Gantz, Vol. 1

By Hiroya Oku
Dark Horse, 224 pp.
Rating: Mature Readers (18 +)

The much hyped, long awaited, highly requested series Gantz finally makes its way to the US shelves thanks to fine folks at Dark Horse. A tale in which death is just the beginning, Gantz follows the exploits of a teen after his apparent death from being run over by a train. Only, it’s not the end. Instead, he finds himself trapped in a room full of other recently deceased folks, a dog, and mysterious black orb. What does it all mean? What’s going on? And what’s with the dog?

Unfortunately for the group, answers aren’t really forthcoming. Things take a decidedly odd twist when the orb begins relaying messages to them, ordering them to hunt and kill aliens while providing them with the necessary weapons and equipment for the task at hand. Some take the task at hand with an unsettling amount of gusto, while others are less than thrilled about being ordered to kill someone for no apparent reason.

If the first volume is any indication, Gantz has considerable potential. It touches on the unsettling level of apathy present in many modern cultures, (In the opening sequence, for example, the main characters die while trying to help a drunken man off the train tracks while dozens of other people watch on and do nothing.) Throughout the volume, Hiroya Oku demonstrates the ease with which people will sit back and watch horrible things happen to each other, or even get caught up in a mob mentality and participate in these horrible things, making Gantz both highly interesting and deeply unsettling. On the other hand, there’s just an over-the-topness to some of the events that made me roll my eyes and think, “You can’t be serious.” It’s certainly not going to be the most female-friendly book on the shelves, that’s for sure. The one female character first appears totally naked, and is immediately sexually assaulted by a yakuza member. She is saved from that situation, only to be sexually accosted by the dog moments later. Thankfully that don’t really show what the dog was licking buuuut… you can figure it out I’m sure.

Which is why Gantz so hard to really pin down. It jumps from interesting social commentary and critiquing, to a women being molested by a dog for laughs.

Art-wise, Gantz is OK. There’s actually bit in the back about the art process; apparently, Oku used a combination of pencils and 3D computer modeling. It’s an interesting experiment, but I think drawing over the models has resulted oddly stiff artwork. There’s no great sense of motion or movement in any of the action scenes, despite the nicely depicted gore and exploding body parts. The backgrounds are there, but despite the amount of detail in some of them, there’s a feeling of sparseness and starkness that they can’t quite shake. Normally this would be a bad thing, but here it actually works to story’s benefit. I found the starkness enhances the feeling of isolation between the characters, and that it lended itself to the surreal, video game vibe of the story. When the characters begin musing at the possibility of the entire situation being some sort of reality TV show, or hidden camera program, you look at the backgrounds and can really see why. The blandness and flatness of them gives the setting the feel of an old studio back lot full of building facades.

In the end it’s a bit of a mixed bag for me. There’s some very interesting stuff going on, some nice themes to be explored and examined, but the artwork and the weird pointless bits of bestiality were a bit off putting. At this point I think it was an interesting little read, but I can’t imagine sticking with it for the long run. Still, there’s definitely potential and I’ll probably worth giving the second volume a try to see if it improves.

Volume one of Gantz is available now.

Color of Rage, Vol. 1

By Kazuo Koike and Seisaku Kano
Dark Horse, 416 pp.
Rating: Mature

When reading historical manga, I grant the artist creative license to tell a story that evokes the spirit of an age rather than its details. I’m willing to tolerate certain anachronisms—i.e. flying steam cars—if they serve a demonstrable purpose—e.g. revealing that an inventor’s vision outstrips the technology of his day. What rankles my inner historian, however, are the kind of anachronisms that result from sheer laziness or paucity of imagination: modern slang, gross disregard for well-established fact. Alas, Color of Rage is filled with the kind of historical howlers that would make C. Vann Woodward or Doris Kearns Goodwin gnash their teeth in despair.

The story begins in 1783. Off the coast of Japan, a whaling ship sinks in turbulent seas, claiming the lives of all but two crew members: George, a Japanese man, and King, an African-American slave. The two wash ashore, cut away their shackles, and set out in search of a community where they can live peacefully—no small challenge, given how conspicuous King is among such a homogenous population. Of course, this being a manga by Kazuo Koike, George and King’s journey is anything but picaresque, as they bump up against the vigorous defenders of Edo-era status quo: ruthless daimyo, yakuza thugs, samurai-for-hire.

For such a far-fetched premise to work, its principal characters’ thoughts, words, and actions need to make sense in historical context. Yet George and King behave like two modern action heroes deposited in feudal Japan, not two products of the eighteenth century. During scenes of limb-severing carnage, for example, they banter with the consummate skill of Harrison Ford and Will Smith, pausing occasionally to deliver speeches about finding a place where “color doesn’t matter”—a noble sentiment, to be sure, but one cribbed from a Civil Rights speech circa 1964, not an eighteenth century abolitionist’s tract. A similar sense of historical amnesia informs another scene in which King declares that conditions are worse for Japanese peasants than for slaves in the American South, leaving me to wonder how a slave working on a colonial plantation would have any comparative basis for making such an assertion or, frankly, any notion of the “American South,” given that the Revolutionary War was still in full swing at the time King was gang-pressed into whaling. Other historical oversights abound: how did a Japanese man end up in the galley of an American whaling ship? Where did George learn to speak fluent English? Who taught King to handle a sword? And so forth.

The bigger problem, however, is that King entertains notions of race, class, and gender that would have been as alien to American colonists as they were to Japanese farmers and overlords. His blind commitment to addressing inequality wherever he encounters it—on the road, at a brothel—leads him to do and say incredibly reckless things that require George’s boffo swordsmanship and insider knowledge of the culture to rectify. If anything, King’s idealism makes him seem simple-minded in comparison with George, who comes across as far more worldly, pragmatic, and clever. I’m guessing that Koike thought he’d created an honorable character in King without realizing the degree to which stereotypes, good and bad, informed the portrayal. In fairness to Koike, it’s a trap that’s ensnared plenty of American authors and screenwriters who ought to know that the saintly black character is as clichéd and potentially offensive a stereotype as the most craven character in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. By relying on American popular entertainment for his information on slavery, Koike falls into the very same trap, inadvertently resurrecting some hoary racial and sexual tropes in the process.

