From the back cover:
“Frankly, I’m not fond of surprises, as ones around here tend to be rather wicked.”

For poor Theodosia, however, surprises abound. She spends most of her time at the Museum of Legends and Antiquities in London. There, all the artifacts that her parents dig up around the world are put on display and studied. But what her parents can’t see—and what Theodosia can—is the curses and black magic still attached to the ancient pieces. And it’s up to Theo to keep it all under control. Quite a task for an eleven-year-old girl!

Then Theo’s mother brings home the Heart of Egypt—a legendary amulet belonging to an ancient tomb. Theodosia’s skills will certainly be put to the test, for the curse attached to it is so vile and so black, it threatens to bring down the entire British Empire! Theodosia will have to call upon everything she’s ever learned in order to prevent the rising chaos from destroying her country—and herself!

Review:
Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos is like a sandwich. You might assume I mean that it starts and ends strong but has a disappointing middle, but I actually mean just the opposite.

1906, London. Theodosia Throckmorton, age eleven, is cleverer than most. Her parents work at the Museum of Legends and Antiquities, specializing in Egyptian artifacts. Theodosia claims many of these items are cursed, though no one else ever notices this fact, and describes the spell preparations she uses to nullify the curses before they do any damage. For a while, I regarded her as an unreliable narrator because I couldn’t tell whether we were supposed to believe that this was all true or if it was all an elaborate game of make-believe devised by an intelligent, lonely girl; many of her spells involve rather mundane ingredients like bits of string, after all.

When confirmation of the existence of curses as well as Theodosia’s talent for detecting them comes from adults in The Brotherhood of the Chosen Keepers, I began to enjoy the story much more. She gets involved with the Brotherhood after tracking men whom she suspects of having stolen the valuable artifact the Heart of Egypt from her parents’ museum. It turns out that this artifact brings a curse upon the nation responsible for removing it from its tomb and that Germans facilitated its removal by Theodosia’s mother in order to bring chaos upon Britain. To forestall plagues, famine, and the like it must be returned to its original resting place. The whole middle section, in which Theodosia enlists the aid of her little brother and a pickpocket named Sticky Will to get back the Heart of Egypt is pretty entertaining, if improbable.

Alas, things take a turn for the ridiculous when the leader of The Brotherhood asks the eleven-year-old Theodosia to convince her parents to take her to Egypt so that she can put the Heart of Egypt back where it belongs. And she can’t tell then what’s up or have any backup, since all the other Brotherhood agents are injured or elsewhere. Nevermind that a group of murderous Germans wants it back or anything. The final few chapters are pretty tiresome, full of scenes of evading the bad guys and Theodosia reminding readers over and over of her assigned task. Everything wraps up exactly as one would expect, of course.

Another thing that bothered me a lot at first was the writing. A superfluous mention of “frocks and pinafores” gave off the distinctive aroma of “someone trying really hard to sound British,” so I checked and, yes, LaFevers is an American. After a while it ceased to bother me as much, but every time Theodosia said “smashing” I did cringe a bit inside.

I went from being dubious, to being pleased, to being rather bored throughout the course of this story. There are currently two more books in the series, with a fourth due out next spring, and at first I thought I wouldn’t bother with them, then I thought I would, and now I am not sure. There’s definitely a lot of potential here, but the execution is uneven. Perhaps what is needed is for Theodosia to have a team to work with; those parts were much more interesting than when she was alone. Now that she’s become an honorary member of the Brotherhood and grown closer to her brother, such an outcome seems possible. I suppose this means I’ve convinced myself to read at least one more and see how it goes.

More reviews of Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos can be found at Triple Take.

