Arata: The Legend, Vol. 1

Ever wanted to be transported into another land to have adventure or just take a break from things, or escape your life?Arata is the name of two young boys. One is declared the assassin of the Princess and traitor and hunted down. The other is bullied at school and wants to escape from his life.They end up swapping places and for the Arata who ends up in the land of the Princess, things have just got worse! But it so happens that he has awakened an old god-sword of great power ..The author has been ambitious with this as she tells the stories of the two Aratas through the course of the tale and has had to create two worlds of family, friends and enemies. The two counterparts do share similarities though and it seems that the enemies in one land are of the same temperament as their opposites in the other world. They look the same (almost) and have similar dispositions, even if one lot wield rumour, jibe and glue and the other lot wield god-swords of their own.The manga is lovely to look at and reads fluidly, the cross-over handled very well so things are not confusing for the reader. I enjoyed this and will look out for the subsequent volumes to see what happens to the two Aratas.