Priest Edit What would you like to edit? SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links   2m203h

Demographic: Seinen
Genre: Action adventure, Weird West
Length: Nine Volumes

Artwork: 7/10
Characters: 8/10
Storyline: 10/10

Overall Rating: Hall of Fame
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Synopsis

A revenge story that follows the former priest Ivan Isaacs, a man who made a deal with the devil Belial in order to seek vengeance against the fallen angel Temozarella and his twelve disciples. Ivan's deal has turned him undead (by resurrecting him from the dead), granting him inhuman strength and durability. Unfortunately the deal cost Ivan half of his soul and throughout the story the half he still possesses is slowly eroding until inevitably he will completely lose all grasp on his consciousness. Unfortunately the series is halted at volume 16 (which is probably less than the halfway mark of the story) and has been for a long time with no sign of continuing.

Review

The story's concept even to a guy selling his soul to the devil and becoming undead to seek revenge against a supernatural force at this point is hardly original. However, the artwork is quite unique even from what I've seen of other manwa. Sometimes the artwork can look kinda cartoony within its own style sometimes, but it can also become unnaturally disturbing which is good if it's your thing.
There are more than a handful of main characters in the story, though only Ivan, Belial and Vascar De Guillon (who eventually becomes the avatar of Temozarela) enjoy in depth coloring. The brunt of the story is set in the frontier west, though it has portions involving The Crusades and Inquisitions as well as the present day. Being a western sets it apart from the vast majority of manga and anime out there, which is part of what drew me to it personally. Also different are the strong plot ties to theology, also missing from the majority of series which I found interesting. Finally, being set outside of Japan was a fresh take to me. As stated previously I don't have Japan or anything but it's nice to have a different setting once in a while.
A take on revenge at any cost as well as portraying what damnation really is like, mostly absent in manga and anime. Though I found the story sometimes gruesome and despondant, Priest was very intriguing to me particularly when speaking of its visual style of storytelling.

Recommendation

Originally I recorded my review of Priest for the second episode of D.R.E.A.M.cast with Donwun on the fly, but was unhappy with the result. What I discovered from that recording though is especially after the world was introduced (horrendously) to "Priest" by the flop of the movie that had nothing to do with the manhwa was that regardless, Priest is a hard sell. If you don't mind that the story is stuck partway through with no definite date to continue, then we're past the first major hurdle. The second would be that seriously, that movie had nothing to do with the manhwa other than the looks (marginally). The story is a western, so let's start there with recommendations. If you want to see an eastern artist's take on a western, Priest is one of the few titles that comes to my mind. If you want to see one man's epic struggle against an overwhelming, unholy organization, Priest is that story. If you're not into overly happy go lucky bullshit in your stories, something more gritty and rough; Priest.

Fun Trivia

For some reason in the film they decided to make the main antagonist have the look and feel (minus vampirism) of Ivan Isaacs rather than the protagonist (Paul Bethany's character). In fact, if they had just made that guy the main character with that outfit the movie may have moved up an entire notch just by making the main character look awesome. Why they didn't do that? Got me.

Short review: great unique art. Definitely one of the better Korean manhwa I've read by far. But I've never liked Korean comics to begin with.

In of story: don't expect anything more than guns, gore and seemingly profound but very skippable biblical gibberish interludes. There's alot of intense stuff going on, but at the end I feel like I just read 16 volumes of flashbacks and an introduction to a story that would never actually kick off. And by the time an actual storyline seems to be set up and about to pay off the publication stops. That said, there's no shortage on action. But ... just alternating between slow, moody gothic tea time breaks and fast-paced guns blazing bloody rage against the devil battles doesn't make for a good story.

I'd say it's worth reading a couple volumes for the art alone, but don't hesitate to let it go if you're not getting much out of it. It managed to hold my curiosity for 16 volumes so it's not all bad, and it's a smooth read, hence the 6/10. If you can manage to shut off your brain while reading, it might even feel deep and emotional.

Conclusion: Berserk + The Crow = Hellsing with cooler art = Priest
Great art, shallow story.
Incomplete!

Priest is what you would get if you took Helsing, set it in the wild west, and replaced the vampires with zombies. If this sounds interesting to you then you might want to check it out. If you're a normal human being, then you should stay far away from this Korean comic. The art is definitely one of Priest's better aspects. I liked the more simplified character designs, maybe because they look so different from the norm. There isn't much good I can say about the story. There's this guy with the classic evil grin that goes around the American frontier shooting up zombies. At ... the end of the third volume, the writer realizes that there should probably be some sort of structure to the story, so we find out that this is all just a flashback and the protagonist is given a goal to achieve. This was really sloppy on the writer's part but at least they tried to fix their mistake. Unfortunately, the only mistake here is that this was even published. Sure, somebody out there likes this, but somebody out there that likes moe too.