From the back cover:
Sookie Stackhouse is a small-time cocktail waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana. She’s quiet, keeps to herself, and doesn’t get out much. Not because she’s not pretty. She is. It’s just that, well, Sookie has this sort of “disability.” She can read minds. And that doesn’t make her too datable. Then along comes Bill. He’s tall, dark, handsome—and Sookie can’t hear a word he’s thinking. He’s exactly the type of guy she’s been waiting for all her life…

But Bill has a disability of his own: he’s a vampire with a bad reputation. But he is an interesting addition to the town, and Sookie can’t help but listen to what everyone else thinks about Bill… especially since she’s starting to fall for the buff bloodsucker. But when a string of murders hits town—along with a gang of truly nasty vampires looking for Bill—Sookie wonders if having an undead boyfriend is such a bright idea.

And when one of her coworkers is killed, Sookie realizes that Bill and his friends may have some special plans for a woman who can read minds…

Review:
I’ve had the first few books in the Southern Vampire series for a long time, but ever since acquiring them I’ve had doubts about whether I’d actually like them. My doubts appeared justified when an attempt to watch an episode of True Blood, the HBO series based on the novels, ended in about five minutes. Still, I can usually tolerate “blood and boobies” (description credit to Felicia Day) better in print than on screen, so I thought I’d give the books a shot.

As most probably know by now, this is the story of Sookie Stackhouse, a waitress in small-town Bon Temps, Louisiana. Sookie is telepathic, which has made dating difficult, but when she meets vampire Bill Compton and cannot read his thoughts, she’s intrigued. Eventually they become a couple, but as Sookie learns more about Bill’s world she realizes that most vampires are quite unpleasant and that the hierarchy in their society means that Bill’s “superior,” Eric, can command her attendance as he chooses and there’s nothing Bill can do to prevent it.

Their relationship struggles play out against a rural backdrop that’s presently plagued by a string of murders for which Bill and Sookie’s brother, Jason, are individually suspected. This mystery fades into the background at times, but its resolution was a genuine surprise to me, though in retrospect it really shouldn’t have been. There is a good deal of sex once Sookie and Bill get together, but it stops short of being so explicit that it offends my prudish sensibilities.

As a Southerner, I can tell this book was written by “one of us.” Although I live in a fairly urban city, we’re surrounded by rural counties where the residents of Bon Temps would fit right in. I don’t live a life like these characters do, but I bet that some of my coworkers do.

Sookie herself strikes me as quite Southern in that she’s somewhat apathetic about her lack of education and go-nowhere job and extremely tolerant of some of Bill’s peculiar behavior. She’s got flaws—the adjectives vain, naïve, petulant, and complacent all describe her at one point or another—but she’s also got common sense and is resourceful in emergencies. Bill, so far, is kind of dull. The most interesting thing about him is that he became a vampire in the Civil War era, and so must try to get over some old-fashioned notions about women.

Ultimately, my feelings for this series are similar to those for the Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom series by Julie Kenner: there are things that bug me, and they’re not the greatest books on the planet, but I am still strongly compelled to keep reading them. Maybe one day I’ll even give True Blood another try.

From the back cover:
The definitive collection of the first Buffy comics series starts here. This volume begins at the beginning—”The Origin,” a faithful adaptation of creator Joss Whedon’s original Buffy screenplay. The newly chosen Slayer’s road to Sunnydale continues by way of Vegas and a mental institution, and scenes of high school, the early Scoobies, and an English librarian lead the way into Season One—and The Goon creator Eric Powell gives a look at Spike and Drusilla causing havoc at the 1933 World’s Fair.

This omnibus series is the ultimate compilation of Dark Horse’s original Buffy comics and runs chronologically along the TV series’ timeline. A fitting companion to Whedon’s comics-based relaunch of the Buffy mythos.

Review:
Because this omnibus collects a variety of arcs from different points in the comic’s run—and created by various teams of people—I think it’ll be easiest to address each one separately.

“All’s Fair” by Christopher Golden, et al.
A short, murky story about the family of the Chinese Slayer Spike killed seeking vengeance at the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago. The dialogue is decent, though Drusilla’s tendency to speak nonsense is overused, but the character likenesses are pretty bad and the story’s boring, to boot. Thankfully, this one’s quite short.

