Yojimbot v1: “Metal Silence” Part 1

It’s a yojimbo like you’ve never seen before! He’s a rabbit!

No, wait, wrong book.

This yojimbo, as you might have guessed by the name of the book, is a robot. He wanders the land, taking on other robot warriors and trying to act within the rules for the betterment of mankind.

And then things get turned upside down…

Credits-Bot

What’s Going On?

It pretty much sells itself, this book. Does a comic that feels so strongly influenced by Japanese feudalism and the movies that depict it appeal to you or not? Did you like “Lone Wolf and Cub,” “Ronin,” or “Usagi Yojimbo”? Did you like “Samurai Jack”?

If you said “yes” to any two of those, you’ll want to give this book a chance. It starts very strongly with that same cinematic feeling. The first 20 pages of the book are silent, as we see Yojimbot walking into what I think is an abandoned theme park and confronting another robot warrior.

The two take out their swords and we’re off to the races! The backgrounds drop out, the speedlines ramp up, and things start looking seriously cool. The force of their blows kicks up dust. The rain — of course there’s rain! — bounces off their metal heads, and the sound effects get more jagged and erratic.

It’s a seriously cool start to the book if you’re into this kind of thing.

Then, the story begins. “Story” is the thing that attempts to glue together the really cool fight scenes we’re all looking forward to in a book like this.

Writer/Artist Sylvain Repos is purposefully vague about the details, but the general outline is that robots have their own set of rules that they need to live by, though they’re not quite the same as Isaac Asimov’s most famous ones. But like Asimov’s rules, they’ll be used as the keystone for the story. It’ll follow that the robot will need to break the laws for the good of a human, but can’t, or that he’ll need to find a way to work around one of the rules while still observing it to save someone or something.

I’m not saying the book is predictable, but that it’s a known storytelling structure. I’m all for it. Repos still pulls off a couple of surprises along the way, although one is so clearly foreshadowed in the dialogue that it was less a surprise and more of a “Yeah, we knew that was going to happen, but it’ll make the next fight interesting.”

While Yojimbot is in the theme park, he encounters a pair of humans — a father/daughter — who are on the run from a group of armor-clad military-looking guys. Yojimbot has to work to protect the humans being chased, but still can’t hurt the humans doing the chasing. And so the conundrums begin.

The bad guys are, so far, extremely one-dimensional. The friends of the good guy that we meet are likable, though we know very little about them except that they’re bound to be the reader’s point of view in explaining everything about this world as the story continues. Yojimbot is seriously cool, with an ethical code that is his greatest asset and his greatness weakness at the same time.

It’s a very fun book, but it’s not anything deep or “relevant.” And that’s OK by me.

A Quick Read

The book is a very fast read, largely due to all the silent pages, particularly in the beginning. But the rest of the book is sparse in its dialogue. There’s very little exposition. We get just enough info “dumps” to keep us intrigued and questioning what’s going on, but not so much that it every stops the story dead in its tracks.

That’s the danger for a writer introducing a new world. The writer has thought through all the causes-and-effects of their new world. It can be hard to resist explaining it at length to the readers to show off how smart they are and to set up future parts of the series in the fastest way possible.

The art is also large on the page. This is a book that mostly has three tiers of panels per page. Often, it’s less than that. It doesn’t at all feel like a typical Franco-Belgian album with four tiers and every panel being densely packed with details. It’s much more open. Repos draws this book beat for beat. Each panel is an isolated moment, whether of movement or dialogue. There’s probably 30 pages’ worth of story spread across 58 pages in the book.

Just to be clear: this isn’t a criticism. It’s Repos’ style, being more influenced by manga than classic Franco-Belgian structure. He’s purposefully going for that fast moving style. I had a hunch so I looked it up: the print edition runs about 8 x 10 inches, so it is printed smaller than album sized, which is closer to 9 x 12 inches. The larger panels will read clearly at the smaller size, so they make sense.

It also means that this is a book that would translate easily to a North American format. If you shrunk it down a little bit more to standard comic book size here, it would be perfectly legible. It wouldn’t look cramped the way Asterix or The Smurfs do at the smaller size.

(Complete tangent: Given all the licenses Dark Horse has lost in recent years, wouldn’t it be interesting to see them start to license more European series, instead? I have to imagine it would be cheaper than paying for the hot Hollywood IP rights. They even have published other European books, so they have a foothold in that world already, with some experience…)

The Art of Yojimbot

There’s two kinds of art in this book and that roughly matches the two halves of the story.

When we have a battle scene — whether it’s robot versus robot or robot versus soldier — we get a visually impressive spectacle. It’s easy to follow and some cool things happen. It’s super stylized to include the super tight closeups and the long swings of the blades. Everything is in constant motion, and Repos directs the action across the page well.

His robot designs are very interesting. They wear clothes and have unique silhouettes, particularly with their heads, which is their most prominent and identifying feature.

When the humans get involved, it’s almost a disappointment. It’s necessary for there to be a story, don’t get me wrong, but I enjoy that hack-and-slash stuff so much that I just want to see more of it. The humans look straight out of manga/anime central casting, which fits a book of this genre well enough. They serve their purpose to jumpstart the series’ story. I’m looking forward now to seeing how their relationship to Yojimbot develops in the books ahead.

As much as I said I could do without humans in this book at all, I’m also very curious as to how this particular relationship will work. Repos shows that Yojimbot is still a robot, programmed to think a very specific way. It leads to a couple of awkward moments, but they’re also kind of funny ones. I have a feeling we’ll see him grow and learn as the series goes along. I’m looking forward to it!

Coloring Yojimbot

The most interesting part of this book is the use of color dot gradients. I’m sure there’s a much better term for this, but let me show you an example:

I don’t know whether Repos put those there or the book’s colorist, Noiry, but I love them. It’s a nice small touch that helps give this book a unique look.

The overall coloring work in the book is strong. Noiry can be very literal in their colors and still create something attractive, such as the colors of all the bushes and trees in the forest where the bulk of the action in the second half of the story takes place. It’s simple flat colors with sharp edge and lot of shadow work to separate the layers.

But then Noiry can be a little more inventive on the action scenes where backgrounds are replaced with speedlines and things feel a little less literal. You want that feeling of speed and violence and, one might project, anger or aggression.

One last artistic note: I love the way Repos draws the robot’s bowing motion in the image above. Instead of using speed lines (the way he did in the first panel with the hand moving in different directions), he drags a few points up from the back of his head. It’s super effective.

Recommended?

If you like robot stories or samurai movies, yes. There are a few small weaknesses in the story and the storytelling, but that’s not what you’re coming to this book for. There’s enough of a story here, though, to draw my interest. I’m interested in seeing where Repos goes from here, because there is promise in this set-up.

If you are interested in this book, do not read the description of it on Comixology. It spoils pretty much the entire book. I went in cold to this book based just on the cover and the concept it represented. I’m glad I did.

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