Manga Review — Dinosaur Sanctuary 1, by Itaru Kinoshita
Sharing my thoughts on this most charming of manga, featuring everyday life in a struggling dinosaur sanctuary.
This book is just a delight! As a life-long lover of dinosaurs, I’ve always got an eye out for some dinosaury goodness. While I have enjoyed several dinosaur-centered comics before, they very often skew towards being quite violent, and presenting dinosaurs as monsters. Not this though, Dinosaur Sanctuary gives us dinosaurs as real animals, beings with personality, feelings, and individual life stories. Thanks to that it’s so darned charming, and so refreshing for a dinosaur book!
This is actually my first proper Japanese-style manga, where you read from right to left. My only previous manga experience was the four Star Trek books released some years ago, which are western style. I got very lucky when on an off-chance I browsed through the upcoming manga list when I was doing my monthly comics order (I didn’t before this normally check that section), and there waiting to grab my attention was this little beauty. Book one of three so far I’m glad to discover!
Dinosaur Sanctuary is set in a world where dinosaurs have become a bit boring to the general public after having been rediscovered in the mid-20th century. The backstory is briefly given that there was some sort of Lost World discovery…