Koike’s treatment of female characters, like his handling of racial issues, can be downright ugly. In a valiant effort to head off feminists at the pass, the editors acknowledge Koike’s propensity for writing “samurai-era yarns with a certain sense of chauvinist violence and pulpy sexiness.” Now I’m all for “pulpy sexiness”—doesn’t that sound like fun? But the casual mingling of sex and violence in Color of Rage crosses the line from mere chauvinism to outright misogyny. The nadir is a scene in which King strips a woman naked and crams dirt into her mouth until she chokes. Her crime: prurient interest in King’s physique. Richard Wright might have known how to make the moment horrific, tragic, and peculiarly just, but someone as ill-versed in American history as Koike does not. The result is an uncomfortable mixture of kink and racism, the sort of scene I might have expected in Mandingo, not a manga written in 2004.

The artwork is a hodgepodge of styles and techniques. The best pages appear to be done in charcoal or pastels, and have the soft edges and expressionist lighting I associate with fin-de-siecle modernists such as Käthe Kollwitz. Most of the art looks like homage to Goseki Kojima’s work on Lone Wolf and Cub, Samurai Executioner, and Path of the Assassin—not a bad thing, given Kojima’s superb draftsmanship and penchant for drawing memorable mugs. Seisaku Kano’s character designs are fine, but his fight scenes are poorly composed, a riot of swords, guts, and bodies in motion that fail to give the reader a clear picture of what’s happening. That might be an OK artistic choice once in a while, perhaps to suggest the chaos of hand-to-hand combat, but as the dominant mode of depicting action it soon grows tiresome, leaving the reader feeling more pummeled than entertained.

Though some of these criticisms could be leveled at Koike’s other work—Lady Snowblood, Crying Freeman and, yes, Lone Wolf and Cub—Color of Rage lacks something common to the aforementioned manga: a sense of play. Koike never takes himself too seriously in these other works, even when the plot takes a dark turn or two. In Color of Rage, however, his sincerity proves his undoing, as he tries to insert a noble black character into a world of vicious overlords and amoral samurai. King’s high-minded speeches and interventions clash violently with the story’s “pulpy sexiness” (for want of a better term), producing something that’s neither dramatically compelling nor fun to read. Die-hard Koike fans may feel the completist’s urge to buy Color of Rage—especially since Dark Horse has given it such a deluxe treatment—but casual readers will find much less here to love.

Volume one of Color of Rage is available now.

If you’re still solvent after last week’s tsunami of new manga, this week may send you straight for bankruptcy court, with dozens of great books headed your way. The list cants heavily towards continuing series like Basara (Viz), Flame of Recca (Viz), Samurai Deeper Kyo (Tokyopop) Sgt. Frog (Tokyopop) and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles (Del Rey), but also features such noteworthy newcomers as Kamisama Kozuko (Go! Comi) and Toto! The Wonderful Adventure (Del Rey).

My top picks for Wednesday:

Blood+, Vol. 2 (Dark Horse): This brooding vampire tale adopts a kitchen-sink approach to plotting, mixing military conspiracy theory with teen angst and a healthy dose of monster-slaying. The results are oddly compelling; if anything, Blood+ demonstrates that it’s entirely possible to fashion something new and exciting out of shopworn ideas. If you’re a fan of the anime, you’ll notice a few discrepancies between the manga and the TV show. The biggest difference is Saya herself. As depicted in the manga, Saya is feisty, loyal, and only a little hesitant to embrace her destiny as a human weapon—a big improvement over her shrill, conflicted persona in the anime.

Shoulder-A-Coffin, Kuro, Vol. 1 (Yen Press): The story is a take-it-or-leave-it proposition; some may find the art too cutesy for the rather serious subject, while others may find the story ill-suited to the set-up/punchline rhythms of 4-koma format. For the otaku in search of an offbeat read, however, Kuro offers a unique and satisfying blend of humor, whimsy, and melancholy.

Toto! The Wonderful Adventure, Vol. 1 (Del Rey): Yuko Osada’s boisterous romp reads like a mash-up of One Piece and Castle in the Sky, complete with a flying ship, a cute animal sidekick, a spunky heroine, and a band of pirates on the run from the authorities. The artwork has a loose, sketchy feel that nicely complements Toto’s breezy tone. And while the story is positively elemental when compared with many shonen series, its simplicity allows Osada to focus more on characters and plot and less on superpowers and backstory—a decided plus.

Ultimate Venus, Vol. 1 (Go! Comi): Like Ai Morinaga, Takako Shigematsu has a knack for spicing up a stock shojo premise—say, a showbiz melodrama—with liberal amounts of black humor and sexual tension. In Ultimate Venus, Shigematsu’s point of departure is the My Fair Lady makeover, in which a handsome Henry Higgins surrogate teaches a klutzy young woman how to comport herself among the rich and famous. Or in this case, two hot linguists teach a klutzy young woman how to talk and walk like a lady. Eliza Doolittle should be so lucky!

Yakitate!! Japan, Vol. 11 (Viz): Every volume of Yakitate!! Japan doggedly adheres to the same basic recipe: one part competition, one part risqué humor, one part yeasty puns, and one part wacky hijinks. Kazuma Azuma and the Pantasia gang are always the underdogs at a world-renown bread-baking tournament, only to pull off a stunning victory on the strength of one of Kazuma’s more outlandish creations—but not before a new, ridiculous opponent (often in a mask or outré costume) announces his intent to outbake them. All of this amounts to predictably good fun, even if the fanservice gets a little out of hand at times. Haven’t tried Yakitate!! yet? Read the first two volumes, then sample at will—you won’t have difficulty figuring out what’s happening.

One final note: from now until May 18th, RightStuf is running a promotion on current and future Tokyopop manga, novels, and tie-in products (i.e. The Fruits Basket Sticker Book). Books are 33% off the cover price; click here for the coupon code. Full shipping list after the cut.

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Is it just my imagination, or has Dark Horse quietly shelved Bride of the Water God and Translucent (a fate that also seems to have befallen XS Hybrid, a manhwa I was decidedly less enthusiastic about)? Scanning their website, I didn’t see the next volume of either scheduled for release between now and October. A quick search of Amazon didn’t yield any hits, either. Does anyone know what’s befallen these series? God, I hope I haven’t fallen for two more DH titles that will never reach closure—after the heartbreak of Club 9 and Satsuma Gishiden, I’m beginning to feel like a commitment-phobic bachelor, at least as far as DH’s manga/manhwa are concerned.

