Manga Review: Lock On!

Title: Lock On!
Author: Tsuchida Kenta
Release: Weekly
Status: Finished
Genre: Shonen
Art: B
Originality: C
Story: C
Characters: C
Humor: C
Action: C

Impression: This about a prodigious teenage photographer with an eye-patch who aims to achieve the highest levels of photography through snapping shots of people. One particular girl caught his eye and now all he wants to do is take pictures of the violent man-hating tsundere who has him pegged for a pervert. That’s the story from start to finish really. There were a couple of friends who got their time in the limelight but their stories were only just marginally better than the main characters themselves. That’s not a compliment towards the side characters by the way. The main characters were just horribly and annoyingly flat. Neither the story nor characters really evolve beyond their initial appearance as whatever character depth shown was shallow at best and redundant at worst. It reads like an overly extended oneshot and the author just couldn’t come up with anything new or interesting to add to the mix. Just where was this story going exactly? Who knows but I wished that they had axed it sooner. Jump must be in dire straits for new talent if they keep serializing new works that just end up getting axed within the first three volumes.