 Uh, yeah, I should be reviewing the book, right? Not playing, but let's go with it. Welcome back to the channel everybody, Gio here, and today we're going to be talking about the King of Fighters, a new beginning, the brand new manga that just came out, courtesy of Seven Seas Entertainment, and I actually want to give a shout out to Seven Seas for sending me an advanced copy to review and talk about. So yeah, the King of Fighters. I have to be completely honest with you guys. I had very little knowledge about the series, I didn't grow up playing it. I was more of a Nintendo kid, and of course I was, when it came to fighting games, I think the only one I really liked was Street Fighter because of the colorful cast. I knew about the King of Fighters, but it wasn't something that I seeked out. I knew about Mai, and Terry, and characters like that, which of course transcend the franchise. Uh, you know, they are characters that you know regardless of if you've played the game or not. So I went back and replayed the games, specifically 96 and 98, which, I played 94 to 2003 King of Fighters. And I gotta say, the only ones I genuinely liked using was 96 and 98. I know people like to go back and forth with which version is their favorite or not, but I'm just telling you, as somebody that just started playing recently, those two stood out to me, and I know they're pretty famous, so that must be for a reason, right? I don't know. I'm not the biggest expert when it comes to fighting games. I like playing them, and I love the characters and seeing all the combos and moves, but I'm no good at them. Like, I am pretty terrible at them, if you ask me. I can button mash with the best of them. So the King of Fighters, A New Beginning is written by Kiotaru Azuma, and it's published by Kodansha, licensed of course in North America by Seven Seas Entertainment, and it brings a sort of fresh air to the franchise. I learned that this manga is adapting the King of Fighters 14 video game into manga form, but also it has an air of freshness to it. It's very reader friendly. If you don't know what King of Fighters is, it's basically this big tournament where you fight to become the very best, and of course there's gonna be bad guys and evil corporations, and dubious characters and all that stuff. Of course you're gonna have your protagonist and heroes, depending on which character you use and the story reflects on that. It's a very simple, basic, yet effective premise that you've seen throughout fighting video games and fighting shounen manga and battle tournaments and all that stuff. It's very standard. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just the way it behaves. It's just the nature of the beast is what I'm trying to get at. With the King of Fighters new beginning, we are seeing the rise of a new tournament by this character Antonov. He is the self-proclaimed champion, I guess, and he's funding with some, I guess, third parties and dubious corporations. He's funding this brand new tournament edition of the King of Fighters and it attracts returning characters and I think well over what, like 45 characters, which is insane for a roster, especially on a manga, and you literally spend the first two chapters of the first volume introducing all the characters and they are in three-man squads, so you get their introductions by some very colorful commentary and then the team presentation. So you do get a lot of teams involved in this and they all have their own motive. I mean you've got Team Japan, K-Team, Team China, Team South America, Team Mexico, which was hilarious because the first thing, that's the weirdest Team Mexico I've ever seen in any fictional manga or anime or game. You also have the women fighters, you've got Team South Town and the Fatal Fury team, Art of Fighting team, Psycho Soldiers, it goes on like that, each with three characters and you know a whole bunch of them, I do believe some of them are new to either the game it's based on, the 14th King of Fighters or the manga. You will have to correct me on that, I'm not super knowledgeable with the franchise, but after those first two chapters you start getting the first fight and it's really fun. It plays heavily into tropes when it comes to battle arcs, if you've read any Shonen battle series, if you've played any fighting games, it sticks to the formula, it doesn't try to break the mold too much but it still has such a kinetic energy and presence to it that you fall in and you're in for the ride and it looks fantastic, I love the artwork. The fights are really easy to follow which is a plus because that's the main bread and butter of a title like this, the actual fighting and if you can't have a dynamic battle, it's not going to be as exciting I think, but they really did a good job with capturing the essence of a fighting game in a comic, in a manga and the way that these characters behave and the attack moves and all that stuff, it's not too blurry or convoluted, you do understand what's happening and it's always fun to see the dynamic between such different characters because when it comes to games like this, part of the appeal is having such a widely ranged roster, not everybody looks exactly the same, they're not generic, everybody has their own unique flair and I do think the manga captures that pretty well from the video game franchise. Now unfortunately the first volume ends on quite the cliffhanger, just when you're getting into it, it's over and you really do want to pick up volume 2 to see how the story progresses which I thought was really cool, but I wish we could have gotten just, I know the main purpose is to go in and fight but I wish we could get sort of a little breather or a prologue chapter or something because it just puts you right at the start like if you were playing a video game and you hit start and there we go the tournament starting, I wish maybe it could have gotten us like chapter zero or something on how we got to that point just a little bit for fans new to the readers new to the series I should say, I don't know maybe it shouldn't be a carbon copy of a fighting game and maybe you could flesh out a little bit more and give us sort of a behind the scenes instead of jumping right into the action without too much characterization because like I said the first two chapters since there's like 45 freaking fighters you're spending a whole lot of time just introducing characters with quick little sentences on like the fighting fury and they're good because of this it's so and so instead of doing that I don't know maybe it's because I'm not accustomed to the King of Fighters franchise could be that I am getting ahead of myself and maybe the later volumes are going to explore a little bit more in between the fights which would be cool so we'll see but overall I do wholeheartedly enjoyed that first volume it was fun action packed the action was intense the drawings are very clean cut and precise the fighting is very fluid and you can follow it the stories engaging enough if you like martial arts and fighting if you love the video game franchise obviously you're gonna have a fun time with a new beginning it's a very fun way to get people into the franchise you don't have to play the games you don't have to know anything about the games I think the manga does a very good job of establishing the world and the character specifically which is the main appeal I guess and bringing you in to a very famous franchise without feeling overwhelmed so yeah I do recommend it the King of Fighters a new beginning written by Kyotaro Azuma it's a fun martial arts manga that I think you will have a fun time checking out if you do check it out let me know in the comments below also what's your favorite martial arts manga very interested in finding out guys as always thank you so much for liking commenting subscribing and being a part of a week and geek them thank you so much to the folks over at Seven Seas Entertainment for making this video possible thank you so much I'm deeply humbled and flattered and just that's that's pretty damn epic thank you so much for allowing me the opportunity to do a video like this and review King of Fighters a new beginning volume one I have got to go follow me on social media hit the little bell icon so you know when your videos pop up I've got more stuff to read and review so I will catch all of you on our next episode