My review for Hunters of Illumis starts at the beginning. Before you say “duh” (unless you have already) I mean the literal beginning… like Adam and Eve. Fried Ink Manga’s, Regn, plunges us into a world where Adam and Eve’s sin leads to the world being overcome by shadows, creatures of the darkness. God left his creation a fragment of his light so that he could create many nations with the power to fend off darkness. Shadow Hunters fight the darkness with weapons that contain Luminite, a powerful stone that harnesses God’s fragment. These hunters are known as Hunters of Illumis. This conflict between darkness and light is central to Hunters of Illumis. Readers follow Ume Kebo, an aspiring hunter, and her family of renowned hunters, which includes her grandfather Don, a retired hunter, and brother Njoku, a current hunter, as they navigate exams, otherworldly creatures, the mafia and so much more. The question is: does Hunters of Illumis light its way onto my reading list?
Upon opening Hunters of Illumis, the first thing that struck me was how cool the premise is. The use of the Adam and Eve story is very well done. Adam and Eve’s story is as popular a tale as any and immediately I had a familiar landing point to enter into the world being built. There is an apparent intentionality throughout the writing. We see abilities like Heaven Strike, Samson’s Push, and hunters seal a gate with Faith’s Shield which all allude to the Bible. For me, it enriches the experience of reading Hunters of Illumis because it doesn’t feel like they used Adam and Eve and then threw that motif away after the prologue. It makes the world feel whole as I read it. Regn also does a great job of showing us the dangers of shadows and the underbelly of Central Illumis. Characters are killed swiftly, being a Hunter and dealing with shadows is not a light task. This amped up the tension for me and made me care for the characters, particularly Ume.
Regn’s character writing is on point. The Kebo family dynamic feels so realistic, yet perfect for the story's tone. He gives each Kebo member time to shine without taking away from Ume. The Kebos are not new to the shadow hunting game, but Don is vehemently against becoming a hunter, and Ume doesn’t know why. He is so against it he kicked his son, Njoku, out of the house when he went to pursue hunting. The genius here is that we know why Don is like this and we understand his pain. At the same time, Ume’s passion and genuineness made me want to root for her as she aspires to continue her family legacy. Njoku is a full-fledged hunter and represents everything Don fought against, but Ume aspires to be. Considering Hunters of Illumis is quite shonen there is a lot of humor and each character manages to make you laugh on their own. Ume is naive and bubbly, Don has cynical dry humor and Njoku is nonchalant and likes to mess with people for fun.
The characters outside of the Kebo family should not be ignored either. In Ume’s neck of the woods, Dani, her best friend, is protective and acts as a foil to her bubbliness. Which, for people who don’t like too much naivety in their MC, tempers and grounds Ume. Ashton Fulmer, the handsome and exceptional student at her school, is written in a way that oozes aura and mystery. Shafa, whom Ume admires, exists as a harsh reality check for Ume and seems to be hiding some secrets. Ume deals with all these people as she navigates her hunter exams. Njoku’s side of the world gives us Aurora, his partner, who grounds his nonchalance with her focus and ferocity. Soto, the Central Illumis cop, offers comedic relief as Njoku’s favorite person to mess with. Leo Vellum, a mafia prince, is cool and collected but there is a loving side to him as we see him interact with otherworldly creatures. Njoku deals with all these people as he investigates some disappearances. Regn balances the exams and the investigation well and both remain interesting without one overshadowing the other. We also have great dialogue among the cast of characters. Each character has their own voice. Some have cockney accents that read on the page with sentences like “seems like ‘ere’s important business,” or they use different vernacular like Njoku saying “hold up.”
The art for Hunters of Illumis is well done. Action scenes have energy and generally environments are a step above most Webtoons. Where the art shines is the character designs. Each one of them is fantastic, evoking a certain feeling immediately as you look at them. Don has visible wrinkles on his face. Each wrinkle maps out his trauma and a fairly unkempt beard in a way that reflects the sadness he bears perfectly. Whereas his grandson, Njoku, rocks some locks with a taper, a well-trimmed beard, two studs, a necklace, and a vest with some fur on it. When I looked at him I immediately thought he was cool and his interactions justified that feeling. Soto, on the other hand, is in uniform and sporting no accessories, and on that alone, I could tell he and Njoku wouldn’t get along. With this story having so many characters, the flash characterization was appreciated. I could glean so much about a character immediately on just looks alone and remember them without needing a whole chapter dedicated to them.
Hunters of Illumis does have its shortcomings. On the writing front, from time to time there were grammatical issues. In one instance a character said, “I and I” and there was another instance where the word ‘her’ appears in a context that makes sense for the word ‘here.’ These are not super prevalent, and I only noticed them in my second reading. From experience, when you are producing chapters regularly a mistake or two will find its way through the cracks. From a narrative standpoint, there were times when the switches between chapters were jarring and made it hard to remember certain story threads. For example, we don’t see Ume’s story thread in chapters four and five, and by the time I got to chapter six, I had to go back and see where she left off. Thankfully, where she left off was not too momentous and the chapter recaps provide a decent refresher. It just didn’t facilitate a smooth read at times, especially since at that juncture the other story threads were popping off.
The visual aspects of the book also have their pitfalls. Part of it feels due to Webtoon compressing the pages down. I can excuse it because it is not uploaded in the traditional Webtoon format; Webtoon is a pain with the way it compresses images and makes the lines look muddy. Speaking of some technical issues, sometimes there is a lack of perspective which makes characters and certain objects feel like stickers rather than characters in a three-dimensional world. Moments, where this happened, took me out of the great reading experience I was having. The dialogue bubbles sometimes appeared very small on the page. So small that zooming in was needed. It is important to note a lot of these problems occur in the first two chapters primarily. Past those two chapters, the clarity of the lines improves, the art technically improves, and the dialogue bubbles are flawless. The only thing that permeates throughout is the lackluster lettering and sound effects. I wish more risks were taken on that front just to add more dynamism, particularly with the action scenes, and take them to the next level.
My biggest gripe art-wise is Ume’s character design. As I said before, I love Ume, she is a great character, but her design is bland to me. I understand that most of her scenes are in school, so she stays in uniform but even beyond that she doesn’t have something visually that makes her stand out. She is a fantastic main character and I think she deserves something to visually mark that. Of course, once she ventures outside of the school I am confident Regn will get Ume dripped out about based on the strength of his other character designs.
Hunters of Illumis lights a path onto my reading list. Regn’s writing from the Biblical story he emanates his world from to the different accents of characters exudes purposefulness. This is a well-thought-out story that intends to leave no stone unturned (yes, that is a Biblical pun). The art reflects this as well as almost every character speaks to us on their visuals alone. Just to make it all better, Hunters of Illumis is working on creating a physical version. Fried Ink Manga is going to be delivering Hunters of Illumis, the story I enjoyed reviewing, with even better art and page composition. To support the physical edition and learn more about what Fried Ink Manga and Regn has going on head over to their social media pages. In the meantime you can read Hunters of Illumis now by going over to Webtoon.
