Simple drawing ability is not the only thing that a manga artist needs to make their manga believable. A manga needs direction, character development, and gullible dialogue. Of course, some manga artists miss the memo, and in the end, they create a lukewarm manga built upon a weak foundation.

One such manga artist is Ako Yutenji with her break-out manga development, Liling-po, a story about a young master thief named Liling-po who has to team up with two government officials to reclaim the legendary Eight Treasures. The Eight Treasures, rumored to grant any desirable wish to whomever pieces the eight items together, is recognizable only to the captured Liling-po. With Liling-po on their side, Mei-Toku, a commoner-risen officer, and Bu-Cho, a noble officer, search for the Eight Treasures while learning about each other and themselves.

Although Yutenji shows typical drawing ability while telling the story, the content surrounding the artistic panels seems underdeveloped. The direction of manga becomes confusing rather quickly into the introduction of the characters. I believe the reason for the lack of direction throughout the manga is due to the absence of several transitional scenes. Normally, most developed mangas jump from one region of the manga to the next through a small panel of a building or a backdrop.

Hmm, the memo was probably lost in the mail, right, Miss Yutenji?

Not only are the transitional scenes rare between each event in the manga, the ability to create a convincing individual from paper and quirky print disappears into thin air. The main character, Liling-po, the young master thief, has the personality of a street kid, and although he seems to have more than one dimension to his personality, Yutenji hardly lets him grow into that persona. He remains the punk kid thief with a stealing complex against the nobles—basically, a parallel to Robin Hood.

After Liling-po, meet the noble: Bu-cho, a high-ranked officer with a straightforward personality, despises working with commoners. I hoped that Yutenji would gradually soften his personality until he would see his common-placed partners as misfit “friends.” My hopes come true, but despite Yutenji’s attempt to “better” Bu-cho’s high-and-mighty attitude towards Mei-Toku and Liling-po, his personality growth pulls a stop-and-go throughout the manga.

The only character in the story that seems to have more than an one-point-five dimension personality is Mei-Toku, the commoner officer. Already, Mei-Toku is shown as a hard-working, intelligent character with a will to reach the highest standards in himself. Unfortunately, Mei-Toku’s amount of will pales next to his multiple complexes, which are mostly involved with his appearance. Mei-Toku’s low confidence brings out the lowly status he holds—and thankfully, it helps the character complicate the simplistic plot that needs to be complicated.

Then again, complication should stop at the character development, especially with Yutenji working her artistically underdeveloped hand on the dialogue of the story. The words that she uses are simple—barely two dollar words—but the dialogue still is not believable for such a plot. The dialogue jumps as much as her transitional scenes are scarce. The purpose of each word is not realized until much later into the manga, and by that point, the words have gone through one ear and out the other ear. As an avid manga reader and an upcoming artist, I believe that dialogue should tie back to its original content in a few pages, not in the word “eventually.”

Speaking of “eventually,” Ako Yutenji’s manga eventually made it to the market amidst the presence of the great Tokyopop. However undeveloped Liling-po is, just possessing Tokyopop’s red insignia on the spine of manga automatically screams, “This artist received the memo! She knows how to draw, write, and direct!” Then again, the memo was probably lodged in a hidden slot in the mailroom, right, Miss Yutenji?

Basically: Don’t buy it, borrow it!

Rating: 2 out of 10.