“Buffy: The Origin” by Joss Whedon, et al.
This purports to be “a faithful adaptation” of Whedon’s original screenplay for the Buffy movie. If so, apparently Joss originally envisioned vampires as cheesy green creatures! Still, this is much better than the movie as I remember it, doing a good job at depicting Buffy’s growing distance from her materialistic friends and setting up her conflicting desires/destinies of “normal girl” versus “chosen one.” I also liked that the scene of Buffy meeting her watcher, Merrick, for the first time seems to have been lifted wholesale from the movie script for use in season two’s “Becoming, Part 1.”

“Viva Las Buffy!” by Scott Lobdell, et al.
After Buffy gets expelled from Hemery High for burning down the gym (full of vampires), she and Pike head off to Las Vegas to investigate a casino catering to vampires. The story itself is not very exciting—despite involving time travel, half-vampire Siamese twins, and Angel doing his own poking around—but it’s narrated by Pike and provides an explanation for his absence from Buffy’s life in the series. It is rather weird to see Buffy being all proactive in her duties to vanquish vamps here, when she starts season one of the series so keen to avoid her calling.

“Dawn & Hoopy the Bear” by Paul Lee
This short story takes place while Buffy is in Vegas. In an attempt to kill Buffy, a demon imbues a teddy bear with the spirit of a djinn, but the delivery guy mistakenly gives it to Dawn instead. Instead of killing her, the bear takes a liking to her and becomes her defender. It’s a little weird to read a solo Dawn story like this, since we know it didn’t really happen, but I presume this is supposed to be one of the false memories Dawn has of her childhood. It’s actually really cute and I liked it a lot.

“Slayer, Interrupted” by Scott Lobdell, et al.
In the season six episode, “Normal Again,” Buffy reveals that she was once sent to a mental institution after Dawn read her diary and reported the entries about vampire slaying to her parents. While this is another memory that didn’t really happen—Joyce didn’t learn her daughter was the Slayer until the show’s second season—Buffy believes that it did, so this arc is interesting from that perspective.

Unfortunately, it’s also too much like the season three opener, “Anne.” Buffy doesn’t want to be the Slayer, she’s stuck somewhere with a lot of helpless teens being victimized by a demon, she finally accepts who she is, and comes to everyone’s rescue. The story ends with a newly confident Buffy heading home, but again, this doesn’t really match with the Buffy we first meet in the beginning of the TV series.

While the stories are all drawn by different people, they have some artistic commonalities. First of all, many of them have problems with eye color. The earlier pieces in the collection depict vampires with red eyes, though this is corrected later. I’m more annoyed by Giles and Wesley having brown eyes and Buffy and Willow having blue ones. Eye color aside, though, Buffy in these comics looks more consistently like Sarah Michelle Gellar than she does in the Season Eight series.

Also, it’s not just Buffy whose pre-Sunnydale life we glimpse. The stories by Scott Lobdell contain scenes of the Watchers Council deciding which candidate will best serve as Buffy’s new watcher (this is where Wesley comes in), the gradual dissolution of Joyce and Hank’s marriage, and one brief sighting of a lonely Willow being sneered at by Cordelia and her cronies. Although there are a few minor inconsistencies, these arcs also flow quite well in chronological order, even though they weren’t originally published that way.

I actually own all seven of these omnibi, so expect more reviews to come!

It’s China during the Tang Dynasty. Exorcist Baek-On Ju travels with his bodyguard, Ho-Yeon Won, dealing with ghosts, crafting talismans for his customers, and advising on various mysterious phenomena. The series is primarily episodic but is nonetheless affecting, owing to the quality of the stories and the painful memories that unite Baek-On and Ho-Yeon in self-incriminating suffering.

Many of the stories are based on folk tales, and Yun’s useful end notes are careful to note their origins, if applicable. Most are dark and full of surprising, sinister twists that make them exciting to read, even if the protagonists of the series are largely absent. Sometimes, too, we are able to care about these guest characters a great deal in even a short amount of time—the best example is the final chapter in volume one, in which a guard valiantly defends the concubine he has come to love, sight unseen, against an invading horde.

I initially wondered whether Baek-On, who is seen consulting with a governor’s minion on ways to “get rid” of concubines, was somehow responsible for the outcome of that story, but in later volumes, his obsession with karma and his conviction that he will have to pay for certain of his actions in his next life leads me to believe that he would never want to add to his karmic burden in this way. Karma plays a large role in this series, not just for Baek-On, but for his customers, who are urged to consider how their present actions will affect them in their next life or who are doomed to repeat a tragic cycle of events because they are not willing to listen to his advice.

Baek-On’s refusal to forget tragic events for which he feels responsible is the reason Ho-Yeon, a skilled warrior weary of killing people, feels comfortable with him. At this point, it’s unclear exactly what happened, but it appears that Ho-Yeon left his younger sister unprotected and that, while he was away, she was killed. He wanted to die too, that day, but forces himself to keep living, never forgiving himself for what happened. No longer willing to fight the living, he instead fights spiritual foes at Baek-On’s side.

Both characters are complex—Baek-On enjoys playing the lighthearted fool, though his moments of desperate emotion expose the lie, and Ho-Yeon seems to be the quiet, thoughtful one but has endured more dark times than one would suppose—and their relationship is quite fascinating. Even though Ho-Yeon would seem to be in an employee’s role, it’s clear that Baek-On likes and needs him a great deal. The real depth of their friendship is not apparent in volume one, but by the third volume it’s been fleshed out quite nicely.

There are a few things that bug me about the series. It seems that Yun was still fine-tuning some ideas after the first few chapters were written, which causes some inconsistencies down the line. In volume three, for example, Baek-On will not allow a ghost to have her revenge. This is a little odd because, in the very first chapter, that’s exactly what he does, and takes his client’s money for arranging the situation, to boot. Does abetting a ghostly murder not damage one’s karma? Too, many of the female characters in the book look incredibly similar, and the position of Ho-Yeon’s neck and face in a color illustration in volume two seems anatomically impossible.

Sometimes with an episodic series, I continue to read it because I like the characters. I certainly do like these characters and want to read more about them, but Time and Again is a welcome rarity in which the stories themselves are also a major draw. I’m sad that I have to wait until November for volume four!

Time and Again is published in English by Yen Press; three volumes have been released so far. The series is complete in Korea with a total of six volumes.

Review copies for volumes one and three provided by the publisher.

Although Saiyuki’s sequels and prequel ran/run in magazines aimed at a female audience, the original was serialized in GFantasy, which, as Melinda Beasi pointed out in her Black Butler review, features many shounen series created by and appealing to women. Therefore, while I associate Saiyuki with intense female fandom, it still technically qualifies for inclusion in the Shounen Sundays experiment.

Saiyuki is based on the famous Chinese tale, Xi-You-Ji, or Journey to the West. Accordingly, the story begins with a Buddist monk, Genjyo Sanzo, receiving orders from a bodhisattva to gather three youkai (supernatural beings) companions and travel with them to India to stop the resurrection of a dangerous youkai lord known as Gyumaoh. Whoever is attempting the revival has combined human science and youkai magic in forbidden ways, resulting in a “Minus Wave” that has turned normally peaceful youkai into monsters and threatens the harmonious cohabitation they have enjoyed with humans. Sanzo and his companions, who are protected from the Minus Wave by virtue of either part-human lineage or power limiters, duly travel west as ordered.

The real point of the story, however, lies not in thwarting Gyumaoh’s return—a plot which proceeds at a pace best described as glacial—but in the characters and their personal journeys. In addition to Genjyo Sanzo, the priest who believes only in himself, there’s Sha Gojyo, a half-youkai womanizer; Cho Hakkai, a generally level-headed manipulator of chi; and Son Goku, the energetic Monkey King. Each character has a painful backstory more detailed than the main plot and as they travel ever so slowly westward, their various encounters with violent youkai or would-be assassins lead to gradually more revelations about their lives before they met.

While some of them get along well from the start—it seems Gojyo and Hakkai have been friends for a long time—Sanzo, the sole human of the group, initially has trouble trusting that his companions will not someday succumb to the effects of the Minus Wave and turn on him. Gradually, trust grows all around, leading to some nice moments of what I like to call “teamy goodness.” The characters are so compelling—though I could do without the constant (and grating) siblingesque arguing between Gojyo and Goku—that one finds oneself reading just for them. I really don’t care at all about Gyumaoh, for example, and the youkai encounters are already getting repetitive, but the promise that the fourth volume will offer more information about Hakkai makes me eager to continue the series.

It’s not just the heroes that are likable, though. I love a story with sympathetic villains, and so far Saiyuki has produced several. The chief antagonist so far is Kougaiji, son of Gyumaoh who is (unwillingly) doing the bidding of his father’s lover on the basis of a promise to free his mother from some kind of… containment. He sends members of his band to target Sanzo and his group, eventually arriving in person with his (mostly) likable inner echelon of followers. One gets the sense that he regrets having to fight Sanzo, but has no choice if he wants to free his mother. Another villain turns out to be a former priestly comrade of Sanzo’s who voluntarily cursed himself so that he could protect other priests from murderous thieves responsible for the death of Sanzo’s master. This brings up some informative and painful memories for Sanzo, as one might expect.

Artistically, Minekura has improved a lot since the early days of Saiyuki. Even by volume three the art is looking better, but initially the contrast between the covers and interiors is pretty major. This especially manifests itself in characters with droopy eyes, like Sanzo and the bodhisattva, who end up looking severely deformed on a number of occasions. I’m also strongly reminded, by some of the costumes, character designs, and the feel of the story as a whole, of Yun Kouga’s Gestalt (not that this is a bad thing). They did run in the same magazine, so perhaps that’s not unusual.

Ultimately, I liked Saiyuki a lot more than I’d expected to. It’s no Wild Adapter, and it’s a little bit pokey and a little bit silly, but it’s still much better than I thought it would be.

Saiyuki is published in English by TOKYOPOP and all nine volumes have been released. TOKYOPOP also publishes a sequel, Saiyuki Reload, and has released nine volumes of that series, as well. No word yet on a release date for the tenth and final volume.

This is my fourth and final Shounen Sundays review. Thanks again to Melinda Beasi for participating along with me. It’s been fun!

With the ability to take over human bodies and blend in with ordinary people, monsters known as yoma have a (relatively) easy time finding humans to feed upon. The only weapons humans have against them are the “Claymores,” humans who have taken yoma flesh and blood into their own bodies in order to gain the power to defeat the monsters. Only females are able to successfully adapt to this procedure, which also grants them silver eyes with the ability to distinguish yoma from humans. As part of an unnamed organization, they travel from village to village in response to requests for their services.

The first “Claymore”—the warriors do not refer to themselves this way; the name was bestowed by humans due to the huge swords these seemingly frail women carry—readers encounter is Clare, a skilled and clever Claymore who is used to being shunned and voluntarily forgotten by the very people she is working to protect. This changes when a villager boy, Raki, seeks her out as she’s leaving town and declares his heartfelt gratitude. Later, when the villagers have shunned Raki for his association with the yoma, Clare takes him on as her cook, seeing in him a past not unlike her own. They travel together, ferreting out a yoma within a holy city and dealing with a Claymore whose human heart has lost control to the monster within her.

