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R.O.D. Read or Die #2
R.O.D. Read or Die 2
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208 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
February 14, 2021
Yomiko Readman came to the school as a teacher by the Library of England to find the underground library that housed the forbidden books of knowledge, truth, and power. She ran into her former lover thought long dead. He warns he not to trust the Library of England, for it is they wanted the underground library to gain power for themselves. Yomiko, quite naturally, didn’t believe him. However, the earthquake got out of hand and knocked down part of the school. Readman discovered it is not an ordinary earthquake, but something man-made. She sets out find the truth of the earthquakes, students with strange powers, and Donnie, her lover thought long dead. Read it and find out.
March 6, 2023
No change from volume 1; I love the art and am intrigued by the story (which I don't fully understand as of yet).
This volume has a bonus chapter. I normally hate those, but this one may help to explain the origin of this tale. It contrasts love of books against love of video games and other digital media. I love both, but paper books will always be my favorite.
This volume has a bonus chapter. I normally hate those, but this one may help to explain the origin of this tale. It contrasts love of books against love of video games and other digital media. I love both, but paper books will always be my favorite.
July 31, 2018
It took an interesting philosophical turn towards the end. This volume is where the plot is really starting to be developed and conspiracies are popping up; I'm glad I stuck with it.
May 26, 2021
I love it I was to continue collecting it 😍😍😍😍😍
January 10, 2022
Well it's less rapey and gross than the first volume, and they're incorporating backstory for Yomiko, so that's a step in the right direction?
May 24, 2008
"many people love books but few are loved by books"
I normally don't do manga (except back when i was typing/word processing~or whatever the hell you call it~up our teen book reviews a few years back and i had to leaf few a couple of them to try and figure out what a couple of the kids were trying to say but that is an entirely other subject...), but i heard about this series and thought i would give it a shot.
Apparently the R.O.D. (Read or Die~now there's the ultimate ultimatum for you) started out as a nine volume series of "light novels" (which, i guess is the Japanese version of the young adult novel) by Hideyuki Kurata; which then spun off into the four volume manga series that i read (and a related manga series Read or Dream); three direct-to-video anime; and then a anime T.V. series. I think i saw it mentioned on one of my list-serves and it seemed somewhat appealing.
Yomiko Readman is a bibliophile ("a bibliophile is an alchemist of the soul"~or so says Yomiko) and oh, so much more. She is a "paper master" or The Paper (someone who is able to change paper into any type of weapon {or escape device~a sort of biblioMacGiver} she happens to need for whatever occasion she finds herself in~"paper would do anything for her") and a special agent for the British Library (or, actually, The Last Literatured Line of the UK). I found the plot a little hard to follow (and yes, i do know about the whole back to front, right to left thing, thank you very much), or maybe Kurata didn't lay it out clearly enough for me, or maybe i'm expecting more story than i should, or maybe i'm just stupid... whatever.
Anyway, Volume 1, introduces Yomiko, her boss "Joker", and some mysterious higher-up known as "The Gentleman". We also have the requisite number of interesting villains; little-girl-manga-style women in various costumes and stages of undress, as well as intimations of girl-on-girl action. There is also some back-story given for Yomiko's apprenticeship. I found Kurata to be quite witty, and there were some wonderful literary jokes thrown into the mix.
Volumes 2, 3 and 4 bleed into each other in that serial kind of way (although Volume 2 does include a special bonus featuring a little girl who hates books (they are all useless and boring~video games and TV are Way more exciting) and does not want to do her required book report until she stays up all night reading the book passed down from her grandmother through her mother and learns how wonderful reading can be, can we all say "ah, how cute" together now? . . .)
The basic plot line here seems to send Yomiko on a secret mission to the Manshu Academy. The exact details of the assignment appear rather murky, but apparently she is to find a secret underground library which contains the secret to life, the universe, and everything (whoops, wrong story...) The Manshu Academy houses A and B level students and Yomiko is a teacher of B level World History (which apparently ranks below the A level students.) The A level students are engaged in something nefarious, more details of "The Paper"'s past emerge, as well as those of the British library and their foes the ancient order of Hermit readers. In the end it seems it comes down to a choice of Read OR Die (who would have guessed), as Yomiko must choose to save the all important Book of Truth or people. I suppose in manga the large letters D O O M take the place of ominous music, and between the numerous spelled out sound effects, unattributed dialogue, and, seemingly, missing plot development i still found myself a little lost.
