 Hey everybody! Today we're gonna be going over Ran and the Grey World, so stay tuned! Welcome back to the channel everybody, Geo here, and finally I get to discuss Ran and the Grey World on this channel. I have been collecting this manga ever since it was released stateside, and I am so excited that I finally read the entire thing with Volume 7 being the epic finale. And instead of doing the first impressions video, instead of doing a slight overview of the first book, I wanted to do a proper series review for Ran and the Grey World. So what exactly is this manga about? Well, first you need to know that it is written and drawn by Akie Irie, and it has to me, in my honest opinion, one of the best covers in manga. I love them so much. They're so rich and full of detail, and you get a sense of wonder and amazement from it. That was the determining factor for me to go ahead and pick this up and give it a read. Obviously, I was baited by some friends with the wonderful art in this, and we'll go over the art in a few. But what exactly is Ran and the Grey World? We're following the character of Ran Uruma, as you can see right here. There are actually two versions of that character. You can see her tiny form right there, the original. She's basically a child who is able to use these magic sneakers to turn into an adult. So thank Billy Batson, Captain Marvel slash Shazam from DC Comics, but in a manga fantasy setting. This is based on the real world. The characters inhabit a real city, but they have magical roots in their history and all that stuff. You see, Ran is in a family that's filled with epic sorcery and powerful magical users. Her mom Shizuka Uruma is this very powerful sorceress. She's in charge of safekeeping this village that they hail from that is sort of in this alternate plane of existence on earth, and they have these massive gates in this feudal Japan looking city that is safeguarding the rest of the world, I guess, from evil and evil forces and foul creatures from escaping and invading earth and causing chaos, death and destruction. So that is her job, so unfortunately Shizuka cannot spend time with the Uruma family, which has caused a great grievance in that family. You've got the character of Zen Uruma, the head of the family, and the head of that village. He is the master and is able to turn into a freaking giant crow, which is badass, and carries a giant mallet that he uses to fight, which instantly won me over. You also have the character of Zen Uruma, the eldest child in this family. Zen is very overprotective of Ran and he is able to turn into basically an Okami wolf type creature and has super fast reflexes, strength and agility and all that stuff and all the traits that come with wolves, dogs, and all that stuff. But the character of Ran Uruma is our main protagonist. She is vivacious, quirky, wholesome, a bundle of energy, and she's pretty hilarious at times because she wants to be a grown-up, she wants to do the things that everybody's doing, but she also wants to be a kid and is conflicted between the two. She wants to experience things that the adults are doing, so hence there, you know, she's using the slippers to turn into an adult version of herself and the chaos that ensues because of it. The story revolves around that fact and how her actions sort of spiral into a story of first loves, of finding yourself, of growing up, what it means to grow up. Those are sort of the central themes of the story. Ran obviously wants to grow up, but Jean doesn't want that to happen. He is constantly denying her the usage of the slippers or the tennis shoes, I should say, so it leads into some comedic efforts on her part to sneak away and be able to use them. Now that sort of leads into a plot point that some people, and I saw some videos online and some people writing about it, some of my friends expressed several concerns about it, it leads into a plot point of the series that some find a little odd. Let's just say that much. There is this particular character that we'd learn in the, I believe he shows up in the first ball, even if I remember correctly, or not the second one, which should be right here. The character is Otaro Mikado, and Otaro is a very selfish playboy young adult who has had previous relations with women and is very vain and confused and angry but won't admit it. Instead, he just comes off as an eccentric millionaire type playboy. He finds Ran as an adult and is entranced and fixated on her, and at first he doesn't know what it is because there's something ethereal and magical about her. You see this is a world like our own that doesn't have magic, nobody really believes in that stuff, but it's there and he doesn't know why, but like every step that she's taking it's like she's floating when technically she is because she's you know the daughter of a sorcerer so she does have abilities although they're underdeveloped because she's still growing up. So the character of Otaro ends up falling in love with her, but she doesn't really understand what's happening. She's a kid and the story sort of leaves it at that it you know the imagination will run wild with the character and there are a couple of scenes where you're like oh man but her reaction is fitting because it's what we expect her character to do, but the character of Otaro by not knowing Ran's true nature I can sort of let that plot go even though I do find it a little bit odd like everybody mentioned a little bit irksome because we've seen that stuff in the past where you have characters that again like Ran or like I said earlier Billy Batson in the case of American comics where they want to do grown-up things and part of the fun is seeing their reaction and how they don't have the knowledge of it so that clash of ideology and thought and how in the case of Ran there's this guy who finds her attractive and beautiful and stuff and she's basically telling him like no you're gross stop that you're a pervert and instead she develops feelings of friendship and eventual love and admiration because again she is a young girl learning about different things however misguided and twisted and weird it may be it's sort of a metaphor about us growing up as young kids and young adults and teenagers and all that stuff I think that's where the story was kind of headed with that aspect there is several action scenes throughout the plot which relate to something that happens with the hidden village I mentioned that they're keeping forces at bay and when one of those forces escapes it sort of moves the plot along where we finally find an antagonistic force and the results from that will transform the village its inhabitants the real world people as well as the Uruma family ran specifically now she is a young kid she's experiencing a