Average isn’t necessarily bad.

Sometimes simpler art styles can make for a quicker read and really give you a feel for the action. That’s how the artwork for Black Cat comes across. It’s fairly standard and formulaic in shounen manga to use a lot of action lines and close-ups to hastily move the story along. I usually attribute this to the artist wanting to get to the good stuff—namely the huge boss fights. It does lend impetus to the fast pace of the action-oriented storyline. Aside from that, in between chapters you get treated to character sketches, small bios, and even a brief summarized map of this fictional world just to show where all this action is taking place. And, because Viz loves us, they decided to include this volume of Black Cat with a special sticker located in the back of the book for the up-coming Stateside release of Slam Dunk. It’s a modest package, but worth your money.

That’s all she wrote.

I have to say, Black Cat was easy to fall into. It’s easy even if you don’t know a wit about any of the characters aside from the brief bios given in the front. This volume was more action-oriented rather than story, so I found myself wound up in the heat of the battle and itching to turn every page. Black Cat’s story is fairly deeper than run-of-the-mill shounen titles as well, making it a unique addition to any collection.