Hello!
Welcome to The Anime & Manga Review!
It has been my dream to create a world on TheO where users can go for anime and manga reviews and finally here it is! I plan to make this world an active, exciting and helpful place for learning about and finding entertaining manga and anime to read/watch.

Hey! Did you know I do all kinds of things to make it easy to search specific genres and reviews?
For information on how to search for genre and such things please see my info post!
Its the first post of this world and will help you find your way!

~Tsubasachro
(aka Tsu)

The Necromancer

Hey all! If you haven’t voted yet, please pitch in your opinion on what my “special thank you for 5,000 views review” should be!
http://www.poll-maker.com/poll92360xb492460b-4

Necromancer
Author/artist: Soga Shina

Oh where to start about this review? First off I think a liiiiittle personal background about myself is needed… XD I am a panel geek. Nothing gets me more excited than when a comic book or manga has amazing panel arrangement! (I have mentioned this in the past, but I’ve written a 10 page research paper on the subject)
So needless to say this manga has really cool page layouts. The author really enhances the story through those choices and I love it.

Moving on from my obsession with panels… The story is about a mysterious young man who is a necromancer. Of course there’s a price to be paid for these services, and that just so happens to be three years of a living person. Oh but that’s not all! A resurrected soul’s essence, or “special characteristics” are enhanced through this process and its impossible to predict how much or what will happen. Interesting right?
Like many manga the basic premise itself is fairly simple, but I just adore the bitter sweet stories and the main character (the necromancer) has such a straight forward and sometimes brutal views on death and resurrection that he’s really interesting to learn more about as the series goes on. To top it off, the other main character who is a female cop trying to find some kind of evidence that the necromancer is up to no good, adds a really fun element and lets some of the stories take on mystery element.

Truly though, I must say I really like the art work in this series! This is a horror manga but the actual characters have a very sweet, elegant smoothness to the way they’re drawn. This style with its cute characters and stark black and white contrast makes for a unique look that oddly compliments the horror nature of the series very well. (my friends and I were just talking about sweet and evil things today and decided it’s “swevil” or sweet and evil)

While this is classified as a shounen manga, I think that shoujo fans would really like this one. And of course if you’re into bitter sweet horror stories or want to try something just a little bit different this is the perfect choice. It's a fun read, with some great mysteries and thrills.

~Tsu

ps. Did you know that I actually use the tags and post type to make my reviews easy to find and filter?
Check out how to do this on my info post!

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Mermaid Saga

Mermaid Saga
Also known as Mermaid Forest in anime form
By: Rumiko Takahashi

I don’t care what any of you guys say! Mermaids can be terrifying!!! O.O
I have no idea if it’s a Japanese thing or whether it’s just drawing on the traditional legend of sirens of death that would drown sailors, but I can name more than one manga with evil mermaids…

Anyways of all the mermaid manga this one is probably one of the more popular, as it’s by the same author as Inuyasha, and was widely published outside Japan. Don’t worry though! If you’re thinking this will be too much like Inuyasha! Its not, and it’s also fairly short at, I believe five books long.
Mermaid Saga is based off a legend (that I’m not sure, again, if its Japanese, a widely believed piece of lore or made up by the author, but I have seen the idea in other series) that if you eat the flesh of a mermaid you will be granted immortality.
The story begins with Yuta, a young man who stumbles upon a strange villiage where it appears only women live. Well they kill him less than 20 pages in so I’m not counting it as a spoiler. XD And guess what? He’s partaken of mermaid’s flesh. The story develops from there and is really a great introduction to this world of evil mermaids that the author proceeds to develop in the rest of the series.
If you’ve never read anything else by Rumiko Takahashi other than Inuyasha, you’re really missing out and this would be a good introduction to the rest of her works! The series is a bit more mature than Inuyasha (not by much, though) and keeps a fun supernatural vibe throughout.