lot of things for the first time she's also wanting to learn magic and sorcery her mother appoints a sort of magical teacher if you will so you get to see more characters introduced like Tamau the instructor who was pretty hilarious I really enjoyed her character and a rival in the character of Neo who is a previous pupil of Tamau so yeah several of the chapters deviate from what you would expect and instead go into sort of slice of life territory with Rand learning not only about real world problems or first loves or adult stuff if you will but she also learns about you know learning the craft and finding friendship because she is such a quirky child she is made fun of in school and doesn't really have friends and through the actions of Neo as well as other characters like Hebe who I will talk about in a couple seconds she's able to find friendship and evolve and grow as a person the character of Hebe is a bully that eventually wants to form a friendship with her and I thought that was probably the strongest aspect of the book that I really enjoyed and I found it really heartwarming and beautiful to see these two characters come together and form a friendship out of adversity because at first he's a bully and you know he's able to spend time with her and is entranced as well by her now I say entranced and that is possible by the wonderful art from Aki Ide who I was just mesmerized and blown away by how talented she is as a mangaka her art is simply stunning to look at it's it has the right elements and the right mixture of comedy and drama and fantasy you could see stuff like like your flying witch or your jibbly inspiration stuff like that you see it throughout this story as the characters behave and their expressions are formed and all that stuff I really really enjoyed the art and it's probably the biggest selling point for the series unfortunately for Ran and the Grey World at seven volumes the story is pretty quick to the point once you start learning where the plot is headed especially when I said about the antagonist you sort of realize okay this is what's gonna happen and it sort of happens to the letter but it's still fun to read because you're getting characters doing things that are unexpected and you're getting crazy wonderful beautiful visuals that just borderline the thread of what's real and what's not and fiction fantasy magic all those elements combine into something really special and the characters are probably the main driving force of the whole thing sure it can look fantastic and beautiful and magical but if the characters don't respond to that and you don't you don't create a link for us the reader to empathize and and like these guys and then the story's gonna fall flat fortunately it doesn't because Ran is such a bubbly wholesome young girl that you want to root for her and you want her to succeed even though the whole stuff with Otaro it might be a little bit odd the series doesn't go into too weird of a territory and I thought it handled things somewhat well by the end where you have the character of Ran coming to a realization about what love and what friendship and and honor and family and all these things mean to a person as they're growing up you get multiple flash forwards or time skips I should say near the end and it's a very satisfying experience to see them grow up I would have liked more chapters to see that natural progression but I do understand that you know uh the story ends at volume six by the way the whole volume seven which is pretty thick let me let me get that book right here for you guys you know compared to everything else this is a pretty thick volume right here the finale and it mostly contains sort of like a giant epilogue to the series and I like that it gives it gives us a time to say goodbye to these characters and this wonderful world there could have been a lot more story to tell unfortunately it ends the way it ends there are a couple of heartwarming side stories which I I was just floored by especially Jin's origin of him growing up was probably one of the most unique heartwarming and touching origin stories I've read for a character in fiction it's so unique and beautiful and awesome that I I teared up reading it and thinking about it sort of brings that emotion again there's also a couple stories here near the end where we do get to see the characters from the village and you come to like these characters you don't really need to know a whole lot about them but everybody's so cheerful and outgoing and optimistic that you can't help but fall in love with the setting and the character work and world building I should say which I thought was pretty cool it's a pretty self-contained story because you're in the main town in Japan and you also see these characters in this alternate reality and that's it you don't really explore too much or too far and it sort of gives you that opportunity to come to love the villagers and the uruma family and all that stuff so yeah I cannot praise it enough I really enjoyed it I thought it was great several missteps with the whole otaro thing the majority of the book is just wonderful and wholesome to read great interesting characters a short read at seven volumes which is a perfect length because you've got a solid start middle and end to a fantasy story and just gorgeous beautiful fantastic artwork that I cannot recommend enough I mean seriously look at how insanely detailed these covers are and look uh nope I can't show you that that's a pretty big spoiler let me check on a different image of here we go you know art like that which just looks fantastic and the details and backgrounds and all that stuff just look really awesome as well the character of sango is pretty interesting one of my favorite side characters from the story and her arc as well as everybody's I do think they come full circle and they give you a very satisfying end to most of the characters there's a particular lesson that's you know they teach you at the end which was very inspirational and was the core message of this book and it's about growing up and finding oneself in the middle of it so yeah uh have you read ran in the gray world let me know what you think if you've read it if not tell me what is some of your favorite slice of life or fantasy stories and manga or an anime or comics I'm very interested in finding out guys thank you so much for tuning in thank you for liking commenting subscribing and being a part of a week in geek them it really does mean a whole lot follow me on social media there's a merch link down below in the comments section and if you'd be so kind please hit the bell icon so you know when new videos pop up I've got to go I've got more manga to read more anime to watch so I will catch all of you on our next episode