When Light Yagami wins a place at a top university, he is surprised to find that the fellow top-scoring student chosen to give the opening address is the same shambling, unkempt young man he noticed…
‘You can choose to be barely alive. Or you can choose a definite death. So….don’t make a wrong choice.’ This is the sombre advice given to the protagonist of this story, Taisuke. After surviving…
When we left Taisuke at the end of Volume 1, he had a hole in his stomach and had just survived a fall off the top of a building. He wakes from a 3 day coma and ponders to himself, ‘Any normal human would…
It became known as “Nightmare Week”. A pandemic of global suicides suddenly hit planet Earth, apparently caused by some new kind of “suicide virus”. This coincided with a host of other strange…
This is my first encounter with the Hellsing franchise, but this is actually its third iteration. It began in manga form, with Kouta Hirano creating the original manga series which debuted in…
Guts decides to rejoin the Band of the Hawk before they decide to embark on a daring attempt to rescue Griffith. What follows should be a joyful reunion but instead becomes something nobody could…
As consistently brilliant as it is, I’m reluctant to say that this volume is another turning point in the Berserk story. The thing is, not only each successive volume but every episode seems…
Berserk seems to be reaching a turning-point as the war between Midland and Chuder focuses on a decisive battle for control of the Doldery stronghold. Following their brave and lucky escape at…
Like many anime series, Trinity Blood begins with the romanticised amalgamation of different periods, organisations and styles (used to its own ends) that we are by now familiar with; drawing…
Guts carries out the mission Griffith set for him but events take an unexpected and bloody turn. Unfortunately nobody has much time to dwell on the ramifications because the Band of the Hawk are…
“Humans are so much fun!” gleefully observes Ryuk, the shinigami, or God of Death, who has oh-so-carelessly dropped his Death Note, the notebook in which he inscribes the names of those…
‘Claymore’ volume three is basically Yagi coming back into form. This volume begins to really unravel Claire’s past whilst simultaneously setting up her future. The conclusion to the long and…
Following on from the death of Elena and Raki becoming Claire’s cook they both travel to Rabona which is a holy city where there is a huge religious community. A Yoma is present here however holy …
Norihiro Yagi’s ‘Claymore’ (クレイモア) is a dark and brooding story chronicling the journey of Claire, a Claymore (a half-breed of Human and Yoma), through her miserable job of destroying Yoma, …
A run-in with an immortal demon-warrior named Zodd, an assault on a strategically significant fortress and underhand court politics present both problems and opportunities for Guts, Griffith…
“It is not the sword that will change the world. It is words.”
In the opening titles, we see first Saint Germain, then Robespierre writing words of power on thin air. And the words ‘revolution’ and…
Halloween is fast approaching and it’s time to indulge in some frightful Japanese horror. Sadly, it’s not a genre that translates well to anime and manga, but having recently discovered the abnormal…
‘France will change. It must change!’
The opening words of Volume 2 are full of foreboding: it’s Holy Week and D’Eon and his friends are on the trail of the Russian fur merchant Vorontsov whom they…
The idea of kicking off a series by showing a messed-up, badass antihero laying waste to his enemies in an all-out action fest isn’t a new one. It’s a bit misleading though when the …
“What more could you ask for than a bevy of beauties forced to put their lives on the line to answer the call of duty? Divergence Eve is a bold and imaginative voyage leading directly into the heart…