Kind of reminds me of the time one of my housemates (my first year in grad school, me, one other grad student and five undergrads~the landlord had promised all grad students~oh well) got us all together to go see Urotsukidōji: the Legend of the Underfiend as some kind of house "togetherness" project because it was supposed to be such an acclaimed Japanese animated masterpiece. About fifteen minutes into the film, most of the housemates had deserted (including the one who brought us) leaving only me and Mr. IamNotDepressed (but he so was) sticking it out until the very bitter end. It was a shared experience i will never forget. There was some point when a character says "Oh, now I see, it's all so clear now." or some such thing and that was Mr. IamNotDepressed's and my joke for the next month or so because it was so NOT clear.
I normally don't do manga (except back when i was typing/word processing~or whatever the hell you call it~up our teen book reviews a few years back and i had to leaf few a couple of them to try and figure out what a couple of the kids were trying to say but that is an entirely other subject...), but i heard about this series and thought i would give it a shot.
Apparently the R.O.D. (Read or Die~now there's the ultimate ultimatum for you) started out as a nine volume series of "light novels" (which, i guess is the Japanese version of the young adult novel) by Hideyuki Kurata; which then spun off into the four volume manga series that i read (and a related manga series Read or Dream); three direct-to-video anime; and then a anime T.V. series. I think i saw it mentioned on one of my list-serves and it seemed somewhat appealing.
Yomiko Readman is a bibliophile ("a bibliophile is an alchemist of the soul"~or so says Yomiko) and oh, so much more. She is a "paper master" or The Paper (someone who is able to change paper into any type of weapon {or escape device~a sort of biblioMacGiver} she happens to need for whatever occasion she finds herself in~"paper would do anything for her") and a special agent for the British Library (or, actually, The Last Literatured Line of the UK). I found the plot a little hard to follow (and yes, i do know about the whole back to front, right to left thing, thank you very much), or maybe Kurata didn't lay it out clearly enough for me, or maybe i'm expecting more story than i should, or maybe i'm just stupid... whatever.
Anyway, Volume 1, introduces Yomiko, her boss "Joker", and some mysterious higher-up known as "The Gentleman". We also have the requisite number of interesting villains; little-girl-manga-style women in various costumes and stages of undress, as well as intimations of girl-on-girl action. There is also some back-story given for Yomiko's apprenticeship. I found Kurata to be quite witty, and there were some wonderful literary jokes thrown into the mix.
Volumes 2, 3 and 4 bleed into each other in that serial kind of way (although Volume 2 does include a special bonus featuring a little girl who hates books (they are all useless and boring~video games and TV are Way more exciting) and does not want to do her required book report until she stays up all night reading the book passed down from her grandmother through her mother and learns how wonderful reading can be, can we all say "ah, how cute" together now? . . .)
The basic plot line here seems to send Yomiko on a secret mission to the Manshu Academy. The exact details of the assignment appear rather murky, but apparently she is to find a secret underground library which contains the secret to life, the universe, and everything (whoops, wrong story...) The Manshu Academy houses A and B level students and Yomiko is a teacher of B level World History (which apparently ranks below the A level students.) The A level students are engaged in something nefarious, more details of "The Paper"'s past emerge, as well as those of the British library and their foes the ancient order of Hermit readers. In the end it seems it comes down to a choice of Read OR Die (who would have guessed), as Yomiko must choose to save the all important Book of Truth or people. I suppose in manga the large letters D O O M take the place of ominous music, and between the numerous spelled out sound effects, unattributed dialogue, and, seemingly, missing plot development i still found myself a little lost.
Kind of reminds me of the time one of my housemates (my first year in grad school, me, one other grad student and five undergrads~the landlord had promised all grad students~oh well) got us all together to go see Urotsukidōji: the Legend of the Underfiend as some kind of house "togetherness" project because it was supposed to be such an acclaimed Japanese animated masterpiece. About fifteen minutes into the film, most of the housemates had deserted (including the one who brought us) leaving only me and Mr. IamNotDepressed (but he so was) sticking it out until the very bitter end. It was a shared experience i will never forget. There was some point when a character says "Oh, now I see, it's all so clear now." or some such thing and that was Mr. IamNotDepressed's and my joke for the next month or so because it was so NOT clear.
June 28, 2022
This is my review of the whole Read or Die series.
I've been trying to get into reading manga more, and I really wanted to like Read or Die, I really did. I almost didn't want to think about it so I could enjoy it more. However if I enjoyed it more the review wouldn't be nearly as heartfelt. The manga wants to be a lot of things; a school story, a spy story, an X-Men-ish 'we have powers that no one understands' preachfest, an action-comedy, and a dash of wanting to appreciate great literature without referencing any of it. Sure I liked the Misery quip at the beginning, and the story has a nice synopsis going for it, but it's not consistently clever or cohesive enough to be considered great or even a full story at times.