This is a great series for people who want supernatural things on Halloween but don’t want to be wading across a river of blood to get them.
And come on! Don’t even pretend like evil mermaids don’t sound kinda awesome!

~Tsu

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Let's Talk About Horror

The Best of Itou Junji

For those of you that don’t know, Itou Junji writes some of the best and most visual horror manga. By most visual I mean that he is an expert at using manga as a medium to enhance the horror in a way that is unique and terrifying! Ever hear of Uzumaki or Gyo? If so, those are Itou’s work. If not… then clearly you are in need of a proper introduction. I’ve talked about Itou Junji before on Reign of Blood, but here I’m going to focus on my favorite of his short stories. Junji is the master of scary shorts… ah! So freaky!
I really love his work, he’s one of the few manga authors that I follow regularly. His work often feels like a modern fairy tale, not today’s kid friendly fairy tales, but the Grimm’s dark cautionary tales of old. He also manages to tap into my imagination and write the stories in a suspenseful way and show me the horrors in a way that’s somehow unexpected and disturbing, and I love him for it!

So here are my favorite, and what I think to be some of the scariest, of Itou Junji’s short horror manga!
Arg! It was sooooo hard to just choose 5!!!

5. Ice Cream Bus
When I was a kid, getting ice cream from an ice cream truck was the ultimate treat since my mom was always wary of them, and if I had read this as a kid I probably would have never ate ice cream again! This short feels very much the cautionary fairy tale I mentioned above. The story follows a man who has recently been divorced and is now taking care of his 8-10 year kid. After begging and begging to get to ride the ice cream truck with the other kids the father gives in, just wanting his son to be happy living with him. Needless to say some baaaad sh*t goes down! Gah! Just thinking about it! Needless to say I won’t ruin it for you, but (pun definitely intended) you’re in for a treat!

4. The Hanging Balloons
Ever thought that Stephen King’s It was weird for trying to make balloons scary? Well after reading this you’ll find yourself readily agreeing with him! The story begins with a sudden increase in suicides and well… it’s all down hill from there… Or er… up… in the sky… as people soon begin seeing what appears to be giant floating heads in the sky… Yikes! read it to learn all the freaky details! Oh man! Don’t pop any balloons!!!

3. House of Puppets
Why is this author trying to destroy all my happy childhood memories?! Lol Anyways House of Puppets is scary in a different way than the other two as it questions your personal freedom in a way that’s just… freaky! A poor family of puppeteers travels from place to place until the father becomes sick, the oldest son runs away, the father dies and all that’s left is the two youngest. Skip ahead several years and the oldest brother tracks down his siblings and invites them over and what do they find? Their brother is a crazy rich guy who’s made himself into a human puppet controlled by people living in his ceiling. Yeah talk about odd, this manga makes you think about who are the real puppets..?

2. Flesh colored Horror
No more ruined childhood! Woot! Ok this one is one of my favorites (and one of the scariest) The story begins with a Kindergarten teacher who has a problem child in her class. After the kid acts violently in school she decides to intervene with the parents and make sure everything is ok at home. Sadly her intervention doesn’t work and the boy has to be expelled after he injures another student. Even expelled he still sits outside the school every day. The teacher asks him why and he says he doesn’t want to go home. Being a good teacher and person, she begins to expect abuse and decides to visit his house again. Freaky stuff from there on… seriously every time I read it… it still gets me! Lets just say skin is important for many reasons including, protecting you from disease, keeping you hydrated, and protecting your muscles.

1. Glyceride
Ewwwwwww…. This one… This one! Anyways, the story of a girl who lives above a restaurant her father runs, where the oil and grease from cooking coats the air and the walls. One day her brother begins going a bit strange and starts drinking grease… well yeah… its gets gross and extremely disturbing from there! A great one shot that will give you a great horror fix!

