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Kuro no Kishi: Black Knight 1 | 
| Author: Kai Tsurugi
Publisher: BLU
List Price: $9.99
Buy New: $5.29
You Save: $4.70 (47%)
Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 470995
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 200
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 4.7 x 0.3
ISBN: 1598165224
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5952
EAN: 9781598165227
ASIN: 1598165224
Publication Date: July 11, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. Overstock from our brick and mortar store. Domestic shipping includes a tracking # on every package.
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Zeke O'Brien may have his eyes on the title of Black Knight--the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a knight in the kingdom of Aran--but he's also after another prize: The young prince, Chris!Black Knight is a sweeping romantic epic about the relationship between the prince of a medieval kingdom and his loyal guardsman, as they embark on a life-long relationship fraught with danger, treachery, and above all, love.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 Kuro no Kishi vol.1 January 10, 2008
Violet Black (Nibelheim...)
I thought this was a very romantic manga. I like the fact that it's not set in a high school somewhere, (although I don't mind those types of manga), it's set in medieval times. It's typical in the tall, dark and handsome seme comes and falls in love with the small, girlish uke. There isn't much sex, so look for another series for that. It's romantic and very sweet instead. I'm up to book 3, and I plan on continuing the rest of this series. The story is good enough for me.
 Black Knight v 1-3 June 23, 2007
Karnation (Queens, NY USA)
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Bishy knight Zeke "loves" girly Prince Chris in a fake-medieval society wracked with intrigue. It is marketed as "Boys Love" and comes with an M on the cover, and was recommended to me as being something different for the genre. Different or not, it makes the mountains of feudal/fantasy hack-work on the market look like Tolkien to the power of Dumas. Where to start?
1) World Building: Goes from one poorly realized setting to another. We have a "Royal Mercenary Academy", the students of which are apparently "commoners" but who graduate as "knights". The boy prince keeps a knight in his bed at court without anybody noticing. A "commoner" raised in the woods by his old granny can fence, but a palace-reared prince can not! Etc.
2) The Dialog: "In truth, I have seen you once before in a time now past. Truly fate is in the world today." I found myself several times desperately searching for the name of the translators so I could avoid them in future, but found they had wisely kept their names off the book. Courtiers and bandits alike sound like modern day actors painfully trying to ad-lib. I actually felt really bad for them.
3) The Prince: He's the third son, so we are supposed to accept that he hasn't picked up a sword or shouldered a single responsibility in his entire life. All he does 24/7 is berate himself for the horrible crimes of a) existing and b) eating the delicious food provided by others.
4) The Knight: Actually a "commoner" who becomes one of the highest "knights" in the land, without any drama or controversy or even effort. Then he devotes every single thought bubble he has to sulking about how he is unworthy on account of he's boinking his royal master and is generally an idiot. Not that I don't agree, mind you.
5) The Romance: Completely perfunctory, as though thrown in purely to sell a political intrigue story that has little to do with it. No characterization, no courtship, no chemistry, no drama. However old Chris is supposed to be (sixteen?) he looks fourteen - a problem made worse by the naturalistic realism of the artwork, which tends to make men look like men. Worse, Chris ACTS like a seduced child - completely overwhelmed and acquiescent and dependent, with no sense of desiring it for himself. At one point it is even made clear that Chris wants to back out of the sexual part of the relationship, whereupon Zeke - sensing these doubts -- overcomes them with a little judicious use of force. Like any good codependent cretin, Zeke follows up this extreme assault on his lover's self worth with PAGES of condescending and belittling "encouragement", such as telling Chris he has a "surprisingly manly side" if the kid blows his own nose.
6) The Parents: They send Chris to "Mercenary" School to be kicked around like a grunt for two months, but they never arranged for him to learn swordsmanship at home, or anything else! The poor kid has no loyal retainers, no servants, no tutors, no sword-masters, no confessors, no noble youths his own age for company. Then his parents throw him into a world of fighting men with nobody to protect his poor stupid virtue. We are expected to believe they actually love him, though.
7) The Storytelling: The plot has very little actually to do with our Prince and his knight, meaning lots of time is devoted to expository conversation between secondary characters. Individual incidents have the potential to be told in an interesting way, but they aren't, so that assassinations, rescues and seductions end up seeming like just more exposition.
8) Consistency: Chris survives two months of extremely intense "mercenary" training which makes big strong men drop out, AND YET cannot even pick up a sword without everyone present barfing milk out their noses in derision. The King and Queen supposedly truly care about their People, but allowed their son to go sixteen years without seeing hide or hair of a "commoner" or having a clue that some folks actually work for a living.
9) The Names: Zeke O'Brien, Brigadoon Rossetti, James Joyce Elephalet Winchester of Ausonia, etcetera. There might be a good reason for this, but you should be warned.
10) The Aristocrats: Seem in general to be motivated not by dynastic or social obligation, but by a fatuous sense of their own stinking unworthiness. "I am not fit to walk on God's green earth with those hard-working commoners, and must do SOMETHING to justify my putrid aristocratic existence" sort of thing. That's more annoying than admirable.