And speaking of books in limbo, what’s befallen Aki Shimizu’s Qwan? According to the Wikipedia, six volumes have been released in Japan, but Tokyopop has yet to publish anything beyond volume four. I’m wondering why it’s been almost a year since the last release—is it a licensing issue, or has Tokyopop caught up to the Japanese edition? I’d hate to see this offbeat shonen fantasy languish in manga purgatory, as its gorgeous artwork and compelling, folkloric storyline deserve a bigger audience.

When we launched Weekly Recon nearly one year ago (on June 20, 2007, to be exact), the goal was to highlight the best new manga arriving in stores each week with a mixture of off-the-cuff recommendations and brief reviews. The vagaries of the book distribution system, however, have frustrated our efforts to synchronize reviews and shipping lists. So this week, our column goes under the knife for a tummy tuck and a brow lift, with the goal of producing a leaner, meaner rundown of Wednesday’s new arrivals. You’ll still find the complete Midtown Comics shipping list here, as well as recommendations (now expressed as a top three or top five list) and, when appropriate, helpful hints for saving a buck or two. Reviews will be handled in a separate column, to be rolled later this month.

But enough about us—let’s talk about manga!

More than seventy new titles are appearing on store shelves this week, making this an especially onerous Wednesday for anyone with a serious manga habit. My top picks for the week:

CLAMP no Kiseki, Vol. 11 (Tokyopop): I’ll be honest: $19.99 seems a little steep for a beautifully produced thirty-two page magazine and three plastic chess pieces. But if you’re a rabid CLAMP fan, you’ll hate yourself in the morning if you pass up the opportunity to assemble a full run of CLAMP no Kiseki. And if you’ve just discovered this prolific, four-woman collective, you’ll be delighted to learn that volume eleven celebrates their current hit Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNICLES with artist interviews, full-color pin-ups, original manga, and exhaustive lists of tie-in products and publication milestones.

Color of Rage, Vol. 1 (Dark Horse) Does manga get any manlier than Kazuo Koike? This odd historical drama focuses on two slaves—one Japanese, one African-American—who escape from a transport ship, only to find themselves shackled together on the shores of Edo-era Japan. (No, this wasn’t conceived as a vehicle for Toshiro Mifune and Richard Pryor, though that pairing might have been sublime. Or sublimely awful—take your pick.) Expect plenty of sex, violence, and social commentary, as well as a few scenes that may strike American readers as naïve or misguided in their presentation of racial issues.

In the Starlight, Vol. 3 (NETCOMICS) Kyungok Kang’s unabashedly romantic sci-fi saga owes a considerable debt to Moto Hagio and Keiko Takemiya, both in terms of visuals—sparkling eyes! untamed manes! androgynously beautiful characters in tight pants!—and story—telekinesis! aliens! princesses switched at birth! The script is a bit tin-eared at times, but Kang’s artwork and richly layered characters more than offset a few clunky lines of dialogue.

King of Thorn, Vol. 4 (Tokyopop): Jurassic-sized lizards and killer plants terrorize a group of seemingly ordinary souls who waited out a pandemic in cryogenic sleep. The plot has a paint-by-numbers feel, but Yuji Iwahara’s knack for staging scary chases makes this monster mash an entertaining read.

Sand Chronicles, Vol. 2 (Viz): This lovely, understated story about a teenager coping with the fallout from her mother’s suicide is proof positive that “shojo” is not a catch-all term for “cheesy romances about boy-crazy girls.” Yes, it touches on such perennial coming-of-age topics as first love and fitting in, but manga-ka Hinako Ashihara’s gift for finding truthful nuance in everyday situations makes Sand Chronicles an engrossing read whether you’re thirteen or thirty-three.

Look for the complete shipping list after the cut.

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What manga will you be reading one year from now? Viz, Del Rey, Yen Press, DMP, Dark Horse, and CMX unveiled the titles they hope you’ll purchase, from adaptations of popular anime series to works by established masters. Below is a run-down of the day’s big licensing news.
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Yes, there will be blood… in the latest installment of The Otaku Bookshelf, that is. This month, Ken and I take a look at two of the most popular anime-manga-novel franchises on the market right now: Blood+ and Trinity Blood. And in keeping with our vampire theme, books are rated on the following scale of one to five garlic bulbs:

= Drive a stake through it–it’s terrible!

= Find the silver bullets–you may need them to slay this stinker!

= Good fun.

= Great–put away that wolfsbane!

= Awesome, even if you’re not one of the living dead.

Blood: The Last Vampire: Night of the Beasts

By Mamoru Oshii; Translated by Camellia Nieh
Dark Horse, 300 pp.

Despite its title, the real hero of Blood: The Last Vampire isn’t Saya, the katana-wielding schoolgirl who dispatches Chiropterans with ferocious abandon; it’s Rei Miwa, a high school student and sometime anti-war activist living near the Yokota Air Base in 1969. The first time Rei spots Saya, he can’t believe his eyes: there, at the end of a dark Tokyo alley, is a teenager attacking what looks like a gorilla-bat-wookie hybrid while two black-suited foreigners watch from a car with diplomatic plates. Before he can so much as yell “WTF?!,” Riku takes a knock to the head, eventually waking up in police custody, unable to explain what he was doing in the blood-soaked alley where they found him. Once sprung from the pokey, a seedy investigator approaches Riku with information about Saya and her possible connection to a string of student-activist murders: will Riku help him gather intelligence on these radical groups in the interest of protecting his fellow protesters from Saya? Riku agrees, but quickly learns that the mystery is more complex than the detective initially let on.

Sounds like a great set-up for a supernatural thriller—if the execution were more skillful. Alas, Blood: The Last Vampire is so pretentious that any sense of fear evoked by Saya’s first appearance is quickly buried under mountains of long-winded prose. Mamoru Oshii, the creative mind behind Ghost in the Shell, relates most of the story through artless dialogue that’s studded with Cliff Note glosses on famous Western philosophers, Darwinism, vampire lore, and the Rothschilds. That last topic is handled with an astonishing lack of sensitivity, frequently crossing the line into anti-Semitic territory with its unflattering depiction of this powerful family as the engineers of Europe’s greatest crises. Oshii also tosses a Vatican conspiracy into the mix—an equal opportunity gesture, I guess—that’s as poorly integrated into the story as it is laughable.