The story has a promising premise without a doubt. Yomiko is a bubbly teacher-turned agent with an ability to control paper and but not her feelings about her troubled past. From the get go, it announces that Yomiko is in a world where greater organizations like the London library suits following her around are pulling the strings and requesting that she helps them find rare books for, some reason. There's also old dirt on the bibliophiles like Yomiko; her former boyfriend Donnie and his best friend Ridley that is seemingly covered up by the organization as well. Along the way Yomiko meets an author and tries to save a group of students, and her interactions with all the characters, stereotypical or otherwise, were pretty sweet and geneuine. I also liked the psychological effects Yumiko experienced from supposedly killing Donnie, and there were some sad and sweet moments along the way even if the manga doesn't fully resolve them or make use of their full potential.
With me so far? Good, because that's all I got too. The rest of the story is so convoluted and all the character and story subplots and arcs introduced previously get lost in the shuffle very VERY quickly. Fighting between two groups of students comes out of nowhere and gets resolved somehow. A giant paper dragon-worm flies out of the ground as part of an ancient library of books that the London library wants to find the book of truth, again, for some unexplained reason. The library also weaves in and out of fight scenes for some reason and while they are seemingly pulling the strings, they just end up being there to give the illusion of story amid all the fighting. Ridley eventually shows up out of nowhere announcing that he's Yomiko's rival and the books then feel the need to take a big info dump and tell us all about his experience, which when digging deeper doesn't even make sense. Who are Donnie and Ridley and how did they get their powers? Why does the library want the book of truth? Why is it so important to begin with? Why does Yomiko fight for the students and why does she try so hard at all of this in general? The manga posed so many unanswered questions and threw up so many red herrings that I started to get bogged down with more questions than the suspense that the story tries to build and they started to drag my enjoyment of the story down very very quickly. On top of that, so few of them get unanswered that I felt cheated with the ending I got.
The action and occasional panel furthers my confusion as well. The art is drawn well for sure, but during the action sequences a boom or bang along with a beam of light or a flying character will be so huge and dramatic that it almost took me out of the experience and came across as more obnoxious than intense. This when paired with the confusing story that ties itself in knots comes across as half baked. Being a bibliophile myself, I really wanted to enjoy Read or Die, and I'm aware that the anime has quite a bit of praise, but if you were to read the manga first, I would recommend passing it up.
I've been trying to get into reading manga more, and I really wanted to like Read or Die, I really did. I almost didn't want to think about it so I could enjoy it more. However if I enjoyed it more the review wouldn't be nearly as heartfelt. The manga wants to be a lot of things; a school story, a spy story, an X-Men-ish 'we have powers that no one understands' preachfest, an action-comedy, and a dash of wanting to appreciate great literature without referencing any of it. Sure I liked the Misery quip at the beginning, and the story has a nice synopsis going for it, but it's not consistently clever or cohesive enough to be considered great or even a full story at times.
The story has a promising premise without a doubt. Yomiko is a bubbly teacher-turned agent with an ability to control paper and but not her feelings about her troubled past. From the get go, it announces that Yomiko is in a world where greater organizations like the London library suits following her around are pulling the strings and requesting that she helps them find rare books for, some reason. There's also old dirt on the bibliophiles like Yomiko; her former boyfriend Donnie and his best friend Ridley that is seemingly covered up by the organization as well. Along the way Yomiko meets an author and tries to save a group of students, and her interactions with all the characters, stereotypical or otherwise, were pretty sweet and geneuine. I also liked the psychological effects Yumiko experienced from supposedly killing Donnie, and there were some sad and sweet moments along the way even if the manga doesn't fully resolve them or make use of their full potential.
With me so far? Good, because that's all I got too. The rest of the story is so convoluted and all the character and story subplots and arcs introduced previously get lost in the shuffle very VERY quickly. Fighting between two groups of students comes out of nowhere and gets resolved somehow. A giant paper dragon-worm flies out of the ground as part of an ancient library of books that the London library wants to find the book of truth, again, for some unexplained reason. The library also weaves in and out of fight scenes for some reason and while they are seemingly pulling the strings, they just end up being there to give the illusion of story amid all the fighting. Ridley eventually shows up out of nowhere announcing that he's Yomiko's rival and the books then feel the need to take a big info dump and tell us all about his experience, which when digging deeper doesn't even make sense. Who are Donnie and Ridley and how did they get their powers? Why does the library want the book of truth? Why is it so important to begin with? Why does Yomiko fight for the students and why does she try so hard at all of this in general? The manga posed so many unanswered questions and threw up so many red herrings that I started to get bogged down with more questions than the suspense that the story tries to build and they started to drag my enjoyment of the story down very very quickly. On top of that, so few of them get unanswered that I felt cheated with the ending I got.