Good stuff? Well, the art is good. The characters look human, nature looks alive, clothing looks soft, flesh looks vulnerable. There is no such thing as a super-warrior, and no one fighting man is so superior to others that he need not fear them. The naturalistic approach makes the lame world building and inconsistencies in plot and characterization that much more glaring and obnoxious, but is a good thing in itself. Poor Chris seems to be trying to make something of himself, but he needs a REAL friend to succeed and instead he's stuck with Zeke, which I find really depressing. It COULD have been good, with better writing, translation, plotting, characterization, world-building, and a less noxious central relationship. But it isn't. Try CANTARELLA instead.
 A nice addition to a yaoi manga collection. March 22, 2007
Asphalt Jungle Guide (Leading Edge of Nowhere)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The world of "Black Knight" appears well-crafted. There are distinct countries with grim histories. The 'older generation' are veterans of war and they carry some of the grimness always.
Where the worldbuilding stumbles is, sadly, with the character of Prince Christian. He's a typical incompetent uke, a young prince whose only contribution is to be kind and grateful and humble, so self-effacing he's barely a two-dimensional personality. He's studying at a 'knight academy' but doesn't seem to know which end of a sword is which. In the two volumes I've read, I've yet to see Christian fight--or show a distinctive personality. He's not stupid, but he doesn't display a whole lot of smarts, either.
Zeke, the 'alpha male' of the pair, is also rather typical, quiet, reserved, but a lot of intense emotion. The relationship between the two is rushed. Literally from one panel to another, they've made the leap from friendly 'older student mentoring the new kid' to Christian yelling for Zeke to rescue him and confessions of love.
Why must the uke always be so fragile? It's hard to take Christian seriously when he doesn't seem to have the sense to carry some sort of weapon--he's there to *learn* swordsmanship!--knowing he's a target for potential assassins.
There are some elements of clunky translation. Christian addresses his brothers as 'Big Brother Lief' and 'Big Brother Dan'. While this is an accurate translation, it sounds awkward. It's one of those things better left untranslated (most manga readers would know what 'Lief-ani' or 'nii-san' means), but the non-Japanese setting makes it impossible to use the more suitable Japanese terms.
The use of 'knights' and 'knighthood' isn't accurate, even in the most idealized Camelot fantasy. This is jarring, as rank and politics play an important part of the story.
The art, however, is wonderful (though I had some trouble telling a number of the supporting characters apart in the fighting scenes). For all of its initial rushed quality, the relationship between Zeke and Christian is refreshing honest, full of awkward, insecure moments on both sides, and first-love embarrassments. It rarely crosses into that annoying near-slapstick tension-breaking comedy that shows up in too many anime and manga.
The unrelated side story didn't do much for me. Because of the emptional complexities, it really deserved more space than it had. It's rare to see a genuine spritual/emotional/psychological struggle in yaoi manga, for 'adult' material to be adult in concepts and philosophy, not just sexual material. I would have welcomed a longer story there.
 Black Knight Vol.1 March 18, 2007
Elise Atwood-youngstrom
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I am i big lover of yaoi so it takes a lot to please me. this story hit a soft spot with me. cris the prince of aran is send away to knight training school. there he meets zeke o'brain an up and coming night. they fall of each other of cource. but no everything is easy when you fall for a prince.
i also enjoyed the side storie at the end. it was very different, and very sweet. thou i don't think the catholic religion will be very impressed. since it's about a priest gives up the cloth for not only love, but the love of a anough man.
black knight has good art work and an even better plot. it's a softer yaoi there is sex, but it's no ghraphic. if you look closly at the pages you will see many hillarious lines. so this story is not only romantic but it's very funny, you have to pay attention to get the jokes. i gives this book two big thumbs up. and i can't wait till the next volume to see where cris's and zeks's relationship goes.
Wheee!! February 9, 2007
Anne (Massachusetts, USA)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
OK, I will concede, it's a bit of a stereotypical setup. And I generally think myself to be the "cultured" yaoi conoisseur, going for less superficial parts, but this one sucked me in like quicksand.
I loved the art- OK, OK, I'm a sucker for bishounen. I do like my ukes effeminate...what can I say? And romance...come on, who doesn't love the kind of romance story that sweeps you off your feet into flowery girl happy land? I certainly do love it. The action scenes are well-drawn, too.
In general, I just like the overall story. I can see it going somewhere. This story was especially boosted because I just came off Junjo Romantica vol.2, featuring rape, coersion, and little plot, so this was like a breath of fresh air.
The only honest complaint that I can give this is about the side-story. It felt like they were trying to force two characters, a story, and some smex into a limited amount of pages. And appearance. Sadly, I just didn't like the characters' look together. Priest and giant-tall Japanese guy. I dunno, for some strange reason, it didn't do it for me. Not that that deters me from loving the rest of the book.
I will doubtless scour bookstores for the next volume.
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