Nightmares For Sale, or Akuma no Omise: Shadow & Maria, is about a pawn shop that specializes in buying items that are evil. I thought I would like this manga for just that reason, but the devil-like pawn shop owner and his sassy doll assistant trick people into scams that they can’t possibly win, often costing them friendship or life.

I found this to be a depressing book with sad stories. One story is about a beautiful woman who wants to be a model, but doesn’t photograph well. She is told that for a price she can photograph well, but that it is draining. She is soon in every magazine around the world, getting jobs left and right, but every camera that takes her picture drains life from her.  Only weeks later she is an old haggard lady and some paparazzi try to take her photo, which causes her death.

There are tales of friendship rings causing friends to be hateful to one another and an aborted son torturing his mother from the grave. Nightmares for sale is right! But don’t dare go near that pawn shop. You may come out wanting to off yourself without even buying anything!

The cover is deceivingly innocent. The art in this book is modern and the printing quality is clean and easy to read. For such a tame manga, it has a surprising use of bad language.

If you’re into tales where people taunt people to death or cause their lives to become utterly miserable just for the hell of it, this book is for you.

• You can find Nightmares For Sale at Amazon.com.

Angel's Coffin is a one volume tale about Seto, a deity trapped in a book by the demon Baphomet. When Marie, an 1889 socialite, releases him, he thinks killing her to break the demon’s curse should be a snap. But he falls in love with her and can’t do what he must.

Marie’s mother is only interested in marrying her off well to increase their social status. It helps that Marie is in love with Prince Rudolf of Austria. Because Seto promises to help Marie find her heart’s desire, he has to watch as Marie meets Rudolf and they fall in love. Unfortunately, Prince Rudolf has dealings that may mean the end to them both. Seto might be able to stop their demise, if only he can get away from Baphomet’s Curse.

Marie’s sickeningly sweet dreams of love might drive you away, but the pretty boys in this one might bring you back. The art is fantastic and the clothes in this volume are gorgeous and detailed. However, I found the chibi portions silly and “Cathy” cartoon-like. The representation of the demon Baphomet as an eyeball with bat wings is rather awesome.

Extras in the back of this book are:

• A side story about the Prince’s manservant and how he loves the Prince.


• A letter from the author.

Still interested? Check out Angel’s Coffin at Amazon.com.

What if Lestat was a shop owner?
In Dolls, you can pretend our much beloved vamp owns a doll shop. Only instead of terrifying you by sucking your blood, he does it by selling you evil dolls.

This is a manga full of short tales about a doll shop owner and his beautiful “plant dolls”. The artist creates a haunting atmosphere  accompanied by the intricate lacing and curls of the dolls. At times, the doll renderings are so lifelike, you might feel like one of the clients, tricked or lured into buying a doll you cannot afford.

In the first installment, Milk at Mealtimes, you might think you’re reading a fan comic of Lestat, Louis, and Claudia. However, although the characters look like our favorite trio, they act quite different. A man is lured into the shop by the dolls beauty. He is conned into purchasing her by the shop owner and finds his doll has been spoiled by a previous owner. She will only sleep on luxury sheets, drink from the finest china, and eat premium sweets.

Doll’s care instructions:
Milk three times a day
Sugar cookies once a week
Change into fresh clothes daily.
No direct sunlight.
Nothing more that milk & sugar cookies.
Lots of love from owner.

As the weeks wear on and the owner realizes he can not make the doll content with what he has, he begins feeding her brandy. A few months later, we see the owner poor, destitute and the doll fat and spoiled.

These cautionary tales must come from some desire to teach businessmen a lesson, for in each one there is a horrible outcome when the doll enters their homes. One man buys a plant doll for his daughter and they become so close, he cannot tell them apart. He ends up giving his daughter away instead of the doll. Another story tells of a greedy jeweler who wishes for a special gem that is only created from the tears of a certain doll. Unfortunately, he ends up going mad because he is unable to make her cry. There is another tale of an artist who will not paint people because everyone he paints, dies. I’ll let you find out what trickery the dolls have in store for him!

This manga reminds me of the old Twilight Zone episode, "The After Hours", where all the mannequins come alive in the store after dark. While reading, you will feel as if you are in a store with wall-to wall dolls… and as you turn to go, you could swear one of them reached to strangle you!

Beware of the Dolls.

• Dolls by Tumiko Kawahara is available at Viz.com. and


• Dolls, Vol. 4 is available through Amazon

Muhyo & Roji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigation

The BSI is an agency consisting of two boys named Muhyo and Roji who at first I found childish and annoying, but they grew on me. Made for the pre-teen shonen-jump market, this manga has it’s scary moments. The boys battle all sorts of creatures from the underworld. There are monsters that look like langoliers, a scary chair that eats your shirt - and then you, and some ghosts that look like giant sorting hats from Harry Potter.

