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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!
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
