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Infini-T Force Volume 1
It all began when high school student Emi Kaido received a mysterious, wish-granting pencil. With her life on the line, Emi uses the pencil to call upon heroes for protection! Gatchaman! Tekkaman! Casshan! Polimar! These defenders of justice cross space and time to help Emi weave the greatest tale of all time!
244 pages, Paperback
Published September 12, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 29, 2018
When Emi Kaido receives a mysterious pencil in the mail, her life takes a bizarre turn. During a robbery attempt, she uses the pencil and summons four heroes to her world: Ken Washio of Gatchaman, Tekkaman, Neoroider Casshan, and Hurricane Polimar! But what connection does the pencil have to Anathema, the mysterious new drug in town?
When I was a kid, Battle of the Planets, aka Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, was the first cartoon I latched onto that wasn't Batman & Robin or the Superfriends. When I saw the cover of this one, I had to pick it up.
The core concept is "What would happen if you summoned your four favorite super heroes to your world?" Emi Kaido does just that with her pencil and has to deal with the fallout. The heroes battle upon meeting, as super heroes always do for some reason. The Anathema drug ring is a convenient plot device to get them working together, as are the robots from Tekkaman's world bent on keeping the space time continuum in one piece.
The artwork is fantastic and the pencil is a great plot device, especially for crossovers. Why invent some bullshit reason for heroes to cross paths when you can just summon them with a drawing?
It was a satisfying first volume, mostly setting the stage for the four heroes to actually act as a team in future installments.
Infini-T Force has jumped to the top of my favorite new manga series list. Five out of five stars.
When I was a kid, Battle of the Planets, aka Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, was the first cartoon I latched onto that wasn't Batman & Robin or the Superfriends. When I saw the cover of this one, I had to pick it up.
The core concept is "What would happen if you summoned your four favorite super heroes to your world?" Emi Kaido does just that with her pencil and has to deal with the fallout. The heroes battle upon meeting, as super heroes always do for some reason. The Anathema drug ring is a convenient plot device to get them working together, as are the robots from Tekkaman's world bent on keeping the space time continuum in one piece.
The artwork is fantastic and the pencil is a great plot device, especially for crossovers. Why invent some bullshit reason for heroes to cross paths when you can just summon them with a drawing?
It was a satisfying first volume, mostly setting the stage for the four heroes to actually act as a team in future installments.
Infini-T Force has jumped to the top of my favorite new manga series list. Five out of five stars.
January 18, 2021
Far too many references to other pieces of Japanese pop culture that if you don’t know anything about them, you’ll be a little lost with the lack of description of who all these heroes are. The dialogue is jumpy.
February 4, 2018
Emi Kaido is not your normal high school girl. For starters, her father is always away on business (currently in Los Angeles) and her mother passed away, so Emi lives alone in a huge apartment. But perhaps more important is her love of tinkering with mechanical objects, taking them apart to learn how they work and usually being able to put them together again better. As part of this, Emi has learned how to draw, and is pretty good at it, if not professional level.
Emi’s a little surprised when a creepy-looking delivery guy brings a brightly-colored package to her door. It’s not her birthday or any other special day, but no time to think, as she’s late for school! At lunch, she realizes she brought the package instead of lunch. Inside is an oversized, childish-looking pencil. It’s labeled as a “Possibility Pencil” able to grant her every desire. Which sounds pretty unlikely, but when Emi draws a picture of her missing lunch, it shows up underneath her desk!
After school, and Emi communicating with her father to learn he wasn’t the anonymous sender, Emi finds herself in a dangerous situation with a drug-crazed criminal. Emi doesn’t have any defense training or weapons, and there’s no police in sight. She needs a hero! He’s got to be sure, and he’s got to be soon, and he’s got to be larger than life…anyhow, her hand takes over and sketches out four heroic figures on the floor with the pencil. There are three flashes of light, and a strange man in a gaudy costume comes in the door.
