Dev Rainea moves to Japan with her father, and she’s soon caught up in the city’s vibrant and dangerous underground street racing scene. Some things are lurking though, which no one can see coming: monsters.

From an artistic standpoint, this first issue of M1: Monster Racing League feels like Jae Lee with all roadblocks removed, and the nitrous boost engaged. There’s an absolutely stunning sense of style throughout, with the beautifully designed characters, gorgeous environments and spectacularly inventive panel layouts. It’s a true, visual delight.

That said, the story itself feels very much like The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift in so many ways, and the monsters themselves don’t really play a part in this issue at all. Which feels like a bit of a letdown. There’s good work with the cast of teenage characters, and the racing sequences deliver, but it can’t help but feel like there’s a bit of throttling going on in terms of pace here.

That said, the art really does carry the experience; here’s hoping that the story starts to get moving into high gear in the next issue.

Hi! I’m Jason, and I write for midlifegamergeek.com, every single day. If you’re interested in supporting original, regularly published, human created content (which has never been plagiarised or otherwise copied from the hard work of other writers), you can donate and help me to keep this site running.

Not only do I earn no income from my writing here (though I may earn small fees from affiliate links posted on my pages; as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases from these links), but it seems that my work has, at times, been stolen and re-used by lazy, morally bankrupt idiots.

There’s no pressure of course, but I’d be truly grateful for any support that you could offer – and it’s easy to do so at either of these links: Ko-Fi.com/geekmid or PayPal.

Any donations are truly appreciated – and I also appreciate you taking the time to read my articles. Remember: this whole article was by Jason Brown, and appeared on midlifegamergeek.com. Take that, Skynet!