The biggest problem with Oshii’s novel, however, is that almost nothing happens. For a chapter in one of Japan’s most enduring, popular vampire franchises, there’s precious little information about the titular character. To some extent, that might be expected—spin-off novels and manga often explore secondary characters and side stories. But when they’re this dull, it’s hard to imagine how even the most devoted fan would want to commit the time and energy to reading it, especially when the title character appears in just a handful of scenes.

–Reviewed by Katherine Dacey

Blood+, Vol. 1: First Kiss

By Ryo Ikehata, Illustrations by Chizu Hashii, Translated by John Thomas
Dark Horse, 354 pp.

This faithful, fast-paced adaptation of the Blood+ anime covers the first fourteen episodes of the series. Most of volume one focuses on Saya’s re-awakening, as she struggles to remember her past: where and why she fought, how she ended up in the custody of the mysterious Red Shield agency, and why a ridiculously handsome young man (who just so happens to play a mean Bach Cello Suite) risks life and limb to protect her from Chiropterans. The prose gets the job done, but abounds in ungainly metaphors, odd shifts in tense, and statements of the obvious. When Saya visits the Yanbaru laboratory where her father is being held, for example, author Ryo Ikehata offers this awkward description of the facilities:

All places called nature conservation centers were basically small-scale museums. There are carefully tended tropical plants and stuffed versions of endangered birds and wildcats. These displays are arranged in an attractive and efficient way throughout the building.
Naturally, they had entered after hours. The lights were out and the staff had all gone home.

If the text reads like something from a high school literary magazine, the packaging is first rate, featuring illustrations by Chizu Hashii, the artist responsible for the anime’s distinctive character designs. The book also includes several full-color glossy plates as well as a helpful character guide. For fans who may have missed a few episodes of the television series, Blood+: First Kiss is a painless way to catch up. For anyone curious about the Blood+ franchise, the novel makes a good introduction to Saya and her world, as everything is spelled out clearly and concisely. For folks who care about good writing… well, that’s what V.S. Naipaul is for.

–Reviewed by Katherine Dacey

Trinity Blood: Rage Against the Moons, Vol. 1: From the Empire; Trinity Blood: Reborn on the Mars, Vol 1: Star of Sorrow

Written by Sunao Yoshida, Art By Thores Shibamoto, Translated by Anastasia Moreo
Published by Tokyopop

Set in a distant future after a massive war, the story follows the adventures of Abel Nightroad and his exploits as a special AX Agent of the Vatican. In this future world, the Vatican has once again risen to power and now exists in a Cold War-style standoff with an empire to the East, an empire ruled by Vampires. A shadowy organization emerges with a sinister purpose: escalating this new Cold War into a rather hot one.

Rage Against the Moons is a collection of short, loosely connected tales, including the story for the first episode of the anime series, while Reborn on the Mars is a single volume story focusing on an undercover mission to the free state of Istavan. I’m pretty sure that every single story has been adapted into an anime episode or episodes. The biggest difference is the order, along with the fact that we get a little more background. Sadly it’s not a whole lot more information on the Trinity Blood universe, and most of it pops up in Reborn on the Mars. I have to admit, I was hoping for Vampire Hunter D levels of new material. I figured we’d get reams of back story, inner monologues and the like that never made into the anime. Frankly, I’m surprised at just how much of this material I remember from anime. Still, the stories move along at a nice clip and manage to be fairly enjoyable, plus what little new information was given was quite welcome.

One of the common threads throughout both books are the machinations of the mysterious Orden Rosenkreuz, as they attempt to orchestrate a war between the humans the vampires. They’re far more prominent in Reborn on the Mars, but they turn up on several occasions in Rage Against the Moons as well. Both times they stick to the shadows and are portrayed as the movers and shakers behind the scenes. This is actually one element I’d love to see expanded as the novels continue. I’d love to find out more about the group and their ultimate end.

The art is scattered throughout the two volumes and usually depicts a scene from the one of the stories. It’s black and white and quite pretty. It does a good job at rendering the characters in various cool and important moments and the most of the character designs look wonderfully detailed. I think I preferred the art choices in Reborn on the Mars more than Rage Against the Moons, as Shibamoto just seemed to pick better scenes to illustrate. There are a few odd moments where the art clashes with the writing, the most notable being the description of Sister Kate, the Iron Maiden. In the novel she’s described as older nun, but Shibamoto draws her like a teenager. It’s a minor nit pick but it really leapt out at me.

Ultimately, Trinity Blood is fluff, but it’s pretty fun fluff. It’s not especially deep or though provoking, but Suano’s certainly created an interesting post-apocalyptic world that should engage sci-fi and vampire buffs alike.

–Reviewed by Ken Haley

The last few weeks have found me in tough grader mode, as I’ve doled out my share of Cs and Ds to new manga that underwhelmed me with their confusing plots and muddled art. To dispel lingering rumors that I am, in fact, a distant relative of Oscar the Grouch, I’ve dedicated this week’s column to three books I’d recommend to anyone: volume one of Blood+ (Dark Horse), volume three of Gon (CMX), and volume seven of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs (Viz). And if dogs and dinos aren’t your bag, you’ll find plenty of other great books on the new arrival rack, from the third volume of critically acclaimed Mushishi (Del Rey) to the twelfth volume of Kekkaishi (Viz), a series I never tire of championing. Need persuading? Then consider Shaenon Garrity’s glowing endorsement of this totally engrossing shonen series:

The premise sounds like something that could be developed into a pulse-pounding adventure/horror series, but that’s not the way the manga plays out. It’s a little quieter, a little quirkier, and, at least to my mind, a lot more interesting… What I like about Kekkaishi is that the whole defending-the-sacred-site plot quickly falls out of focus and becomes a backdrop for all kinds of episodic, mostly character-driven adventures: funny stories, creepy stories, tragic stories. The characters have unexpected quirks and undiscovered layers.

Let’s hope Viz has the good sense to license the anime… soon. I’m jonesing for a Tokine lunchbox.

