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MANGAZONE—Sarah Ash's Regular Manga Round-up
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Parasyte
Hitoshi Iwaaki
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High school student Shinichi wakes up to see a ‘snake’ burrowing into his hand; his body is being invaded by an alien parasite. His parents tell him that he's just been having a violent nightmare. But when Shinichi's right arm takes on a will of its own and an eye appears, the intruder begins to talk to its host. Earth is under attack.
First published in 1990, Parasyte is an intelligent and chilling exploration of what it really means to be human. Hitoshi Iwaaki portrays the alien invaders and the gruesome transformations they perpetrate on their unwilling human hosts with classic comic book science-fiction style gusto.
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Princess Resurrection
Yasunori Mitsunaga
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Hiro, searching for his older sister in the big city, is run over by a truck. The last image he sees before he dies is that of a beautiful girl in a tiara. He wakes in the eerie silence of a hospital morgue and staggers out into the street, impelled to find her, arriving just in time to protect her from a werewolf attack by ... dying again! She is Princess Hime, she tells him as she brings him back to life for the second time with a few drops of her blood. And the price of his miraculous resurrection? He is bound to serve her forever as a blood warrior, for without regular doses of her unique blood, he will die for good.
A quirky and inventive twist on a standard Gothic theme, Princess Resurrection is a tale of vampires, werewolves, android maids, and a vicious royal family feud in the shadowy world of the undead. Hiro's frequent violent deaths in the service of his beautiful and chain-saw wielding princess—and subsequent resurrections—add a touch of macabre humour to this unusual series.
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Dragon Eye: Volume 1
Hairi Fujiyama
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Deadly viruses decimating mankind is a favourite theme of recent manga and anime series and in Dragon Eye the ‘D Virus’ turns its victims into ‘bloodthirsty monsters’ called Dracules. Young Leila Mikami, whose parents were killed by a Dracule, sets out to join VIUS, teams of elite warriors who have very strong antibodies against the virus and are sent out to destroy the deadly Dracules.
Dragon Eye looks at first glance like a typical shonen adventure, a little reminiscent of D. Gray-Man, bursting with fights, warrior codes, and monsters. But a well-told, complex and involving story unfolds as Leila and the other new recruits are rescued from a deadly Dracule attack by a feisty blue-haired boy called Issa Kazuma. His secret is the Dragon Eye in his forehead, which lends him tremendous power, whilst at the same time slowly destroying all that is human in his body. And, despite his youth, he's the captain of Squad Zero to which Leila is assigned. Add in a third new squad member, Sosei Yukimura, out to exact revenge on Issa for killing his twin sister and an intriguing scenario is established, full of potential for future conflict. What is Issa's secret?
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Eden: It's an Endless World!
Hiroki Endo
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Most of the people of Earth have been killed by a virus and in the ensuing chaos as civilisation breaks down, a militant organisation Propater takes control. Elijah, a young survivor who is immune to the virus, is travelling with Cherubim, an AI combat robot. He gets mixed up with a group of ‘freedom fighters’ who want to use Cherubim for their own nefarious purposes. Beautifully and meticulously drawn—if such a grim dystopian vision can aptly be described as beautiful—Endo's tale ranges in tone from the perceptively thoughtful to the graphically (though never gratuitously so) violent.
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Le Chevalier d'Eon
Tou Ubukata/Kiriko Yumeji
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Lia de Beaumont has been murdered by a sinister group calling themselves the Poets whose occult powers threaten Louis XV, his court, and the very stability of France. Her soul possesses her younger brother, D'Eon de Beaumont, as he sets out to track down her murderers and to defeat the threat to the crown before revolution breaks out.
Set in an alternate 18th Century France, this dark, blood-soaked melange of revenge, black arts and political intrigue, will appeal to anyone who enjoys gothic or historical fantasy. This is the manga of the novel on which the lavish anime series of the same name is based—and it's fascinating to compare the two (quite different) ways in which author Tou Ubukata develops the same story.
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Death Note
Tsugumi Obha/Takeshi Obata
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A brilliant yet bored student, Light Yagami, finds a black notebook. It has been carelessly—or purposely—dropped by Ryuk, a shinigami, a god of death. Light discovers that simply by writing a person's name in the notebook, he can cause them to die. There are many rules, of course, affecting the way the notebook can be used, which Light only begins to discover as he sets out on a personal crusade to rid the world of ‘criminals'. But who is the real criminal here as Light, dubbed ‘Kira’ (killer) by the media, is himself hunted down, first by the FBI, then by the equally brilliant and enigmatic detective known simply as ‘L'?
Death Note has been the runaway success of the past few years and has been made into an anime TV series, two live action films and a live TV series. It has even been banned in China, where the idea of the death note was held to be corrupting young minds. The story could certainly be seen as an exploration of contemporary morality, whilst at the same time maintaining and developing an addictive, bleak and involving thriller.
Copyright © 2007 Sarah Ash
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Visit www.ttapress.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.
Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #214 Page 20