The man rescues Emi, and turns out to be Ken Washio, “Eagle Ken” of the Science Ninja Team Gatchaman! He’s a bit puzzled as to why he’s here, as the last thing he remembers is fighting along his comrades against the forces of Galactor. Emi doesn’t know how to send him back, but it soon becomes clear that her Earth is faced with other threats, which will need the intervention of not just Gatchaman, but Tekkaman, Casshan and Polimar as well.
This series is a love letter to the Tatsunoko Productions superhero shows of the 1970s. American readers may be vaguely familiar with some of them, in particular Gatchaman, which was heavily edited to become more suitable for U.S. children as Battle of the Planets. Fortunately, their stories are recapped here for people who might not have seen the originals. The somewhat silly magic pencil plot device makes this feel like many a crossover fanfic I’ve read over the years.
The heroes are introduced one by one in this first volume, showcasing their different personalities and philosophies of heroism. (Perhaps a bit exaggerated to create more conflict.) In particular, Gatchaman and Polimar clash over using lethal force on human opponents. (All the heroes are A-okay with lethal force against monsters and robots.)
Besides nostalgic oldsters like me, this manga is clearly aimed at the shounen (boys’) market. There are a couple of gratuitous fanservice shots of Emi, and she is generally useless outside of providing support for the male heroes. Her magic pencil seems to have very limited power outside of summoning heroes or power-ups for heroes, and an attempt to open a gate back to Casshan’s world backfires badly. This could in its way be a homage to the original shows, which tended to treat women as damsels in distress or the “heart” of any grouping.
It’s not clear if the villains are a team-up of past Tatsunoko enemies under a new leader, or if the new villains are just using familiar tactics. In particular, the enemy leader is shrouded in mystery.
I’d like to see Emi’s school friend Sanae take a larger role in future chapters, just to amend the gender imbalance a bit.
Recommended to fans of Tatsunoko superhero shows, and tokusatsu (special effect show) fans in general.
Emi’s a little surprised when a creepy-looking delivery guy brings a brightly-colored package to her door. It’s not her birthday or any other special day, but no time to think, as she’s late for school! At lunch, she realizes she brought the package instead of lunch. Inside is an oversized, childish-looking pencil. It’s labeled as a “Possibility Pencil” able to grant her every desire. Which sounds pretty unlikely, but when Emi draws a picture of her missing lunch, it shows up underneath her desk!
After school, and Emi communicating with her father to learn he wasn’t the anonymous sender, Emi finds herself in a dangerous situation with a drug-crazed criminal. Emi doesn’t have any defense training or weapons, and there’s no police in sight. She needs a hero! He’s got to be sure, and he’s got to be soon, and he’s got to be larger than life…anyhow, her hand takes over and sketches out four heroic figures on the floor with the pencil. There are three flashes of light, and a strange man in a gaudy costume comes in the door.
The man rescues Emi, and turns out to be Ken Washio, “Eagle Ken” of the Science Ninja Team Gatchaman! He’s a bit puzzled as to why he’s here, as the last thing he remembers is fighting along his comrades against the forces of Galactor. Emi doesn’t know how to send him back, but it soon becomes clear that her Earth is faced with other threats, which will need the intervention of not just Gatchaman, but Tekkaman, Casshan and Polimar as well.
This series is a love letter to the Tatsunoko Productions superhero shows of the 1970s. American readers may be vaguely familiar with some of them, in particular Gatchaman, which was heavily edited to become more suitable for U.S. children as Battle of the Planets. Fortunately, their stories are recapped here for people who might not have seen the originals. The somewhat silly magic pencil plot device makes this feel like many a crossover fanfic I’ve read over the years.
The heroes are introduced one by one in this first volume, showcasing their different personalities and philosophies of heroism. (Perhaps a bit exaggerated to create more conflict.) In particular, Gatchaman and Polimar clash over using lethal force on human opponents. (All the heroes are A-okay with lethal force against monsters and robots.)