Muhyo and Roji help a host of ghost or demon afflicted clients. If you can get past Muhyo’s pint-sized Napoleon complex, you will enjoy it. Armed with his official magic book of law, Muhyo casts beings into the underworld by yelling out a law such as:

“The laws of magic, article 741- For the crime of unlawful object parasitization, I sentence you to the Night Train.”

After which a whole bunch of chugga, chugga zap happens and the ghosty with the mosty gets sucked into the Night Train to hell.

I was more impressed with volume two where they travel to the school of magic to try to see if Muhyo’s assistant can pass the magic law test. Once there, they find the school is taken over by evil and some of the people are infected. The infection makes mouths break out all over their bodies. The artwork of the mouths all over their bodies is done really well. The fact that it starts infecting everyone there, including the main characters makes it an exciting read.

Something annoying to me was the unusual break in words. I know sometimes when the words are translated, the boxes are not sufficient and for this reason they may have to break words unnaturally, but in this case there seemed to be enough room. Words like should-ers, na-gano, prefec-ture were confusing and made me pause in the story to figure them out.

Overall, this is an interesting series and might perhaps be a little scarier for the pre-teens than I found it. Good news is, if you enjoy this series, there are 17 volumes to gobble up with one more to come in August 2010.

Get your copy here from amazon: Muhyo & Roji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigation

Just in time for CON season, this manga series will have you wondering if the author was sitting next to you at last years CON. Dramacon Ultimate Edition is a decidedly American style, but in this case, it works!

Comic creator, Christie attends a comic convention with her boyfriend. Nervous and unsure what to expect, Christie finds she is more like the attendees than she thought. The only problem is that her jerk of a boyfriend is flirting with all the skimpy-costumed chicks. Trapped behind a table in artist’s alley, she stews as he goes off to a panel by her favorite author without her. Running away from her boyfriend after a fight, she knocks into a cute, understanding guy who teaches her to stand up for herself.

This book is riddled with con details non-con peeps just might not get, such as: Getting lost in the maze of a hotel, trying to reign yourself in from buying too much at the dealer room, and being awed (and perhaps a bit jealous) of those brave enough to dress in cosplay gear.

There’s always a bit of drama and intrigue when going to a con and I think this author got it right. Who will you meet? Will there be a weekend romance? Will your favorite author be nice or a jerk? Svetlana also leaves us with an idea that I think we can all relate to. A feeling that comes from not meeting anyone interesting, not falling in love, or not seeing your favorite author.

“My first anime convention did not go smoothly, but all things considered… I can’t wait to go back!”

I think any con-goer will enjoy this little comedy/romance. I enjoyed the first one more than the second, but they were both enjoyable. The third book in the series has received mixed reviews. The series may continue, but right now Svetlana is working on other series such as Nightschool.

Extras include ten pages of author/artist thanks and fun manga shorts, fan art, and a feature on how manga goes from thumbnails to inks.

For more:

• Get your copy here from Amazon.com


• Get a copy of  Nightschool here


• More Svetlana Chmakova here.


• Information on Dramacon, go to Svetlana.com.

Alert: Herbivores beware, rabbit discrimination! Warn your kits!

“These aren’t rabbit ears! They’re just long! I swear I am not a rabbit. I eat carrot cookies, cake, and tea. I like stuff made from carrots but I could never eat a carrot straight, so I’m obviously NOT a rabbit.”

How dare Alice, group people together based on the size of their ears! This is just one of the amusing quips in an awesome new manga series Alice in the Country of Hearts by Quinrose.

The first thing that drew me to these beautiful books was the art. Illustrated by Soumei Hoshino, the detailed display of clocks, sweets, architecture, and fashion is phenomenal.

I think any Alice lover will enjoy the new twists on our most beloved story. First, Alice is not the Alice we know. Instead of being curious and following the white rabbit, he tricks her into falling down the hole and then traps her in wonderland by force-feeding her a potion through a kiss. She finds herself in a land where everyone has a clock for a heart and they are fighting a war based on reincarnation. The characters are so detailed and interesting, I’m not even sure I can pick my favorite one.

Our favorite Mad Hatter in this book is Blood Dupre, a Mafia Don who leads The Hatters in war against the other factions. He is a gothic dandy, more interested in seducing Alice than the battle at hand. In his posse are two young boys dressed in fashionable military outfits and a non-rabbit enforcer named Elliot March. Something this author picked up on from the Lewis Carroll book, that I never thought of was the possibility of the White Rabbit and the March Hare fighting. I found this storyline beyond amusing.

