Dogs: Prelude vol. 0

Shirow Miwa's Dogs is a prologue to the series Dogs: Bullets & Carnage, introducing the four main characters: Mihai, "the weepy old killer" back in town to settle a grudge, Badou, a photographer on the run after obtaining a dangerous scoop, Naoto, a swordswoman seeking to avenge her parents's murder, and Heine, a seemingly immortal gunmen helping a mysterious girl with wings.

Each character's story is mostly independent from the others, with the exception of Badou playing a part in Heine's story and appearing in the background in Mihai's story. The quality of the stories improves with each one. Mihai's is the only one that is a bit on the boring side. His tale focuses on his reunion with his ex-protege who killed his lover. We get the details of their past and their confrontation. It's an okay story, though not particularly exciting.
Badou is sort of the the comic relief of the four, making his story the lightest and silliest, though with a nice bit of action.
The last two characters have the most interesting stories, and not coincidentally, their stories are both two-parters. They're also the only two characters whose stories point to a larger story beyond this volume. Naoto's is another "dark past" story, though it ends with a bit of a twist regarding the target of her vengeance. Heine's story is definitely the coolest and the most action packed, and it also has sci-fi elements which none of the others have.

Miwa's character designs are pretty sharp, my personal favorite being Badou for his hair and the eyepatch, as well as the mysterious Giovanni that appears at the end (stylish, enigmatic guys with bowl haircuts are SO in right now). The action (and there's plenty of it), is all really well done, and each chapter has it's share of striking images. The one fault that kind of bugs me is how there is a bit too much blank space. There a few spots throughout the books were there are huge blank areas. A small blank space is okay to indicate a change of scenery or passage of time, but there are some in here that are a bit too big. Do it 2 or 3 times, and it would add up to an entire page's worth of space unused. Within the panels themselves, there is sometimes not enough details, or any at all, in the backgrounds. There's a very thin line between using open space in a panel to highlight what's there and that open space just seeming like a void, and Miwa walks that line very dangerously. But it's a small nitpick, and it actually suits the overall style of the series. There was a recent anime adaptation of the stories in this book...and it honestly doesn't feel right in color.

This book is slightly oversized, which seems to have become Viz's standard for seinen. Extras include a doublesided poster, the front being the four characters nude from the waist up (which I don't imagine would be particularly titilating to anyone, as they all look rather gaunt), while the back has a nice image of Naoto in an action-y pose. There's also a short funny comic at the end.

With Trigun over, it's nice to have another gunslinging action series to read. While the story isn't particularly special (yet), it's done very stylishly, and for now that's enough. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes and how these 4 characters end up together.