Set in San Diego, Sheesh Maccabee must rebound from an unfortunate stint in a mental hospital. This comes after spending multiple days at an Internet café playing World of Warfare. It’s not the mere playing of a video game for a long stretch of time with little regard for personal well being that gets him in trouble. Rather, it’s the fact that he acts out his battles on unsuspecting bystanders. He vows to never play another online game as part of his rehabilitation. This plan proves successful until he leaves the shelter of home and enters the uncertainty of college.

King of RPGs is able to create compelling characters by piecing together various traits from various established manga archetypes. This seems to be intentional as this story is a satire of role-playing and more general gaming subcultures. Luckily for the reader, Thompson takes only the most interesting character traits and puts in a dash of improbable plausibility.

When Sheesh and his best friend Mike are pulled into the world of table-top gaming, they run into one of the more interesting characters of the story. Theo Dudek believes so firmly in role-playing, rules and gaming that he’s lost all sense of what’s important. His benign exterior masks the more sinister nature of his character; Imagine Death Note’s Light or Rurouni Kenshin’s Shishio before they had power and influence. They needed to convince others to help build their twisted vision of the perfect world. The biggest difference between the aforementioned characters and Theo is the simple fact that the characters are still firmly grounded in reality without any supernatural shonen antics. The trivial nature of playing games also tones down the sinister implications of Theo and his budding relationship with Sheesh and his friends.

Theo’s obsession is the catalyst for a series of events that sends Sheesh on a rollercoaster ride of trouble with the bombastic Rona Orzack. This student cop, for some as-yet-unexplained reason has a vendetta against all gamers, perhaps best illustrated when’s she incinerates the card collection of a detained little boy. As she sets her sights on Sheesh, she’s reminiscent of Koichi Zenigata in Lupin the 3^rd. Time after time, she always comes up short, narrowly missing her opportunity to rid the world of Sheesh Maccabee. As the characters are bounced back and forth between renaissance fairs and vampire guilds, the focus is always squared on role-playing.

Readers might skip this title because of the overwhelming abundance of references to Dungeons and Dragons, World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs. But, even if you’ve never played one game of Yu-Gi-Oh! or Magic the Gathering, you can purchase this book and enjoy the artwork and manga-influenced storytelling. The other half of King of RPGs is illustrator Victor Hao. Evan Miller recently featured Victor in The Gallery column at Anime News Network. Here he crafts scenes that would be at home in the pages of any card game based title.

Thompson does a convincing job building characters and presenting fun back-stories that make them more than just plot devices that maintain the forward momentum of the story. Gavin Slane is the perfect example of this point. he is reminiscent of Yu-Gi-Oh!’s Pegasus Crawford: a powerful, corrupt and a master manipulator. Despite this, he is portrayed in a realistic fashion that makes him less of a caricature and more a person who happens to have major character flaws. It wouldn’t be surprising if he becomes the classic enemy that turns into a friend.

With all this praise, there are some pacing problems with the fantasy elements in the story. Thompson does a better job dealing with the real world scenerios than the more supernatural fight scenes. The two factors that stopped this first volume from scoring an “A” were both the Mages and Monsters scene in chapter one and the Cosmic Genocide fight in chapter three. In theory, the idea of bridging the real world with fantasy is fantastic. There are just some pacing problems with the action of the game play and the importance of the outcome. There are slight improvements with the later Cosmic Genocide bout, but there is still a persistent feeling of unease flipping through those pages.

Problems aside, King of RPGs is a love letter to manga. There are so many hidden references and inside jokes that the reader is bound to find humor on every page. Not only does it skewer the characters in various manga titles, but it also paints a picture of the fans of the culture. It reminds of Genshiken and Welcome to the NHK mixed with almost every one of those ridiculous shonen gaming series. Getting past its flaws it is smart, witty and unpredictable.

Overall Grade: B