Another sect of Wonderland is the Amusement Park District where Alice can enjoy all the normal sort of rides while being shuffled around the place by overly peppy park attendants. The owner of the park is Mary Gowland, an older hippie man who takes to drastic mood swings and plays the violin very badly. Gowland and Dupre are in a war because Dupre makes fun of his name, which when said in such a way, sounds like Merry Go Round. The fights between Gowland and Dupre are fun to read. Gowland can turn his violin into a gun and Dupre doesn’t even flinch when his hat gets shot off.

Boris Airay plays the part of the Cheshire cat.  A cosplay kitty boy who loves to get in scrapes. He is often found by Alice, in the woods, sometimes nude, with horrible injuries that heal when he licks them.

The Queen of Hearts is pretty much the same as in the original Alice story so far, not much is known about her yet. The caterpillar is Nightmare, a handsome, eye-patched man dressed in elegant blacks. He mainly just gives more info to Alice, explaining terms the wonderland folk use and adding a sense of foreboding as he hints at dangers unseen.

Two new characters to the Alice tale are perhaps the most interesting. Julius Monrey is in charge of the Clock Tower Plaza, a neutral zone in wonderland and the place where all clock hearts are repaired. Ace is a knight from Heart Castle that helps Julius recover the hearts when someone is killed. He seems a double agent, but can’t navigate to save his life. Not too smart, you might think he would fall prey to the Hatters, but he is a pro at sword fighting so that keeps him safe.

Even though this is a manga about the cheery, happy world of wonderland, the author keeps that sinister air about it so that you are just as curious and frightened as Alice. The most chilling part of this retelling is the connection between the shadow people and the servants with no face. I’ll let you unravel that one on your own.

I’m excited to tell you that the third book in the series is coming out on June 1st, just in time for my birthday! Volume four should release in August.

Check out these awesome books at Amazon.com.

Fruits Basket or Furuba by Natsuki Takaya is one of the most popular mangas of all time. Beginning in 1999, there are 23 volumes of girly, teal pastely silliness to wile away the time if you are a pretty, pink Lolita who loves puppies and cupcakes. Or, at least that’s what I thought.

I never really paid attention to this manga series because of the impression the covers gave me and had my best friend not pushed it into my hand to borrow, I would still be under the misapprehension that Fruits Basket was mindless drivel.

I was mistaken. First, the plot is interesting and the characters likeable. Second, Fruits Basket is a story that any of us can relate to. It’s the story of being forgotten or left out.

I never connected the name Fruits Basket with the game we played as children where everyone is a fruit name and when the teacher yells “Apples and Oranges” everyone jumps up and tries to switch seats like crazy people. Apparently, when the main character, Tohru, was named in this game, she was given the title “Rice Ball” which we all know is not a fruit, and therefore would never be called. This is just one way in which Tohru is treated like an outsider.

An orphan after her mother dies, she is thrown out of her grandfather’s house because he is remodeling. Having nowhere else to go, she opts to stay in a tent in the woods where she will be out of everyone’s way. Luckily, she meets her neighbors who are a group of misfits like her and they offer her to stay with them instead of living in the tent. Soon she finds out that the misfits she’s living with are actually representations of Chinese Zodiac signs and when she hugs them, they turn into the Zodiac animal they embody. Not very ideal for the guy she’s in love with to turn into a rat in the middle of a hug, but this is just another obstacle in Tohru's quest for happiness. For me, the book was a series of Murphy ’s Law illustrations. They are the kind of issues we run into in everyday life. Just when you get promoted, the company closes. Just when you feel on top of the world, something happens that plunges you into depression.  For Tohru, just when she finds a family to love her, they turn into animals.

But Tohru, despite her troubles, has an excellent outlook on life. She is a shining star in the house and seems to make them all reevaluate what problems they have to face on a daily basis.

The beginning few pages of Fruits Basket #1, does have that bad printing that I sometimes talk about. There are extra side notes from the author that we enjoy such as giving insider information, tips, background on character names, etc… The extras in the back include two pages on the Chinese Zodiac, instructions on how to play Dai Hin Min a game mentioned in the story, and a two page interview with the girl who did the voice work for Tohru in Fruits Basket - the animated series.

This manga talks about something that a lot of us fandom enthusiasts already know:

Your friends can be a family.

Even if your parents are dead, your other family members are mean to you or don’t accept you, you can find people who care about you and who truly enjoy spending time with you. Sometimes, these people can be more valuable than anyone who shares your blood. Most of us in fandom understand this and we will always have more enriching experiences because we know there is someone out there that we can relate to.

Quite a bit to discover in just the first book of a series I shied away from for many years. I’d like to say thank you to my best friend Ari for bullying me into reading it. What’s that saying about judging a book by it’s cover? I’m wrong!