Hope you enjoy reading! I know I always do!
You should definitely read this if horror is your genre, heck if horror is your genre you’ve probably at least heard of this guy and should definitely check out his shorts!
You should probably skip these if you don’t like horror… if you want a softer horror series by the same author check out his Tomie stories. They’re a bunch of loosely connected shorts that are a bit less disturbing but still very good!

~Tsu

ps. Do you have an awesome review world of your own? Share it with me and I’ll plug you here! ^-^

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Stalker Woman

Zashiki Onna
Author: Mochizuki Minetaro

Oh this manga… It was one of the first series I ever read on the Internet and it always manages to scare the pants off me!

Zashiki Onna is a classic Japanese horror series from the 90s and follows the story of a young college student who finds himself being followed by a strange woman who is essentially stalking him.
This series has an interesting little history that I won’t go into in depth, but to touch upon it, this manga was written before stalking was recognized as word or a crime so at the time there wasn’t much you could do about it if it happened.
Zashikki Onna plays upon the fear of the known, of having someone following your every movement to the point of obsession and with the fear of the unknown, the things going bump in the night. For these reasons, the manga gives off a very real vibe that feels like it could be an urban legend or a “based off a true story” horror flick.
Zashiki Onna is fairly tame as far as horror goes, in that it has almost no blood or gore (someone gets a bump on the head and a few other injuries) but the true reason it’s terrifying is because it is a psychological horror series. The idea that it could really happen, as well as the artful way the main character’s mental state is shown throughout, from angry, to afraid, to possibly driven to the brink of insanity, is very well demonstrated. As the story progresses, we are made to question everything and it boils to an extremely memorable conclusion that I won’t spoil for you.

Ok so now I have to mention one other series with a similar plot, which is constantly compared to Zashiki Onna, Ibitsu, written by Ryou Haruto and being a newer series is more popular on the net. It also features a female stalker and poor male victim. While I did enjoy Ibitsu, it plays far more into the violence and less into the psychological horror, and also plays more into a supernatural vibe. Don’t get me wrong! Ibitsu is not a supernatural manga, nor is it bad, but it definitely didn’t feel like it could really happen and freaked me out less than the simplistic style of Zashiki Onna. I bring it up because it is eerily similar and clearly takes inspiration from stalker manga that came before it. (Borderline a remake or copycat it’s so similar at a few parts) Read it if you dare as it is still a pretty darn freaky series with a unique flare of its own!

Zashiki Onna is a classic horror manga and a must read for fans of the genre. It is also a good read for people who love horror but don’t want the gore of series like Uzumaki, Gyo, or Manhole.
If you dislike horror manga I would say skip it and try a lighter manga like Assassination Classroom.

~Tsu
PS. Thank you to everyone who reads this world! I have just reached the 3,000 view mark and I am so grateful for the support! If I make it to 5,000 I got a special review planned... so bribery! ;)

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Zombies!

Rome Rome
Author: Hamaoka Kenji
It’s rare I find manga that still surprises me… That being said I owe people wallpapers for not getting the anime review done on time… Sorry!!! Next week for sure!

So yeah its basically October right? So I can start doing Halloween things right? Right?
I think so…

So here’s Rome Rome!
Rome Rome is a horror comedy about surviving the zombie plague. Nothing quite like it… All the characters are so calm about the fact they’re literally surrounded and yet they go about every day life the same way.
The kids play soccer outside, the grandma plants in the garden, but you know grandma also chops of zombie heads with her hoe.
It’s a great one shot with a good moral for the kiddies too! Lol This manga is totally worth reading for that punch line at the end of the manga. Twilight Zone ref/ mild spoiler -> (It reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode that ended with a “so don’t drink and drive or you may get abducted by aliens and kept as a pet” moral! XD)

Sorry this is pathetically short… This week I’ve gone from having nothing to do to having lots and lots to do. I need to find my balance again! XO
I’m almost there tho so, fear not! I’ll probably do a special on Weds too to make up for the short post…

~Tsu

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