Ryu’s Musings – 0/6 (Zero/Six) Volume 01

14_1_1 ISBN-13: 9781600090202
Language: English
Direction: Left to Right
Pages: 176
by: Youjung Lee
Publisher: NetComics
Type: Series
Genre: Fantasy, Shonen
Synopsis:

At first glance Moolchi is just another shy, unassuming boy whose greatest talents are running away from bullies and binging on vitamin supplements. Then one day, seemingly out of the blue, Moolchi’s absentee father sends him a most unusual gift–a stunningly-proportioned ‘girl’ who may or may not be made of flesh and blood. She calls herself ‘Six’ and mumbles incoherently about having a ‘prime directive.’ This strange and exquisite creature quickly turns the boy’s life upside-down, violently disposing of junior-high hooligans and anybody else who gets in his or her way, all while wearing a getup that would make Barbarella blush. In the midst of these baffling occurrences, Moolchi just can’t seem to stop worrying about his German homework. The word ‘oblivious’ barely does him justice as Moolchi remains blissfully unaware of his father’s dangerous double-life, or the cute hall monitor who harbors a crush on him, or the intentions of this mysterious femme fatale who insists on bathing with him. Meanwhile, ominous storm clouds gather on the horizon, and one lingering question looms above the others…who is this so-called ‘Zero’ that everybody is looking for?

Character Musings:

Moolchi is a dweeb, pure and simple. He’s always the victim of bullies, gets pushed around by the teachers, and ignored by the girls. He’s always popping vitamin pills and longs to be strong so he can have his revenge.

Jong-E is a machine, supposedly. She’s been sent to protect Moolchi but seems to cause more trouble than she resolves. She’s supposed to listen to his orders, but tends to ignore him at the weirdest times.

General Musings:

This was the third title I picked up from NetComics by Youjung Lee. The first was the awesome Yodong’s Vampire, the second we wont talk about (it was so bad), and now this one.

After the second series, Let’s be Perverts, I’d sort of lost heart. However the first chapter of 0/6 had something that caught my attention and made me want to read more of the volume.

The plot is nothing new, it’s as generic as they come. However I liked the way Lee brought the story to life in the first volume. Granted it takes a while for the story to actually get moving, but once it did it seems to be going down an interesting route.

Unfortunately due to the amount of time it takes to get going it’s not until the last chapter of the volume that things get interesting. The revelations in that chapter more than make up for the slow starting.

Much like Yodong’s Vampire the art of this volume isn’t that great, frankly I found it lacking in pretty much every area with regards to the art. The girl character designs have clearly had more time spent on them the guys, and it shows. Since the girls are pretty much the only one that I’ve seen so far that are done consistently through out the volume.

Moolchi himself went through several designs in the volume, and while it’s not as bad as in other volumes, it does lack consistency.

I have to admit however that I rather enjoyed this volume, and I will be picking up the subsequent volumes.

Publisher Musings:

Once again I read this on the NetComics website in their eReader, I’ve added the paper ed to my to buy list so will update this when it arrives.

Once again NetComics decided to edit out the SFX of the volume, so minus points for that. The fonts used this time are sharper and bolder, making them easier to read and follow. It’s a good value for money as well, considering you get the first chapter for free, and the others for $0.20 a chapter.

In the last chapter there was a phrase that really didn’t sit right with me. One of the bullies refers to someone as ‘senior’ which really just didn’t sit right for the setting. I don’t usually agree with re-writes, but I do think if you’re going to translate everything, you need to do selective dropping of words, so they fit both the character and setting. For example in this case I would have dropped the ‘senior’ since I don’t know anyone who’d call a friend by that.

It’s an interesting start to a series however and one I’m looking forward to following through on.

Author: Ryu Sheng