after seeing a post on instagram.Anyways seems like there is a secret code. I don’t know if it even follows English. A great book to guide the American audience.

I really want to like this. I found out about Tomahawk Angel through the mangaka’s Instagram and decided to support the project. I’m still glad I did, as I think that Ody is an amazing artist and personality, but I wish that I found more to like in his project.

Positives first: The art style is mostly incredible. The highlights are the monsters. They feel genuinely frightening, akin to the experience of seeing the Alien from the Aliens films for the first time. In fact, there is likely a lot of Alien inspiration in their design and there is no harm there. Ody also does well when filling out backgrounds and drawing machines, which are two very tricky details for artists. As Ody is a solo artist, this makes his eye for detail more impressive. Secondly, some of the twists in the narrative are genuinely interesting.

Story-wise, Tomahawk Angel is pretty generic. It utilizes a lot of tropes (i.e. main character has amnesia, main character has a dark superpower, and more that I won’t reveal as these are spoilers) and does not do much to subvert or elevate them. The dialogue and characters feel really clunky, and the relationships that the main character develops are not given enough time to grow naturally before we are thrown back into the action. There are moments where Val’s character is inconsistent, and her personality switches. I chalk this up to the fact that she is a main character and therefore must display “bravery” despite the fact that she knows nothing about the world she’s woken up into. Finally, the only portion of Ody’s art that does not feel refined are his human characters. I feel that Ody may struggle with drawing his characters in a manga-style. This is most evident in their expression where sometimes their features are drawn amateurishly. I believe that this is only really an issue because most everything else is drawn with such meticulous detail that it makes their awkward faces stand out.

I know that this honesty may seem really harsh, but I am rooting for Ody and I will continue to support him and purchase Tomahawk Angel. After all, I am only one person and my opinion does not speak for everyone. I am excited to see how Ody can improve upon this story moving forward.