Comic Review: Land Of Oz-The Manga

The sequal to Antarctic Press' series of Oz-The Manga was this comic broken up into two parts, Land Of Oz-The Manga. This is another adaptation of the 2nd Oz book by L. Frank Baum. The first half is just called Land Of Oz-The Manga, while the other is Land Of Oz-The Manga: Return To The Emerald City. I'm unaware as to why it was decided to have it run this way instead of simply doing a strait run of eight issues, but it was possibly done as some kind of marketing stragedy to differentiate is from the Marvel Comics version of Wonderful Wizard Of Oz which was being released at the time.

The story was very much the same from the original Marvelous Land Of Oz novel, although for some reason instead of the regular guardian of the Emerald City gate it has Tik-Tok(who is called "Tick-Tock")who doesn't even show up until the third novel. The character designs are also slightly redone in traditional manga-style. Tip looks like he/she's out of a steampunk anime, Jinjur is at first wearing a proper military uniform and then later on she's gussied up like a Disney Princess, Mombi appears more like a Munchkin considering she's from Gillikin, Jellia is even shorter than average, and Wogglebug is very distinguished. Tin Man is back with shiny nickel-plating, and Scarecrow is very sharp in his new royal duds.

There's currently two Pocket Manga graphic novels, although the comic issues are very much worth a look, especially the cool variant cover to the first issue, and a cool wraparound cover to the first issue of the second chapter. There hasn't been any news if there'll be a comic about Ozma Of Oz, but if David Hutchison's work on the previous manga satisfied you, then you'll love this one too.