Dec 31, 2024
It is not that much of a hyperbole when I say I could have almost mistaken it for another manga featuring a yellow alien teacher. But despite the parallels in various elements and character designs, the premise is wholly different. An alien who arrived on Earth almost 8 years ago is now almost forgotten, as he presumably continues to take advantage of the hospitality of humans. "Presumably," as hidden from the public view, he has been hired as the new assassin for the government. Being an alien to whom the human laws don't apply, he is tasked with eliminating criminals too dangerous even for the
...
law.
Now the idea itself is a decent one. Even if the premise wasn't good, seeing that comically large-headed alien would have made me read this anyway. Sadly, that curiosity doesn't put a curtain to all the mediocrity this story has to offer. Talking about volume 1, it was the best part of the manga. Not that it was good or anything, but it wasn't underwhelming like the other two volumes, partly due to the fact that it was supposed to be the introductory phase. We are shown our balloon-faced assassin cleaning the trash out for good. He shifts from killing normal humans to now artificially experimented humans too strong for normal people, which was kind of a cheap attempt to hastily increase the stakes. The arcs were so unimpressive at best too. Every arc until the last one was "Rocopon gets a mission, Rocopon struggles to kill the target, but well, well, well, he was just not using his utmost potential. And then he kills the target". Insert occasional gags in between, and you got half of the manga. The other half is comprised of a singular arc. You would expect this arc to be grand considering the author is willing to dedicate 14 chapters to this. I expected too. But expectations were not met, as the conclusion to the arc felt so underwhelming I felt insulted for expecting something. All that raised stakes for what? Just to hug it out in the end. And the arguably worse ending really put the cherry on top. Had me thinking about why did I read this.
Other aspects of this manga were fine; at least the art was. It was sharp and crisp, very dynamic too, able to portray motion effectively well in fight scenes. About the characters, they were decent. The most prominent of them is obviously Rocopon, whose personality, when no fights are happening, is good. Lazy, willing to do everything to not work, is very restless. But during fights he just becomes the usual, "Hah, you thought I lost" character. On the other hand is his partner, opposite in personality, who is very uptight, with no tolerance towards any shortcomings, thus completing the buddy cop duo. It's the thing that we have seen this type of pairing countless times, so most of the traits are by the book. Other than the antagonists who play out their roles as villains—bad villains at that—the other characters in the manga don't really matter.
In the end, Rocopon was just a mediocre manga. It may have had a decent premise, but that doesn't matter shit if the execution is not in a way to make it interesting.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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