Radiant: Volume 4 manga review

Radiant Graphic Novel Volume 4 cover image

Seth is an apprentice Wizard, but he is also one of the “Infected.”  Seth was infected by evil creatures called “Nemeses.”  Being an “infected one” is what gives Wizards their powers, and having survived the corruption of the Nemeses, Wizards are the only ones who can fight them.  Seth is learning how to use magic (called “fantasia”) to fight the Nemeses, but his ultimate goal is to find and destroy their mythical nest, Radiant.

As Radiant, Vol. 4 (Chapters 21 to 28) opens, the battle for “Rumble Town” is almost over.  Seth is confronted by a young man who claims to be his long-lost brother.  Meanwhile,  Mélie and Grimm (the mummy wizard) battle Hameline, a “Domitor” (a wizard that tames Nemeses) and her army of Nemeses.  When Seth joins the battle, he will discover that he has more in common with Hameline than he would like to admit.  So what will he do?

[This volume includes bonus text and readers' fan art.]

THE LOWDOWN:  The Radiant manga is an original French manga that attracted the attention of a Japanese publisher.  Now, it has come to America as an excellent graphic novel series.

Radiant Graphic Novel Volume 4, by my reading, is the breakthrough volume, perhaps even more so than Vol. 3, which I also called a breakthrough.  Vol. 3 reveals more about the series' internal mythology, and Vol. 4 establishes the factions and the bullies and the bullied.  The “Thaumaturges” seem to be the true villains, but I am sure we will learn more in the next volume.  Radiant is worth coming back for the next volume.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of manga about teens with magical powers will want to read Radiant.

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8.5 out of 10