Checkout Fruits Basket at Amazon.com while there you can also find Fruits Basket - the animated series.

Red Angel is a masterfully drawn manga with an awesome color cover that gives just a hint at the gothic art inside. Author and manga artist, Makoto Tateno, brings to life the story of Mika & Eru who are brother and sister vampires.

For those of you who might have read her other works Happy Boys or Yellow and didn't like them, I believe that Red Angel deserves a chance.  You see, Mika & Eru are not like other vampire brothers and sisters. They have one unique quality that sets them away from the bunch. They just happen to reside in the same body.

Reminiscent of the novel, The Need by Andrew Neiderman, the brother and sister pair have a problem... whatever one of them does, the other has to live with. In Red Angel, this has to do with them moving constantly to keep their secret. Their crimson wings often leave mortals in a state of awe. Whether they feed or not, they usually cause death somehow and flee the scene.

Artwork in this book is beautiful with a nice dark feel throughout and gothic vignettes portraying a couple enjoying a kiss as massive wings shelter them or a flight of crows bordered by intricate crosses and lace. Tateno has a way of portraying action in the still shot so convincingly that the reader can almost feel the wind whip around them as wings flap, causing feathers to float by.

Each chapter is a different town and the vampire pair is not always the focus. We get to meet a couple of "bat men" who turn into bats but are not vampires, and Anney, who is holy and able to suck energy from vamps. Mika meets another vampire and finds out the hidden truth behind who she is and where she fits into creation.

There is a four-page extra in the back by the author, explaining the characters, ideas, and how the book was first published. Categorized as a Yaoi, I disagree. Perhaps it is just stuck into that category because of the woman and man in the same body. I find that the story is very unlike many Yaoi and the difference between the brother and sister is so definite, the reader really believes they are two different people simply sharing the same mortal-like shell.

You can find out more about Red Angel at Amazon.com.

It’s pretty bad when you look at the cover of a manga a week after reading it and can’t for the life of you remember what it was about. It’s even worse when you flip through it and still can’t remember. That’s how it was with X/1999 Prelude.

For those of you mesmerized by words like Voom, Woosh, SKRTCH, and Shaaaa… you will find pages upon pages of them with the confusing swirl of vortex art that denotes quick fighting sequences. Unfortunately, Dragon Ball Z-like action scenes overshadow this plot. Zombies are supposed to be attacking the main character, but you can't really see anything but glimpses.

What is X/1999 about?

I am still not sure. It seems the lead character has been away and returns to Tokyo to get attacked a lot. It is not clear what his goal is or if he even has one.

Highlights?

Well, there are a couple. First, a cool sword forms from a girl's hand. Second, there is an awesomely drawn princess with white eyes and an elaborate costume.

You might ask why I purchased X/1999 Prelude in the first place. Well, this was definitely a case of cover misleading. I saw the moon and the red splotches (which I assumed blood), along with what looked like bridge girders in the background and an ebony-haired hero. This is a good example of me not following my own advice. As I said in a preview post titled, How To Choose A Manga, I missed step #5, which is:

5. Flip through the book and check out the art. Is the detail inside as good as the cover art? Is it appealing to you? Is the printing bad, or is it crisp and clean? Do you stop every so often to let a “wow” or a “ooooohhhh” slip from your lips? If you realize it’s a steampunk fantasy once you get inside and you don’t like that sort of tale, please don’t buy it just because you like the cover. You will be disappointed.

Luckily, I bought this one early in my manga-buying days and hopefully have learned my lesson. I wouldn’t recommend buying this series unless you are a big DBZ fan or enjoy constant action with little plot.

KAMUI by Broccoli Books is a manga that I found a bit more interesting than the last one I read, Until The Full Moon.

This manga has an edgy, tech infested, post apocalypse feel.

The world has been destroyed by a technology overload and resulting earthquakes. Humans cower in the face of robots, their only saviors being the NOA, an organization of scientifically enhanced twenty-somethings.

Atsuma is an unknown who allows himself to be recruited by the NOA in order to gain knowledge about an ancient being who may be able to help the humans regain earth control.  Atsuma has an orb that talks inside him. As a reader, it's not clear who or what it is, but it seems to be helping his mission.

In a sexy, gamer-style, this manga has a lot to offer video game enthusiasts and those interested in post-apocalyptic life.

The storyline, though intriguing, didn't really get anywhere in this first book. I'm not sure it's inspired me to buy any other volumes. The art was pretty good and the read wasn't bad. Unfortunately, Broccoli Books don't ever seem to wow me, which is probably why they ceased operations in December 2008.

If you'd like to learn more about Kamui, you can check out the volumes on Amazon.com.