SHIPPING THIS WEEK
Alive: The Final Evolution, Vol. 3 (Del Rey)
Apothecarius Argentum, Vol. 4 (CMX)
Be With You (Viz)
The Drifting Classroom, Vol. 10 (Viz)
Everlasting Love (DMP)
Golgo 13, Vol. 13 (Viz)
Hana-Kimi, Vol. 22 (Viz)
Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs, Vol. 7 (Viz)
Kekkaishi, Vol. 12 (Viz)
Kitchen Princess, Vol. 5 (Del Rey)
Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Vol. 6 (Dark Horse)
Mushishi, Vol. 3 (Del Rey)
Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, Vol. 13 (Viz)
NOW, Vol. 3 (Infinity Studios)
The Palette of 12 Secret Colors, Vol. 2 (CMX)
Path of the Assassin, Vol. 9 (Dark Horse)
Rod Espinosa’s New Alice in Wonderland (Antarctic Press)

Blood+, Vol. 1

By Asuka Katsura
Dark Horse, 208 pp.
Rating: 14+

The received wisdom among otaku is that anime based on manga may, in fact, be as good if not better than the original source material, while manga based on anime are often hastily conceived, poorly executed products designed to capitalize on a franchise’s popularity. I’m happy to report that Blood+ is a stellar exception to the rule, proving that even the most faithful adaptation can be as satisfying—if not more—than the original.

For those unfamiliar with the Blood+ franchise (or Blood: The Last Vampire, a series of manga, anime, and movies that relate an earlier chapter in the saga), the story goes something like this: Saya, a seemingly ordinary high school student, lives with a foster family on Okinawa. Though her general disposition is cheerful—even ditzy—Saya can’t shake the feeling that her persistent amnesia is, in fact, protecting her from memories of a terrifying experience, a feeling exacerbated by sudden, incomprehensible flashbacks to jungle combat. With monsters. (Actually, hematophagous monsters, according to the Wikipedia.) A passionate kiss from a sexy, cello-playing stranger unlocks Saya’s memories, revealing that she is actually a sword-wielding crusader with the unique ability to slay these blood-sucking creatures. Saya must then decide if she will team up with the “tall and flawlessly handsome” Hagi to fight chiropterans, or if she will remain with her adoptive family in the hopes of leading a normal life.

If the story’s premise evokes hundreds of other manga about average janes who manifest world-saving powers, its political subtext and crisp artwork leave a powerful impression. Blood+’s treatment of US-Japanese relations is about as subtle as MW’s, positing that American military forces have been conducting sinister genetic experiments on Okinawan soil. Yet this conspiracy adds a much-needed element of interest to a very tired plot, giving voice to Japanese ambivalence about America’s continued military presence. The artwork, like the multi-layered plot, enhances the series’ appeal. Asuka Katsura captures the look and feel of the anime—from its tropical setting to its elongated, stylized character designs—without slavishly reproducing the early episodes cell by cell. Her fight scenes are a model of clarity and economy, suggesting the intensity of combat without excessive reliance on speed lines.

But what I like best about Blood+—and where I think the manga improves on the original anime—is its unapologetic mixture of balls-to-the-wall action, family drama, and romanticism. All of these elements are present in the anime, but its languid pace and tin-eared voice acting often pulled me out of the story. The manga, however, moves more briskly, with Atsura achieving a better balance between domestic drama and chiropteran slaying. The manga’s other great advantage over the anime is that Hagi seems mysterious and sexy instead of a preposterous, cello-playing conceit (a characterization reinforced by Crispin Freeman’s arch, bored line readings). My only question: how does Hagi bow with that bandage-wrapped hand?

Volume one of Blood+ is available now.

Gon, Vol. 3

By Masashi Tanaka
CMX, 140 pp.
Rating: Teen (Violence)

The latest volume of this wordless series features three of my favorite stories: “Gon Goes Down the Big River,” a travelogue documenting Gon’s encounters with Amazon dwellers fierce and friendly; “Gon Goes Mushroom Hunting,” an amusing tale in which Gon consumes vast quantities of toadstools, with predictably psychedelic results; and “Gon Fights With Wolf Brothers,” a poignant story that pits a litter of orphaned pups against a tiger. Masashi Tanaka’s artwork is old school in the best sense, employing cross-hatching and delicate lines in lieu of screentone to create volume and depth. His panels are astonishingly detailed yet never fussy or poorly composed—if anything, Tanaka’s technique yields sharper images than the contemporary practice of mixing computer-generated fill with hand-drawn lines. Though Tanaka endows his creatures with unusually expressive faces, he resists the urge to fully anthropomorphize them; their behavior seem species-appropriate. (The elephants don’t wear spats or drive automobiles, the dogs don’t pretend to be World War I flying aces.) His restraint inoculates Gon against a terminal case of the cutes, resulting in a sometimes funny, sometimes violent look at various animal habitats through the eyes of a Jurassic auslander.

Volume three of Gon is available now.

Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs, Vol. 7

By Yukiya Sakuragi
Viz, 222 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

Each volume of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs follows a similar formula, mixing a few chapters of comic relief with longer story arcs dramatizing a Serious Problem (e.g. puppy mills) or showing us how a Woofles pup finds the perfect home. Volume seven opens with a textbook example of the latter, a shamelessly manipulative story of a bereaved little girl who forms a sudden attachment to a dachshund puppy. This story epitomizes what’s good—and bad—about Inubaka. On the plus side, the artwork is clean and cute, emphasizing the vulnerability of kid and dog; we want this sad little girl to find solace in canine company. On the minus side, Yukiya Sakuragi packs this brief episode with enough melodrama for a Victorian potboiler: was it really necessary for the girl’s brother to have been run over by a school bus right before the mother’s eyes? Or for the girl to believe the dachshund is the reincarnation of her brother? Great merciful heavens—Dickens never tugged so shamelessly on the heartstrings, and he trafficked in orphans! Still, it’s hard to dislike a series that manages to educate and entertain at the same time, especially when the basic curriculum promotes the dog-tested, Cesar Milan-approved formula of discipline, exercise, and love in equal measure.

Volume seven of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs is available now.

Dreading the thought of Lent—of giving up chocolate cake, Project Runway re-runs, or martinis for forty days? Then celebrate Shrove Tuesday by going on a manga-buying binge! This week’s shipping list is among the strongest I’ve seen in months, with an assortment of long-running favorites, critical darlings, and much-anticipated debuts. My top picks include volume six of After School Nightmare (Go! Comi), a trippy series that might have appealed to Carl Gustav Jung, had he lived to see the manga revolution; volume four of Black Sun Silver Moon (Go! Comi), a zombie story with heart; volume one of Blood+ (Dark Horse), an intelligent, stylish adaptation of the popular anime; volume two of Bride of the Water God (Dark Horse), a lushly illustrated romance with a folkloric bent; and volume twelve of Swan (CMX), a vintage shojo manga that my colleague Erin F. described as “so girly it goes all the way around the circle and into the realm of manliness. If Dark Horse had a ballet title, it would Swan.”