Besides nostalgic oldsters like me, this manga is clearly aimed at the shounen (boys’) market. There are a couple of gratuitous fanservice shots of Emi, and she is generally useless outside of providing support for the male heroes. Her magic pencil seems to have very limited power outside of summoning heroes or power-ups for heroes, and an attempt to open a gate back to Casshan’s world backfires badly. This could in its way be a homage to the original shows, which tended to treat women as damsels in distress or the “heart” of any grouping.
It’s not clear if the villains are a team-up of past Tatsunoko enemies under a new leader, or if the new villains are just using familiar tactics. In particular, the enemy leader is shrouded in mystery.
I’d like to see Emi’s school friend Sanae take a larger role in future chapters, just to amend the gender imbalance a bit.
Recommended to fans of Tatsunoko superhero shows, and tokusatsu (special effect show) fans in general.
September 5, 2020
I have not watched any of the shows that these characters come from nor do I know anything about them, so I’m merely judging this manga as an “original” piece of work.
I enjoyed this first volume a lot more than I tend to enjoy first volumes. I loved having each chapter introducing our heroes and I love that our characters have a lot of personality! The fact that there’s a lot of moral questions, such as what it means to be a hero, is also incredibly unique for a shounen and something I enjoyed to read about.
I don’t really enjoy superhero stories, I honestly bought this manga because it was on sale, so I doubt I’ll continue (and, if I do, I doubt I would enjoy it too much). I also hope that there won’t be any romance between our main character and the heroes, considering that she’s a teenager and the heroes are at least 30 years old..
But, nonetheless, an entertaining read! I don’t regret giving it a shot, but I doubt this manga is really for me.
I enjoyed this first volume a lot more than I tend to enjoy first volumes. I loved having each chapter introducing our heroes and I love that our characters have a lot of personality! The fact that there’s a lot of moral questions, such as what it means to be a hero, is also incredibly unique for a shounen and something I enjoyed to read about.
I don’t really enjoy superhero stories, I honestly bought this manga because it was on sale, so I doubt I’ll continue (and, if I do, I doubt I would enjoy it too much). I also hope that there won’t be any romance between our main character and the heroes, considering that she’s a teenager and the heroes are at least 30 years old..
But, nonetheless, an entertaining read! I don’t regret giving it a shot, but I doubt this manga is really for me.
December 8, 2017
I have stupid amounts of love for this franchise, which is a little weird, since I've only seen two of the four original shows. But regardless, this is a much lighter take on the superhero mashup than its anime counterpart - Emi is nicer and not depressed, the heroes grump at each other a lot, Tetsuya has an actual personality, and Takeshi may be kind of evil. Ideally I'd transport this Tetsuya and Emi to the anime version, but I feel safe saying that I enjoyed this far more than I ought to have, if only for its "kids playing with their toys" vibe.
June 21, 2019
I'm a sucker for superheroes and magic that wills things into existence, so this is the perfect title for me! All the classic male leads are here, although I think some of them might get a better chance to shine next volume.
March 21, 2026
3.5 - if I knew more about all these other heroes I would probably think this was better but the 4 random heroes is what im grading this on. so far, not even sure what the story is about or who the big bad will be. lets see what vol 2 does.
July 7, 2019
This is kind of a fun read, because I remember watching shows like Gatchaman on TV, since they came on early in the morning, and I had insomnia as a child.
June 19, 2020
The series is much more entertaining than the Manga and is filled with some great action sequences.
September 22, 2021
There are other volumes in this series, but I do not have them, nor am I likely to get them.
I enjoyed the story; it's a nice mix of adventure and humor. I enjoy fiction about genuinely good people.
I enjoyed the story; it's a nice mix of adventure and humor. I enjoy fiction about genuinely good people.
January 29, 2023
Il mio animo nerd anni 80 è molto soddisfatto di questo manga che richiama alcuni eroi di anime che guardavo da bambina, in special modo Gatchaman, uno dei miei preferiti.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews