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Dark Stories Can Be All Light After All
I mean… All Right.
Now me, I’m a total wimp. I hate scary things, ghosts, haunted stuff, things that goes bump in the night, Samuel L. Jackson’s face in The Spere, etc., etc. And this is after I took a class at school solely about Monsters, mind you. Now I like to kill time at my local bookstore and of course, I always end up at the manga section. Naturally, what I usually pick up is shoujo but sometimes I like a change of pace and pick up a volume that just looks interesting. Recently I have discovered four manga that are not that scary, but darker than your average shoujo/josei. -Those things can get dark, amirite? I mean look at Nana. JEEZ, I got so depressed reading that sometimes.-
Kieli. I love manga because you can totally choose a book by its cover… and its spine. -I always depend heavily on the spine and then move the cover- What’s on the cover but what looks like a school girl and a camera old radio. The first thing I think is R.O.D… Unfortunately Kieli is no Yomiko Readman, BUT it’s just as interesting thanks in part to -what I feel- the similar pacing. It starts off with quick action then there’s the intro with a quaint little story:
Kieli can see dead people… which of course makes her weird and subsequently leads to her having no friends. Her “best friend” isn’t actually there. She’s a ghost. But despite all this, she still lives a normal as possible life. But come on, if you see ghosts, “normal” shouldn’t even be in your vocabulary. She meets Harvey, an undead -it’ll be explained- and his talking radio which contains the soul of his ex-general. Enamored by the fact that Harvey can also see ghosts, Kieli tags along, unintentionally brightening Harvey’s outlook as they all travel to the place where the general died so he can rest in peace.
This starts off looking pretty dark but the story pretty much just picks you up and sweeps you along.
Next is Cowa!. Okay… so this story is not dark at all. Rather, it’s a fun adventure that’s entertaining and can only get better when you realize that the manga-ka is Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball. Now the story isn’t that original but you just dont want to stop once the story starts to pick up steam, taking on a DBZ-esque adventure feel. It’s just too cute and the predicament they end up in, you just feel inclined to see it through the end. It’s sorta a shame it’s only a volume long. I would definitely want more.
Now Paifu is a monster. He lives in a village of monsters. Yet, what are he afraid of? A murderous human that lives just outside the village. Paifu also happens to be a trouble maker, stealing watermelons and playing pranks, but when an epidemic strikes the village, Paifu finds himself filling in a hero’s shoes teaming up with his ghost friend and none other than the aforementioned human.
Ha, I make it sound more serious that it is. This is something I’d read just to have a non complex story with some cute character designs.
Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro is a mix of Kieli and Cowa!, if you can imagine it. It’s thin and tall in size so you may pass it easily when you skim through the bookshelves but if you happen to land on it, I’d definitely tell you to give it a read. As you read it, it hints of a dark and possibly depressing back story but seeing as it’s a 4-koma, it cant be all that dark… can it?
Kuro is on a mission to find a witch carrying a, you guess what, massive coffin on her shoulder the entire time. But she’s not alone. She happens to have a flock(?) of talking bats in the coffin and eventually finds herself traveling with two very odd twins. You put this all together and you have a pretty dynamic family, if you can call them that at all. They come across various people along the way and you end up caring for this weird group more than you think as they search for a witch and a father.
Yen press has been rapidly climbing up my list of favorite publishing companies with their 4-koma licenses and it just goes to show, no matter what type of manga it may be, just put it in 4-koma format and it’ll be pretty damn awesome.
Lastly is Blood Alone. Not to be mistaken for Blood+, I like this one way way better. I wrote about Blood Alone a long time ago on my old blog and I fell in love with it instantly to my surprise. It definitely does not look like something I’d be into right off the bat, but it was just unique looking enough to catch my eye. Plus, it’s very professional looking -dust jacket and all-.
Misaki is a vampire. Kuroe is her… servant? Boyfriend? Caretaker? You dont know, but their relationship transcends all these levels and you can see that both of them care for each other despite their differences. Kuroe is not as normal as one might think right off the bat, so that may be a reason why they hit it off so well… or maybe it’s just because Misaki is in love with him. Can vampires be in love? Or will all that silly other stuff like murder and territory and bloodline get in the way?
It’s pretty expensive at $12USD a pop but you get what you pay for. The darkest out of all the novels mentioned above, this one is more for the drama-drama lovers than anything. Plus, Misaki is just plain cute.
Yeah, this post is a bit longer than usual. I’ve spent the past 3 weeks working on and off this post and well, with this season of anime being so unappetizing, I’ve turned to manga and J and K-dramas to fill me up. Plus, I’ve been busy with work and the blog bug has not bitten me in quite a while.
I’m generally one-dimensional when it comes to trying to new manga, but when I run out of shoujo, I’m glad to run into titles like the aforementioned. A change of pace never did anyone wrong.
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Monday, July 28th 2008 at 1:15 am
Well Nana can be ‘manic-depressive’ inducing fare at times, but you’ve got me interested in that Blood Alone alright! (Well it has vampires – we all know vampires are my kryptonite!)
Also I’d like to note that the first picture in this post completely rocks my socks in a cutesy horror movie way. If that were an actual film I would marry it, and have its cute horror babies….
Monday, July 28th 2008 at 1:17 am
Ha ha, right? That’s such a cool picture indeed. And yeah, I made sure to mention vampires for ya.
Monday, July 28th 2008 at 1:26 am
If I wasn’t already engaged to that movie, you would have had me at ‘vampires’…
Monday, July 28th 2008 at 1:29 am
Argh, I knew there was a reason I wanted to comment – have you checked out ‘Goth’ yet? That is a very interesting dark manga. I recommend it highly as I really enjoyed it (not that I’m a warped person or anything).
Monday, July 28th 2008 at 1:31 am
I haven’t. I’ll look it up. It just needs to look good, really and I’d check it out.
Monday, July 28th 2008 at 2:51 am
I want to read Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro!! It looks really good!!
Monday, July 28th 2008 at 2:58 am
Believe me – Goth is good. Although that depends – if you want your darker manga to have the protagonist possessing the urge to kill his his heroine in the first few chapters .. yeah then Goth is good. It’s artwork is pretty good too. I love how the story line follows these two twisted high school students and their obsession for death, and how they become involved in the killers fixations.
Monday, July 28th 2008 at 4:45 am
If I’d choose a book by its cover, then I’d totally stay away from Kieli – the girl looks cute but her camera sucks, ahaha. I actually really liked Blood Alone and have been looking forward to its release a lot when it was announced back then – and now, I have dropped it, haha. It’s not that I have come to dislike it, it’s just that I didn’t feel like the story was getting anywhere and there weren’t enough sweet slice of life moments for me.
Also, Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro actually looks really cute, I wonder why? Then again, that series is out of reach for me anyways ^^;;
PS. Agreed with Newt: I’m a huge fan of Goth, it’s even better than NHK in my opinion. The manga has been scanlated and even the novels are being fantranslated – what more could we ask for?
Monday, July 28th 2008 at 4:53 am
I fricken love you Sasa for your shared Goth love… *hugs!* Damn I am such a fangirl.
Monday, July 28th 2008 at 10:20 am
HA, actually, you know, upon further inspection of the Kieli cover, it’s the aforementioned radio with the general’s soul inside.
Monday, May 23rd 2011 at 12:27 pm
Sorry to intrude but since I am a fan of dark and psychological story I couldn’t help but give my my 2 cents.
If if you are looking for something dark and thrilling, then Doubt by Tonogai Yoshiki is a must read. From start to finish you just keep on guessing and the suspense rising more and more until…well you just have to read to find out.
Tuesday, May 24th 2011 at 10:52 pm
That Blood Alone looks very interesting and promising. If I had to pick, I’d pick that just coz I love vampires and everything to do with them.
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