The book with the strongest claim on my affections, however, is the final volume of Yayoi Ogawa’s Tramps Like Us (Tokyopop). No matter how preposterous some of the storylines were—remember Sumire’s undercover assignment at a Tokyo amusement park?—Ogawa’s entertaining dramedy remained squarely focused on Sumire’s difficult journey from repressed salary lady to phenomenal woman. If you haven’t yet tried Tramps Like Us, I encourage you to pick up the first volume. It’s the perfect introduction to josei, demonstrating that chick lit doesn’t need to be self-deprecating or male-disparaging to be funny and compelling.

On a personal note, I wanted to express my sadness that David Welsh just posted his final Flipped! column at Comic World News, which will be shutting down operations in the next few weeks. David is one of the best reviewers I know. He’s consistently fair, funny, and wise, couching his criticisms in prose that’s always elegant but never flashy. Case in point: his final essay on Osamu Tezuka’s entertaining potboiler MW, in which he thoughtfully deconstructs Tezuka’s humane approach to batshit crazy material. The review is filled with sentences I’d wish I’d written, including this eloquent defense of Tezuka against charges of being the Japanese Walt Disney:

Tezuka is often described as Japan’s answer to Walt Disney, which implies that he’s a canny purveyor of stodgy, rather saccharine family fare. But while Disney was dedicated to producing wholesome family entertainment, Tezuka wanted to prove that comics could be for everyone. Even in his work specifically for kids, there are seeds – challenging themes and deep questions. When you get to Tezuka’s work for adults, those seeds have become a virtual forest as he tears into sex, religion, politics, media, environmentalism, and just about any other subject that crosses his mind. They’re no less humane, though, even in a melodrama as outré as MW. The cultural is fueled by the personal – lust, greed, hope, fear, ambition, faith, love… all that good stuff.

You can find more of David’s excellent comic book commentary—as well as pop culture musings and the occasional recipe—at his blog Precocious Curmudgeon.

REVIEWED LAST WEEK:
Andromeda Stories, Vol. 2 (Vertical, Inc.); Appleseed I/D (Dark Horse); La Corda d’Oro, Vol. 6 (Viz); NOiSE (Tokyopop); Short Sunzen!, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop); Uzumaki, Vol. 3 (Viz)

REVIEWED THIS WEEK:
I Wish, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop); Love Master A, Vol. 1 (Go! Comi); Red String, Vol. 2 (Dark Horse); Tail of the Moon, Vol. 9 (Viz)

SHIPPING THIS WEEK:
After School Nightmare, Vol. 6 (Go! Comi)
Aqua, Vol. 2 (Tokyopop)
Black God, Vol. 2 (Yen Press)
Black Sun Silver Moon, Vol. 4 (Go! Comi)
Blood+, Vol. 1 (Dark Horse)
Blood Sucker: Legend of Zipangu, Vol. 6 (Tokyopop)
Boys Be, Vol. 16 (Tokyopop)
Brave Story, Vol. 3 (Tokyopop)
Bride of the Water God, Vol. 2 (Dark Horse)
Chunchu the Genocide Fiend, Vol. 3 (Dark Horse)
Divalicious, Vol. 2 (Tokyopop)
Dragon Voice, Vol. 10 (Tokyopop)
Flock of Angels, Vol. 2 (Aurora Publishing)
GTO: The Early Years Shonan Junai Gumi, Vol. 6 (Tokyopop)
Gunsmith Cats Burst, Vol. 3 (Dark Horse)
Gyakushu!, Vol. 2 (Tokyopop)
Hanami: International Love Story, Vol. 3 (Dark Horse)
I Wish, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop; reviewed below)
Id Entity, Vol. 11 (Tokyopop)
Initial D, Vol. 29 (Tokyopop)
Junjo Romantica, Vol. 5 (BLU Manga)
Kare Kano Ultimate Edition, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
King of Cards, Vol. 3 (CMX)
King of Thorn, Vol. 3 (Tokyopop)
Little Queen, Vol. 5 (Tokyopop)
Missile Happy, Vol. 2 (Tokyopop)
Night of the Beasts, Vol. 6 (Go! Comi)
Puri Puri, Vol. 4 (DrMaster)
Recast, Vol. 5 (Tokyopop)
Red String, Vol. 2 (Dark Horse; reviewed below)
Rure, Vol. 2 (Tokyopop)
Satisfaction Guaranteed, Vol. 6 (Tokyopop)
SNK vs. Capcom SVC Chaos, Vol. 8 (UDON)
Swan, Vol. 12 (CMX)
Threads of Time, Vol. 11 (Tokyopop)
Tough Love Baby, Vol. 1 (Aurora/Deux)
Train + Train, Vol. 5 (Go! Comi)
Tramps Like Us, Vol. 14 (Tokyopop)
Zombie Loan, Vol. 2 (Yen Press)

I Wish, Vol. 1

By Hyun-Joo Seo
Tokyopop, 192 pp.
Rating: Teen (13+)

I Wish is a series of loosely connected stories united by a common moral: be careful what you wish for, as the cost may be too steep for you to pay. The volume opens with teenager Jin Ryu sulking in her bedroom after her family has decamped to Hawaii for vacation, leaving her to fend for herself. In a moment of spite, Jin wishes that their plane would crash and presto! it explodes mid-air. Racked with guilt, Jin seeks out K, a wish-granting wizard, and pleads with him to resurrect her brother and parents, but to no avail. (“I can’t grant any wishes related to the restoring of life,” he explains. “That is God’s domain.”) K then enlists—enslaves, really—Rin as his assistant so that she might pay off her considerable moral debts. What follows are three lengthy, rather convoluted stories about the clients who patronize K’s shop: a wealthy man who disapproves of his son’s fiancée, a young woman whose boyfriend suffers acute memory loss, and a teenager whose friend is ostracized for being gay.