The action and occasional panel furthers my confusion as well. The art is drawn well for sure, but during the action sequences a boom or bang along with a beam of light or a flying character will be so huge and dramatic that it almost took me out of the experience and came across as more obnoxious than intense. This when paired with the confusing story that ties itself in knots comes across as half baked. Being a bibliophile myself, I really wanted to enjoy Read or Die, and I'm aware that the anime has quite a bit of praise, but if you were to read the manga first, I would recommend passing it up.
February 25, 2008
Things get stranger for our paper hero, as she's assigned to a strange school where people hone their abilities and the cream of the crop is separated from the ordinary. As Yomiko tries to figure things out, we learn that all may not be kosher with the organization she belongs to. Loyalties are tested, as are the bounds of acceptable suspension of disbelief, as this manga still fails to capture the magic of the two anime.
I think the problem is that while the other series had a strong focus on what was going on, this one has no grounding. Our paper is strange without anyone to be normal against that isn't an enemy or a potential enemy. There's also a little less book geeking in general, which makes no sense to me. I'll keep reading, but I can't recommend it. (Library, 11/07)
Trebby's Take: Only if you really liked the anime and want more.
I think the problem is that while the other series had a strong focus on what was going on, this one has no grounding. Our paper is strange without anyone to be normal against that isn't an enemy or a potential enemy. There's also a little less book geeking in general, which makes no sense to me. I'll keep reading, but I can't recommend it. (Library, 11/07)
Trebby's Take: Only if you really liked the anime and want more.
May 12, 2010
Hideyuki Kurata, Read or Die!, vol. 2 (ViZ, 2000)
Read or Die continues on its unfocused way in the second volume, though we've got the basics of what looks like a major story arc coming together in this volume. Yomiko is sent to an isolated prep school in England to work undercover for the National Library, who are looking for a lost collection of Chinese books said to encompass the entire knowledge of the ancient world. We encounter some old friends, some new friends, and a host of new enemies, and the actual writing looks as if Kurata's setting soemthing up, but there's still a frazzled, disorganized air to it all. I love the concept of this series, but the execution needs to get a lot tighter before it's ready for prime time. Maybe that's why it only lasted four volumes before getting an overhaul. ** ½
Read or Die continues on its unfocused way in the second volume, though we've got the basics of what looks like a major story arc coming together in this volume. Yomiko is sent to an isolated prep school in England to work undercover for the National Library, who are looking for a lost collection of Chinese books said to encompass the entire knowledge of the ancient world. We encounter some old friends, some new friends, and a host of new enemies, and the actual writing looks as if Kurata's setting soemthing up, but there's still a frazzled, disorganized air to it all. I love the concept of this series, but the execution needs to get a lot tighter before it's ready for prime time. Maybe that's why it only lasted four volumes before getting an overhaul. ** ½
March 28, 2012
The plot continues, this time with Yomiko heading to a private school for privileged children. Mystery, action, adventure and student hijinks abound as Yomiko tries to find a secret library, deal with arrogant students, distrustful staff members and the reappearance of someone she thought long dead. The adherence to book loving still holds sway, continuing the premise of the preciousness of literature. What I found disappointing in this volume were the constant battles, some of which seem to erupt for little or no reason. We’re given the argument that intelligence will prevail in a battle, yet the fights on campus seem to devolve into brute force and vicious confrontations brought about between “powers” like something out of an X-Men comic. The true love of books comes out only in a little bonus manga at the end. It’s a lovely addition but not enough for a series like this.
September 6, 2014
I am a huge fan of the R. O. D. Read or Die OVA, and I was quick to pick up the four volumes of this story when I found it at my local library. Yomiko Readman is what all bibliophile dream of being. Her love of books has bone beyond the page and she is able to connect with the story, and the author in ways we can only imagine. Besides that, she can control paper and make it become any shape she desires. A must read for book lovers.
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April 11, 2015
I read the english version of this book, but since it doesn't appear I thought I would put my review here. In this volume we learn more about Yumiko's mysterious past and about the first volume's accusations regarding the Yumiko's murder of her boyfriend. We also learn that he is still alive.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 15, 2009
Considering I have not read the first in the series yet, it was very good!
July 27, 2010
Not bad but I preferred the anime.
Read
August 4, 2011I love books. I love manga/comics so I thought I would give a try. How often does one come across a manga about a bookworm? Still not sure how I feel about it. May give volume 3 a try
July 10, 2010
Similar thoughts as the first one, only more confused with the art and jumping around.
April 11, 2013
As good as volume one.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews