Manga Review – Pet Shop Of Horrors

Title: Pet Shop of Horrors [Volumes 1&2]

Author: Matsuri Akino

Genre: Manga, Horror, Supernatural

Length: 200

Rating: 2 Star

Description/Synopsis:

Count D has moved his petshop from New Yorks Chinatown to Japan, in this follow-up to the popular Pet Shop of Horrors series. The Count prides himself on selling love in the form of magical creatures. But buyers beware–if the contract is broken, the Count cannot be held responsible.

Review – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

I have read the first two volumes of this series and I think that may be enough for me. Since nothing much happens within the first two volumes of mangas generally, which is why I normally review them in lots of five, this review will only be a partial review.

I read the first volume and I found it weird. It was different from things I would normally read, but I had not yet decided if this was a bad thing. I found the idea of it kind of interesting. A random mysteries guy that has a pet shop with the most strange and mystical creatures on earth which seemingly only silly people who cannot follow the rules on how to care for them come to get. I held off judgement until I picked up the next volume.

The second volume settled it for me. It was just too strange and no actual storyline seemed to be coming so I stopped for a number of reasons.

All the pets that get purchased from this pet shop all appear human to the people that take them in for whatever reason. While I kind of liked this, I think I would have preferred if they were actually really awesome animals, rather than a human with rabbit/lizard/bird resemblances. Granted, if they were animals to the people they wouldn’t be able to develop the love connection they all seemed to get before they stuffed everything up and one or both of them die. But still.

Because there are four stories per volume I also found it really hard to grow attached to any of the characters before they were gone. They came and went too quickly. There were only really two characters that were in the story more than once. Count D and this police officer. However, the officer was pretty boring and I didn’t really have much interest in knowing anymore of his story, then Count D was supposed to be mysterious so pretty much nothing of his story was given.

The fact that these two start spending a bit of time together kind of gave away the feel that a plot may be coming at some point in the future, but I wasn’t really willing to sit around and read three or more volumes to find out what the plot was supposed to be. The small ones I got were really predictable. He gives them a special pet with a set of instructions, they don’t follow them, then something gruesome happens. The end.

All that being said though I can see why someone might like it. I have watched anime that are just a predictable like Hell Girl. You could skip the first four or five episodes of that series and not feel lost at all at the following episode where the plot finally starts to come in. However, this one just didn’t seem draw me in like the other one did and I don’t have much of an idea why. Perhaps I didn’t like the characters as much?

Either way, other people seem to have really enjoyed this series. If you are one of them, please let me know. When does the plot start to come into the story? Would you suggest that I push through to see if I like it better? Please and thank you.

 

Till Next Time…

Manga Review – Vampire Knight (11-15)

Title: Vampire Knight [Vampire knight Volumes 11-15]

Author: Matsuri Hino

Genre: Supernatural, Manga, Romance, Action

Length: 939 (Aprox. total)

Rating: 5 Star

Manga Series Reviews: 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-19

Anime Series Reviews: 1, 2

Description/Synopsis:

The Night Class at Cross Academy has been abolished. Zero still attends the Day Class while carrying out his duties as a vampire hunter. Yuki now lives hidden away at the Kuran residence with Kaname, but can she embrace the life of a pureblood vampire?

Review – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Hello everyone and welcome back to another VK review. Lets get started shall we?

1. Its one year after everything went down and the night class was cancelled from the academy. We are introduced to the new storyline that will be taking up the rest of the series, introduces new characters, and the talks about the struggles that each of our old characters have had over the last year.
2. Chairman Cross becomes a more of a kick ass character. before he was just an ‘ex’ super vampire hunter with no reason as to why but in this we find out that he is in fact around 200 years old because he has more vampire blood in his body than the ordinary vampire hunter. Everyone in this story is more than they seem to be. We are introduced to a new situation with Takuma that is kind of confusing. Yuki starts to gain footing and purpose again after everything that happened. Kaname is still filled with dark secrets and Zero lusts for the kill.
3. This volume is mostly about Kaname’s past and Yuki finally finds out that he is actually the Kuran ancestor. Much like how Kaname became a more dark character, Zero also seems to be going down a dark path.
4. Kaname does something that breaks the hearts of many. The pure blood vampire Sara also becomes more of a main figure within the story and she does more than just take Takuma captive. We see a glimpse of an awesome power Yuki has and doesn’t know about it.
5. Yuki tries to move forward and clean up the mess that Kaname is leaving behind him despite the fact she has no idea why he is doing it. She starts up the night class again and everyone including Sara join despite Kaname, Kain, and Ruka because they are off killing pure blood vampires. Ends on a Yuki about to bite Zero cliff hanger.

We have come to the end of the spoiler free section, so unless you don’t care I suggest you stop reading here. Bye!

Now, for everyone that is left lets discuss things.

First thing I want to talk about, what the hell is going on with Takuma and Sara? I think I need to read this section of the story again because I am still so lost. Why did she take him? Was it just to piss of Kaname? Then why does he stay with her when he gets a chance to leave? She doesn’t start tormenting him and controlling him until later. God I hate Sara, and all the little girl play things she has collected.  Part of me wont care if Kaname actually kills her, the other part of me though gets sad everytime a pure blood dies because they are rare. Conflicted!

Kaname totally broke my heart when he killed Aido’s father. Why?! He wasn’t a pure blood and he wasn’t standing in his way (from what I remember). He totally betrayed Aido’s love for him and Yuki’s in that one act. Poor, poor Aido. My eyes weld up. Kaname has gradually become darker and darker and with this he has completely gone off the rail. I don’t know if I like this new Kaname. He spent the first half of the series doing everything to save Yuki and protect her and now he is off on a pure bloods which includes killing Yuki. I just don’t understand! Im glad Yuki and Aido are still close after though. He totally could have gone off on her.

I like Yuki in this though, not only is she a strong and rare pure blood with powers which might involve blood wings coming out of her back (how bloody cool is that btw?) but she has gotten back the part of Yuki we originally fell in love with. The part of her that is human and goes through life with a purpose.

Zero was really starting to worry me in this section of the story. He has lost pretty much everyone he loves and one of them is walking around as a vampire, he starts to go off the deep end. I can’t have both of them breaking my heart. Thank god for the cliff hanger. Zero doesn’t function well without Yuki, he needs the friendship back! Not only Zero needs it though, the only person that Yuki really still has all the time, since the Chairman is working with the vampire hunter association, is Yori which I am so glad for. Yori is adorable. Yuki’s sadness seems never ending and its generally because of stuff other people have done.

So what do you guys think. Do you like this new direction the manga is heading in?

Manga Review – Vampire Knight (6-10)

Title: Vampire Knight [Vampire knight Volumes 6-10]

Author: Matsuri Hino

Genre: Supernatural, Manga, Romance, Action

Length: 947 (Aprox. total)

Rating: 5 Star

Manga Series Reviews: 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-

Anime Series Reviews: 1, 2

Description/Synopsis:

Yuki sneaks into an exclusive vampire party and sees Aido’s parents introducing their daughter to Kaname. They, like many other Night Class parents, desire an alliance with the pureblood. Kaname is the most eligible bachelor in the vampire society–but will he choose Yuki?

Review – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Welcome back to another VK review. I really hope if you have picked up the series since my last review that you are really enjoying. I love to discuss these things with people!

To catch up poor Zero turns into a vampire, and then we go onto a journey with him to destroy the pure blood vampire killed his family. To make things worst though Zero’s twin brother pops up and is on the same side as that pure blood. Kaname ends up killing this woman and Zero misses his chance to drink her blood to stop going crazy and becoming a level E vampire. Zero’s brother Ichiru ends up escaping and damn it Zero, why didn’t you bloody kiss Yuki! Way to tease us all… Up to speed? Don’t worry, the beginning of every volume has a sum up of what happened in the one before!

Now onto the kind of breakdown of each volume:

1. In volume six we finally start to get a glimpse that Yuki is more important than what she has been in the story up until now. Yuki starts seeing blood everywhere because of the past she can no longer remember and every time she tries to find a way to discover what happened something always happens so that she can’t figure anything out. We also get more of an understanding of Kaname. The end of the volume ends on a huge cliff hanger. Suggest having the next volume on hand.
2. Cliff hangers!!! In volume seven Zero has officially stopped taking up all the spotlight and the main focus is now upon Yuki and the mystery of her past and just how Kaname is involved in all of that. Yuki is really starting to go mad because of it. Kaname confesses his feelings for Yuki and his personality starts to become really dark.
3. In volume eight I just generally feel sorry for pretty much everyone in the story. I feel sorry for Kaname because you can just feel the loneliness seeping from his body because all his family was murdered, and you feel sorry for Yuki for loosing Zero and vice versa. You can feel the show down between everyone about to happen.
4. This volume, volume nine, is pretty much non stop action. Everyone is fighting everyone and when all the fighting is done and this chunks bad guy is done and gone kaname makes comments about how this is only the beginning to the bad things that are to come. The volume ends on a Yuki and Zero cliff hanger.
5. This is just things winding down (despite the cliff hanger it starts on) and you get a lot of back story from this volume. This lets you know a lot of the characters better than you did up until this point.

Now those of you that don’t want spoilers I suggest you just skip all this part. Its hard to make these review really interesting when I have to skip over so much of it for fear of ruining the entire story for you all. So if you don’t want spoilers bye! I shall see you guys in my next review!

Ok now everyone who stayed here is what happens over all of the volumes. We are introduced to our new bad guy, Lord Rido which is Kaname’s uncle, and he is Shiki’s father and he takes control of Shiki’s body. We find out that Kaname is actually the Kuran pure blood ancestor from which all the Kuran’s descend and Rido was the one to awake him using the ‘real’ Kaname, Kaname’s parents new born baby boy, as a sacrifice, thus making it so Kaname cannot kill him no matter how much he tries. I know its not Kaname’s fault really that this happened, but this made me so sad. I was also kind of touched though that Kaname’s parents chose to raise him as their own anyway.

Yuki’s madness becomes to much to her and she tried to strangle Zero (so so sad) so Kaname takes her and ‘awakens’ her and bites her and turns her into the pure blood vampire that she has actually always been. We find out that she is actually Kanames sister and they are engaged since pure bloods marry each other to keep the lines clean. When their parents died because of Rido her mother sacrificed herself to turn Yuki into a human to hide her. Oh. My. God. I didn’t see the sibling thing coming at all! At first I was totally iffy about the whole thing but I love Kaname too much to think they cannot be together. Zero tried to kill Kaname cause he turned Yuki but she stops him.

Zero then gets arrested by the Hunters Association and while he is in a cell he gets visited by Ichiru who joined the school to be close to Rido, and when Kaname restores Rido’s body so that he will leave Shiki’s, Ichiru tries to kill him for the woman who killed zero’s parents. When he sees Zero he shoots him with a vampire gun, we then find out that Ichiru was hurt fighting Rido and that he wants Zero to drain him of blood so that they can become the single person they were supposed to be. Zero due to his injuries and since Ichiru was dying anyway does this, and becomes the strongest vampire hunter ever. My heart just wept for Zero at that moment.

Kaname goes off to kill the vampire elder council, and Yuki and Zero team up and kill Rido. Once that is done they go to face off with each other but Kaname comes in and tries to kill Zero but Yuki stops them both, frees Zero from his Bloody Rose gun and Kaname leaves. Yuki and Zero embrace, he bites her, and then they kiss. FINALLY!!! Zero tells her he will have to kill her the next time they see each other and Yuki promises to run away from him forever so that by being his enemy she can be his reason for living, but when they part Yuki breaks down about the choice because she doesn’t want to be enemies. God damn it Zero, why do you have to be such a dick. Yes its the love triangle to end all love triangles you are in but really? You know Yuki isn’t evil and going to kill people so you are pretty much saying you are going to kill her for being herself which is the person you love!

The series of events ends with Kaname and Yuki leaving the school together. God. I don’t know how I will live. We basically get told that this is just the tip of the ice burg and look at all the emotion fill drama we had to go through. I really don’t know how much more I can take. God this story is good.  Pick it up! Madman sell it and they often have sales where you can get it for cheap.

Till Next Time…

Manga Review – Vampire Knight (1-5)

Title: Vampire Knight [Vampire knight Volumes 1-5]

Author: Matsuri Hino

Genre: Supernatural, Manga, Romance, Action

Length: 1000 (Aprox. total)

Rating: 5 Star

Manga Series Reviews: 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-

Anime Series Reviews: 1, 2

Description/Synopsis:

Yuki Cross has no memory of her past prior to the moment she was saved from a vampire attack ten years ago. She was adopted by the headmaster of Cross Academy, and now works alongside Zero to guard the Academy’s secret. Cross Adademy is attended by two groups of students: the Day Class and the Night Class. At twilight, when the students of the Day Class return to their dorm, they cross paths with the Night Class on their way to school. Yuki Cross and Zero Kiryu are the Guardians of the school, protecting the Day Class from the Academy’s dark secret: the Night Class is full of vampires!

Review – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Welcome to my first manga review! I’m going to be doing these a bit differently to book reviews. Since a manga series is pretty much just one long book most the time, and since they contain very few words most the time, I am going to do reviews in about clumps of five. I decided on this because it takes me about an hour to read one so five seemed like a book type length. Five also gives you a pretty good idea of what kind of series you are committing to.

1. Our first volume repeats itself alot, and as someone who has read the manga many many times the repetitiveness got a little on my nerves. Though if you are a first time reader I don’t think you will mind so much. You get introduced to a lot of things at once so it probably helps you to keep up with what’s happening and who is who. We get just enough to start feeling things about our main characters. Yuki and Zero both have troubled pasts and Kaname’s doesn’t get mentioned at all so they are all instantly interesting to me. It also explains how the school works and everyone’s generally place and role there.
2. In our second volume Zero gets developed properly as a character and you can see how he is going to be throughout the series. People from his past also show up. You also start to get that Kaname is jealous of how much time Zero spends with Yuki. You can smell the love triangle forming. The vampire world also gets  explained quite a bit which lets you know just how important Kaname is to all the other vampires.
3. Very little plot development happens in volume three which didnt bother me at all because it focuses on Kaname’s, Yuki’s, and Zeros pasts and its all just so good in the sense that its interesting. None of their pasts are all that happy. You get a very good understanding of why they all have the relationships that they have with each other.
4. Though Yuki is the main protagonist in the story, Zero has firmly placed himself in the limelight and has main focus in volume four. Are we having to deal with Zero’s story first to get get somewhere with Yuki? When the story isn’t all about Zero you get a glimpse at what Kaname wants from all the events that are happening. Zero gets a very large shock that has him in despair.
5. In volume five we finally get some (kind of) satisfactory Kaname’s story and role in the plot and some more of Zero’s story. Though I know Yuki is the main character, there is still no indication as to how she fits into the way the plot seems to be going. We start to see signs of a downfall in Kaname’s character…

Since I have already mentioned that I have read this series before its safe to say that I really enjoy it. I think that that’s a bit of an understatement. Its one of my favourite things ever. Has been every since I discovered a clip of an episode of the anime (which I will review at a later date) on youtube by random. I have followed it pretty religiously ever since.

Though it may not sound like it from my brief over views of each volume here, it is filled with action and the series get bloodier the further on you read. For example, Yuki’s first memory is blood and the colour red. If you like lots of blood, vampires with special powers that could be endless depending on which one you look at, and awesome looking weapons, I promise you will not be disappointed.Yes, you get a very big dose of love triangle which would normally annoy me but I love it because I can’t decide who Yuki should end up with. She has a very protective love for Zero since her relationship with him started with Zero coming to live with her and the Chairmen after a Vampire attack that killed his family and left him traumatised, and a worship kind of love for Kaname since her relationship with him started at the very beginning of Yuki’s memory when he saved her from a vampire that was about to kill her.

It actually kind of kills me a little bit that I can’t decided who I love more out of Zero and Kaname. They are just both so stunning and hunky. Omg. Zero clearly cares for Yuki but he is so torn up with who he is that he often acts meanly to her but you know he would always be there for her if he really felt she needed him. Kaname on the other hand does the outwardly affections and grand gestures, but he hurts Yuki by manipulating her and often lying to her. Who do I love more? I just don’t know!!!! -cries-

All the characters are awesome in their own way. Even the ones that are side characters like Yuki’s adoptive father the Chairmen. He is a pretty fun character. But you feel for all of them, and at this time in story you really feel the most for poor Zero. And Little bit for Kaname… Not to mention the artwork is stunning!

So I highly recommend this series. I am sorry that my review seems a bit bare in content for this one… Its just that lots of rather spoilery stuff happens quite soon on and I don’t want to ruin it all for you guys. Also, there is a lot of introductory stuff that happens. I will mention more of what happened in the next section of the reviews since people should be up to date then.

Till Next Time…