Part of the problem is that Seo never clarifies what, exactly, Jin is supposed to do in her capacity as K’s gal Friday. In the first story, for example, Jin stages an intervention to prevent the robber baron from destroying his son’s happiness, while in the other stories she’s reduced to grouchy factotum. Another serious shortcoming of Seo’s storytelling is that she doesn’t bother to define parameters for her universe, save for K’s “no resurrection” rule. Most of K’s clients seem like ordinary, run-of-the-mill folk, but mid-way through the second story, Seo reveals that the memory-challenged young man is, in fact, a soldier from another dimension who’s being pursued by violent memories—literally. (His experiences have a nasty way of manifesting themselves as hungry, flesh-and-blood monsters.) It’s a clever conceit, but Seo offers no rationale this detour into the Twilight Zone; it’s as if she tried to squeeze a pre-existing story into her careful-what-you-wish-for mold. The biggest problem with I Wish, however, is that Seo never really punishes her characters for their selfish wishes. Early in volume one, we’re told that customers must surrender what’s “most precious” to them in exchange for K’s services. Yet K never seems to collect anything especially dear to his clients, allowing Seo to back away from the unsavory implications of her characters’ wishes and offering happy endings to her stories—think Presents with half the calories and none of the fat.

Volume one of I Wish will be available on February 6th.

Love Master A, Vol. 1

By Kyoko Hashimoto
Go! Comi, 192 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)

Aria, the easily flustered heroine of Love Master A, is unlucky in love. Really unlucky: the poor girl has declared her undying devotion to more than sixty boys, only to be rebuffed every time. Determined to make a fresh start, she swears off romance and transfers to a new school, where she’s named president of the First Year Student Council—and on her first day, no less. Her fellow council members are a motley crew, from secretary Mizuki, “a chick who hates chicks,” to treasurer Kurusu, a fop who dresses like a member of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. When students mistakenly assume that Aria is a “love master,” her compatriots concoct schemes—some sensible, some inane—to help their classmates make romantic connections, leading to the usual assortment of misunderstandings, misplaced feelings, and wacky hijinks characteristic of shojo comedies. Despite those wacky hijinks, Love Master A fails to make a lasting impression. Few of the plot twists make sense; the story jumps from moment to moment without much regard for logic or continuity. The artwork, too, leaves something to be desired. It isn’t bad, but it isn’t memorable either; I’d have a hard time picking Aria and her pals out of a line-up, as they strongly resemble the denizens of Ouran High School Host Club. My suggestion for anyone yearning for a juicy shojo comedy is to try the sweetly raunchy King of the Lamp or the ridiculously entertaining Tenshi Ja Nai!! and skip this blandly familiar comedy.

Volume one of Love Master A is available now.

Red String, Vol. 2

By Gina Biggs
Dark Horse, 208 pp.
Rating: Teen

Reading Red String reminded me a bit of watching David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago—not because any of the characters wore ushankas or resembled the young Omar Sharif, but because it induced a similar feeling of falseness, of looking at a meticulously crafted Potemkin village in which every storefront and house was stamped with the phrase “Made in the USA.” The problem lies with the setting: American artist Gina Biggs attempts the difficult task of writing a shojo romance set in Japan, starring Japanese characters. Biggs clearly did her homework, researching everything from honorifics to school uniforms to marriage customs. Yet Red String feels like an act of cultural ventriloquism as unconvincing as Julie Christy’s attempt to portray a passionate Slav. I never believed that any of the cast were Japanese—least of all the outspoken heroine Mihara Ogawa, who delivers the kind of speeches on individualism that are de rigueur in John Hughes movies but not very common in shojo manga. Biggs’ clumsy attempts to fold information about Japanese culture into the dialogue compounds the problem, as does her awkward artwork. (Her characters look like stiffly posed paper dolls, not three-dimensional figures occupying real space.) And while I admire Biggs for taking such a big risk with her story, I wish she’d used the visual grammar of shojo to tell an American story in an American setting. The results would have been much more satisfying, showcasing Biggs’ storytelling chops to much better effect and giving her a sturdier platform for a debate pitting free will against fate.

Volume two of Red String will be available on February 6th. To read a short excerpt, click here.

Tail of the Moon, Vol. 9

By Rinko Ueda
Viz, 200 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)

Tail of the Moon is perhaps the girliest manga ever written about ninjas. (Exhibit A: the cover of volume nine, which features a cute little boy, an even cuter doggie, a female ninja in a pink outfit with matching wrist-warmers, and a rainbow.) The series documents the misadventures of klutzy herbalist Usagi, whose family betroths her to an impossibly handsome ninja named Hanzo. Hanzo is less thrilled about the match than Usagi, so he sets a condition for their marriage: no nuptials until Usagi demonstrates her worth as a ninja. Frankly, I’d have done the same thing if I were in Hanzo’s getas, as Usagi is the kind of ditzy, inept character who tests the reader’s patience with her tearful outbursts, impulsive acts, and inability to remember simple instructions.

For this kind of romantic drama to succeed, the reader needs to believe the heroine worthy of her McDreamy, even if her flaws are obvious. I don’t doubt that many of Tail of the Moon’s fans sympathize with Usagi, and may even identify with her struggles. But from the standpoint of an older, more critical reader, Usagi seems far too immature for the stern, responsible Hanzo; about the best I can say for her is that she’s steadfast in her resolve to impress him. Tail of the Moon does have two things going for it, however: great artwork and crackerjack pacing. Rinko Ueda fills her manga with beautifully drawn characters, from achingly pretty men in lavish period costumes to piglets and puppies so kawaii they’d make the most curmudgeonly gekiga fan dissolve into a puddle of mero-mero joy. The story moves briskly without ever feeling hurried or choppy; it’s to Ueda’s credit that a reader could pick up any volume of the series and find it intelligible and—depending on one’s tolerance for sweetly dim shojo heroines—compelling.

Volume nine of Tail of the Moon is available now.

Welcome to the first 2008 edition of Manga Minis! This month, Ken looks at the final volumes of two old-school classics, Shirow Masamune’s Appleseed (Dark Horse) and Junji Ito’s Uzumaki (Viz), while I look at the second volume of Keiko Takemiya’s Andromeda Stories (Vertical, Inc.), the sixth volume of La Corda d’Oro (Viz), and the first volume of Short Sunzen! (Tokyopop). Andromeda Stories, Appleseed I/D, La Corda d’Oro and Short Sunzen! are available now; volume three of Uzumaki will be available on February 12th… just in time for Valentine’s Day!