As a Joss Whedon fan, it’s impossible to read about a young woman saddled with the inescapable and thankless task of killing monsters and not make comparisons to the mythology of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Clare does not share much in common with Buffy herself, who has a network of friends around her to keep her grounded in normality as much as possible, but more reminds me of the Buffy we see in the alternate universe episode, “The Wish.” This hardened Buffy has no time for conversation or for even seeing the people she’s trying to save. Get in, do it, and get out, just like Clare, who has a habit of announcing to empty streets, “My work is done. Someone will be sent to collect the money. You will give it to him then,” before resolutely moving on to the next assignment.

There’s also an element of Whedon’s short-lived Dollhouse here too, though, as the Claymores have voluntarily corrupted their bodies with monstrous parts designed to make them faster and stronger. Unlike the dolls, the Claymores have not forgotten the memories of their past lives, but they are able to keep tight control of their emotions and perform the task to which they’ve been assigned. There’s even an impersonal male “handler” to tell Clare where to go next. It’s through her association with Raki that more of Clare’s latent humanity begins to shine through, as he is able to interpret subtle differences in her frosty exterior as kindness or gentleness and she begins to really care about him, seeking assurance at one point that if she should die in the battle, Raki will be taken care of.

It’s a little disappointing that, after advancing all these intriguing ideas in its exposition, Claymore’s first multi-chapter storyline relies chiefly on action to propel it along, but I guess ideas alone do not a shounen manga make: there has to be fighting sometime! And, in fact, there is a lot of stabbing and slicing here, including many memorable images of yoma heads being severed while whatever’s left of the human they’ve taken over sheds unheeded tears. I’m impressed with Yagi’s ability to render action sequences so clearly, and also absurdly interested in Clare’s equipment, which seems to have been designed with more practicality than a lot of “costumes” manga characters are saddled with.

In the end, Claymore is enjoyable as an action tale, but is already providing ample food for thought with the promise of more intriguing revelations to come. This series was recommended to me by Melinda, and reviewed as part of the Shounen Sundays project. She has good taste.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. There’s this clumsy, kind-hearted girl who learns she’s really a princess and… Oh. You’ve stopped me.

When the female protagonist of a series is “a completely uncoordinated fourth grader,” you just know you’re dealing with a magical girl story. Fairy Navigator Runa is an unoriginal example of the genre, starring a clumsy but kind-hearted girl who learns that she is not only the princess of the fairy world but also possessed of a great power. Yawn.

Runa is resistant to this news at first, but when one friend—whose sole character trait is “the one who clutches a teddy bear”—is nearly struck by a car and another is captured by an evil ferret creature, Runa’s desire to protect her friends awakens her awesome ability to… send fairies back home. Yes, that is her amazing talent, and the inspiration for the manga’s title.

This manga is simply boring. It’s also full of cheesy dialogue like, “I am the one who holds the key to your destiny.” The only original elements are the creepy third eye on the back of Runa’s neck—such an uncute element is rare in this kind of tale—and Sae, the tomboyish best friend who looks at Runa in a very special way upon being rescued. Slashy!

There’s no shortage of magical girl manga out there, so if that’s what you’re after, it shouldn’t be hard to find one better than this.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

For the first two volumes of The Record of a Fallen Vampire, one thinks one has things figured out. There’s the vampire king, Akabara Strauss, who has tirelessly searched for his imprisoned queen for 1000 years despite being hunted by both human and supernatural foes, inspiring much romantic speculation. There’s the dhampire (a human/vampire mix) Jin Renka, who is also motivated by a love that was taken from him, a human named Yuki who was possessed by the Black Swan—a curse that imparts the ability to nullify the vampire king’s magic—and killed by Strauss. And then there’s the newest incarnation of the Black Swan, Kayuki, who, instead of fighting Strauss like she ought to do, instead initiates a truce with him because his help is needed in dealing with a problem of some magnitude.

And then along comes volume three and turns everything on its ear. It would be unfair to spoil the surprise, but at least one new development is so cracktastic one has to admire it.

