Gamerz Heaven

Review covers every volume that is available in English

The main character of Gamerz Heaven, Kaito, receives the titular video game in an anonymous package. Being comically overly passionate about video games, he loads it up only to find himself actually inside the game.

Rather than a fantasy or sci-fi world like .hack, or an “inside the computer” world like Tron or Reboot, Gamerz Heaven itself appears to be an alternate dimension to the real world. This gives the author plenty of scope to play around with and poke fun at video game cliches.

People go around the world almost as normal, but fulfilling more RPG style role. For example, people who were antagonistic to Kaito in the real world turn into monsters when he meets them in the game.

The concept alone would probably have made a good Manga, however Gamerz Heaven decides to add some peril to the mix anyone whose alternate persona dies in the video game disappears in real life as well. Upon realising how dangerous the game is Kaito leaves and almost snaps the disk in two, which would have made this Manga very short. However he later changes his mind, and decides to keep playing, along with more friends.

You're probably already thinking that Gamerz Heaven sounds like either Tron or .hack, and you wouldn't be far wrong there. I'd say that comparisons to the .hack Manga would fair, except for the fact that Gamerz Heaven is actually good.

Okay, so we're not talking about the most original Manga in the world here, but what Gamerz Heaven lacks in originality it makes up for in execution. The main leads are very well characterized. Mostly they are all over the top at what they do and don't always react quite how you'd expect a real person to react in the given situation. However I feel that's all for the good as it makes the comic more fun to read. We're reading for entrainment, right?

So far this review has been glowing with praise. Which is a shame because I'm now going to say one of the worst things I could possibly say about a Manga. Namely that work on the English translation appears to have stopped after only two volumes. I know I've given out my top score to Manga that aren't finished or fully translated, but I'm afraid I just can't award it to a series that just stops with a dangling plot-line.