Andromeda Stories, Vol. 2

Story by Ryu Mitsuse, Art by Keiko Takemiya
Vertical, Inc., 208 pp.
Rating: 13+

Ah, Keiko Takemiya, how I love your sci-fi extravaganzas! The psychic twins. The giant spiderbots. The evil, omniscient computers. The sand dragons. The fantastic hairdos. Just think how much more entertaining The Matrix might have been if you’d been at the helm instead of the dour, self-indulgent Wachowski Brothers! But wait… you did create your very own version of The Matrix: Andromeda Stories. I wasn’t sold on the comparison between the two franchises after reading the first volume, but now that I’ve seen what’s befallen the good citizens of Cosmoralia, I’m a believer. (See the final pages of volume two for the shocking details.) Takemiya’s story may not be as slickly presented as the Wachowski Brothers’, but she and collaborator Ryu Mitsuse engage the mind and heart with their tragic tale of doomed love, lost siblings, and machines so insidious that they’ll remake anything in their image—including the fish. Whatever reservations I might have had about this series have been dispelled by the second installment, which moves briskly through a decade’s worth of events while taking the time to address the deeper philosophical questions the story raises about identity and free will. And c’mon… what’s not to like about a manga that looks like a 1979 cover of Heavy Metal magazine?!

–Reviewed by Katherine Dacey

Appleseed I/D

By Shirow Masamune
Dark Horse, 144 pp.
Rating: 16+

Only about half of Appleseed I/D is an actual story; the other half is supplemental material exploring the Appleseed universe. The story, “Game,” is a short one involving a terrorist attempt to bomb the Elder Council and Deunan and Briarios’ short investigation into the incident. It felt like set-up to a much longer arc that probably would have filled volume five, had Masamune ever written it. The supplemental material is actually quite cool, consisting of rough page layouts, a full color pin up gallery, organizational flow charts, character guides, a in-depth time line for the series from the twentieth to the twenty-second centuries, and other random musings from Shirow about the Appleseed world. If you’re an Appleseed or Shirow fan, then I/D is a must own. Newcomers should wait on picking it up until they’ve read the previous four Appleseed books; otherwise, large chunks of the story will be ruined.

–Reviewed by Ken Haley

La Corda d’Oro, Vol. 6

By Yuki Kure
Viz, 200 pp.
Rating: Teen

If you ever needed proof that a dating simulation game might not be the best source material for a manga, look no further than volume six of La Corda d’Oro. The series is quickly running out of gas with its repetitive story lines, lack of overarching plot, and easy listening repertory. (Take it from a classically trained musician: Van Cliburn didn’t win the Tchaikovsky Competition by playing Schubert’s Ave Maria or Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.) In the opening chapters, evil bishie Azuma browbeats Kahoko into posing as his fiancée. His motives are honorable—uncertain that he’s ready to get engaged, Azuma doesn’t want to hurt the fiancée his parents have chosen for him. His character’s sudden about-face, however, makes no dramatic sense considering Azuma spent the previous four volumes tormenting Kahoko whenever they were alone. (Kahoko’s willingness to participate in this lame-brained scheme also defies common sense.) Such abrupt and illogical plot twists point to the biggest problem with the later volumes of La Corda d’Oro: they seem to have been written by someone with a very short attention span. Yuki Kure never lingers on any plot development for more than a chapter, unceremoniously dropping characters who can’t be shoehorned into latest storyline—remember the female clarinetist from volume one?—and skimping on the musical shop-talk. (In previous volumes, the characters at least feigned interest in making music.) The most I can say for volume six is that La Corda d’Oro is still one of the best-looking titles in the Shojo Beat line, with a cast of beautifully drawn characters occasionally playing beautifully drawn instruments.

–Reviewed by Katherine Dacey

Short Sunzen!, Vol. 1

By Susagi Sakurai
Tokyopop, 192 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)

Reading Short Sunzen! left me with a powerful sense of déjà vu: didn’t I just review another manga about a tomboy who discovers her inner girly-girl through the magic of love? The answer turned out to be no, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that Short Sunzen! was a kind of Frankenmanga assembled from the pieces of other shojo comedies, with its obligatory cultural festival chapter and its karate-chopping heroine, who delivers a powerful blow at the slightest provocation. I don’t mean to denigrate formula—after all, there are plenty of excellent shojo series that faithfully observe the genre’s conventions while offering surprising plot twists and character developments: Bring It On!, Love*Com, Ouran High School Host Club,, and Your and My Secret all come to mind. Common to these manga are memorable characters who, despite their sometimes outlandish behavior, seem like real individuals. And it’s here that Short Sunzen! falls, well, short. Satsuki and Sendo, the lead couple, seem like pale imitations of the tough cookies and sensitive boys found in Ai Morinaga’s work, minus the inner lives of Morinaga’s characters. Susagi Sakurai’s busy layouts and highly stylized faces only reinforce the sense of familiarity; one could easily confuse Short Sunzen! with, say, I Hate You More Than Anyone. It’s too bad that this manga struck me as ho-hum fare, as its underlying message—boys like you best when you’re being yourself—is one that more girls ought to hear.

–Reviewed by Katherine Dacey

Uzumaki, Vol. 3

By Junji Ito
Viz, 264 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

The climax to Junji Ito’s horror masterpiece is at hand! Kurozu-Cho is literally being swallowed up by the curse of the Spiral, as constant battering by huge hurricanes devastates the small village. The outside world remains cut off by bizarre whirlpools, tornados, and other odd phenomena. The beleaguered citizens struggle to survive as the situations spirals (pun intended) out of control. Ito’s art remains strong and detailed, giving an immensely creepy look to things such as giant snails and twisting mounds of human bodies. Ito never quite reaches the squick-inducing moments of the second volume; instead, he heavily focuses on developing our sense of dread. He still occasionally makes use of an idea that leans more towards goofy than frightening. Still, despite his strange decision to include gangs of tornado riders, the final volume still manages to be a wonderfully creepy, edge-of-your-seat read. Many of the questions that readers have will be answered with the fantastic conclusion, but Ito doesn’t over-explain anything here. He gives you just enough to leave you satisfied, but not so much that it becomes boring and mundane. It’s a tactic that one of his favorite authors, H.P. Lovecraft, had down pat and this volume of Uzumaki certainly has some very Lovecraftian moments to it. This entire series has been fantastic and I highly recommended to any and all horror fans. Top notch work!

–Reviewed by Ken Haley