The Record of a Fallen Vampire is scripted by Kyo Shirodaira, whose authorial blurb mentions he’s a novelist (and performed writerly duties for Spiral: Bonds of Reasoning, as well). He’s taken a novelistic approach with this series, too, pacing the opening volumes to dole out morsels of information at just the right pace, and waiting until the third volume to roll out the surprises. Also, because this series is complete in nine volumes, one suspects that the rest of the story will be equally well plotted. Shirodaira’s sure-handed approach allows one to confidently accept ideas like dhampires and curses without a fuss, concepts that could easily seem ridiculous if sloppily executed.

The characters are also an interesting bunch, and a couple of them—Akabara and his former general turned enemy, Bridget—have already been shown to have layers beyond their combative roles. The dhampires and Black Swan might be compelled to fight the super-powerful Strauss, but nonetheless concede that he’s a good guy. He definitely has his share of sins, but he knows this and is fully prepared to pay for them, and it doesn’t deter him from his relentless search for the queen. Even Laetitia, the young dhampire who Strauss has taken under his wing, manages to be the child-like comic relief without being annoying.

The one problematic note in the early volumes is the art by Yuri Kimura. Improvement is already noticeable by volume three, but problems with anatomy and proportion plague the first volume. The most glaring example is the back cover, which depicts a creepy, pink-haired girl with huge hands and a huge head on a too-tall stalk of a neck. She looks like an alien! This is actually supposed to be Yuki, who happily looks more human in the interior art.

It’s probably obvious that I enjoyed these three volumes quite a bit. I hope to get to the rest soon, because this is a series where storytelling momentum is especially important.

The Record of a Fallen Vampire is published in English by VIZ. All nine volumes are available now.

In the world of Blood+, a girl named Saya and her trusty servant Hagi battle against chiropterans, a race of blood-sucking creatures. This one-volume prequel focuses on Hagi’s 1993 stay in Hong Kong, during which he teams up with a hot-headed cop named Nishi to put down a man-made pack of chiropterans that’s been leaving corpses in a certain area of town.

Unlike the other manga series in the franchise, Kowloon Nights is definitely intended for a female audience. BL artist Hirotaka Kisaragi (best known in the US for Innocent Bird) excels at depicting attractive male characters and infuses Nishi and Hagi’s interactions with a definite boys’ love vibe. Although there’s not so much as a kiss between them, Nishi frequently blushes and experiences heart palpitations in Hagi’s presence and there are two occasions in which Hagi slurps Nishi’s blood in sexy fashion, including one particular panel that suggests a different bodily fluid entirely.

The plot itself starts promisingly, but soon becomes muddled when a crime boss of some kind reveals his intent to develop a drug that grants immortality. The story probably would’ve been better if it had focused solely on Nishi and the fascination and concern he feels for Hagi, but I suppose they did need a villain to fight so that Hagi could demonstrate that he cares for Nishi, too, in his own way.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

This volume begins with Sebastian, butler extraordinaire, whipping together impressive preparations for a charity function with very little notice while simultaneously dealing with disasters caused by the other (incompetent) members of the household staff. From there, Ciel’s investigatory skills are called upon by Queen Victoria and the action relocates to London, where Jack the Ripper is causing quite a stir. Ciel ends up getting captured by a skeevy viscount, Sebastian rescues him, and then the two of them discover the killer’s real identity.

If you’re thinking, “Gee, that sounds just like volume one,” you would be correct! Thankfully, though the overall outline is very similar, the details offer enough variety to forestall boredom. I enjoyed the London setting, for example, as well as learning more about Ciel’s family, Sebastian’s love of cats (pets exist in his world but “leave much to be desired”), and how the contract between them works.

Ultimately, though there are still things about Black Butler that I’m not too keen on, I still find it to be an entertaining read. It took my mind off my troubles for a while, and that’s good enough for me.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.