Old Boy, Vol. 5 Paperback – April 17, 2007

Old Boy, Volume 5 is very typical of the Old Boy manga series. It moves slowly, it's by far the best drawn manga I've read, and it's some of the best penciling I've seen anywhere in the comic world, a visual feast, to use a cliche. Goto is given a clue by a "referee." Go find his sixth-grade teacher. Goto does, and the mystery deepens.I cannot stress enough how perfect a blend of art and literature the Old Boy series is. While some very good manga I put down after a couple of chapters, I've read each volume of Old Boy from beginning to end without stopping. It's only that I review each book that keeps me from reading Vol. 5 and Vol. 6, both of which came in the mail today, without a break. *****

The mystery deepens as to the identity of Goto's tormentor, inching the plot forward just a tiny little bit. The slow pace and lack of dialogue are what attract me to the series--along with the amazingly precise illustrations of Tokyo, it's buildings and objects. Add this to the list of top-class manga out there. I'm in for the long haul on this series.

The ending for this series was nowhere near as good as the movie. The entire series is amazing... then it ends rather boringly and somewhat anticlimactically. Read the others, but don't expect so much from the ending.