Thanks to a bit of careless driving, a young boy named Hiro is killed while walking to meet his sister. But that’s only the beginning of what’s about to be the strangest moment of his existence. When he wakes up in the morgue… that’s when it really gets tricky. Because while he was at rest, the owner of the van that hit him has paid him a visit… and used her special gifts to bring him back from the dead. Her name is Princess Hime, and her blood has the power to resurrect the dead. Now, tied to a need to drink her blood to keep his corpse moving, he serves her in her fight against evil beasts and the machinations of her own siblings. For Hiro, death is about to prove far more challenging than life ever did.

PRINCESS RESURRECTION is a nifty piece of work, startlingly violent, very intense, and surprisingly low on fanservice moments. Instead, Mitsunaga chooses to serve the story and action first, and that’s a very intelligent decision. Hime is a mysterious character, and you’re never quite sure if she really cares even the slightest about Hiro or her android servant Flandre. What you are sure about is that she is driven, and that she will stop at nothing to win a battle or to outwit a foe.

Mitsunaga is adept at kinetic action sequences as well as moments of classic horror. In an earlier story, a series of piano wires causes Hiro to be sliced into varied pieces, and the way it’s drawn is just nasty, making it effective even in the face of his potential re-resurrection. There’s only the barest bit of Hime’s backstory against her siblings in this volume, but what’s here certainly whets the appetite for more. This is one to jump onboard for.

Marc Mason

Young samurai Jintetsu would like nothing more than to avenge the murder of his father. He certainly has the skills to do it; his fame has grown far and wide, thanks in no small part to the corrupt government official who murdered his father putting out the alert to take Jintetsu down. But what no one knows is that Jintetsu is already a dead man; torn to pieces by a pack of roving dogs, his pieces have been reassembled by a mad inventor into a body made of steel. Unable to speak, he is given a sword that can, and together they roam the land, ultimately looking for a place where perhaps the man of steel can rest his broken heart. But first, a number of really nasty people must be introduced to the pointy end of that talking sword.
 
KURO GANE is a surprisingly heartfelt manga, rich in emotional drama as well as action. Jintetsu makes for a tragic figure, his voice and his humanity lost forever, only the psychic connection with the sword allowing him to communicate in any way at all. Volume one forces him to return home and deal with the presence of the girl he left behind when he went on the vengeance trail, and his efforts to avoid her and ultimately break her heart are brutal and sad. Further down the road, the cast grows, and the series moves between short one-off stories and lengthier tales, striking a nice balance for the reader as you roll through Jintetsu’s adventures.

And speaking of lengthy… KURO GANE is put together in longer volumes than most mangas, no matter what publisher you’re speaking of. While most series offer between 160-180 pages of content per volume, this series provides between 210-250. Reading three volumes of KURO GANE was like four volumes of another series, adding genuine value to an already positive reading experience. With two volumes to go, this is one you can easily hop onboard and enjoy.

Marc Mason

The headmaster of an all-girl divinity school has had his fill; the girls are undisciplined, unmannered, and live like slobs. So when one of the nuns ascribes these problems to the girls not needing to impress the opposite sex and letting themselves go, he makes his decision: he will gender-integrate the school. However, it won’t be easy for the first male student, Masato Kamioda; all he wants is to be a priest, but all his classmates want is him expelled. Immediately. And with rules in place against fraternization, they’re willing to use every dirty trick in the book to make him look like a bad guy so they can have their school back.

PURI PURI is, for lack of a better way of putting it, a very traditional fanservice manga. One young boy, a ton of young female flesh… the equation is something you can find all over the manga shelves at your local bookstore. And certainly, Taro-san proves himself adept at hitting the traditional beats. There is, of course, one girl, Ayano, who gives Kamioda a fair shake, and she suffers the most from her classmates’ attempts to screw him over. There’s a shower scene, a “wake up with clothes askew” scene… Taro has mastered the art of the American teen-sex comedy put to paper. But there’s no denying that he executes it quite well. He also starts to open up his story possibilities as the book moves forward and gets past the genre tropes; there’s a supernatural bit late in the book, as well as a sweet sequence where Kamioda risks expulsion because an act of kindness from Ayano threatens to go to waste.

The most unique element in PURI PURI is Kamioda’s chosen desire to become a priest. Unlike most fanservice mangas, the main male character isn’t looking to get laid or grope a boobie or anything else of the sort. He truly wants to become a man of the cloth, even if he does eventually develop a crush on a girl. He had been adopted by a priest himself, and sees following in his path as a way to thank his father. It’ll be interesting to see how the series balances this very serious character trait with its more lurid side as the series progresses. Should make for intriguing reading.

Marc Mason

Del Rey offers up its first-ever original English language manga with this book, the latest graphic novel effort revolving around the work of a music star. Tokyopop had a book from Courtney Love, Dark Horse has one coming from Gerard Way, and Image has a book coming from Coheed and Cambria. It’s enough to make you wonder if Marvel will reprint NIGHTCAT… the horror… the horror…

5 WISHES introduces Hana, a young girl who is floating though her teenage years in an introverted haze. Virtually friendless, she spends her time on the internet, using fake identities to chat with her classmates and mess with their lives. Her parents are raging at one another, their marriage in shambles, and the one person she talks to is an imaginary version of her favorite singer, Lavigne. Her rich fantasy life, though, is no substitute for the real life she craves, so she responds to an ad for a website that on the surface seems like a scam. However, the website is all-too-real, a fact she learns quickly when a package from the site arrives, and it contains a small demon who stands ready to grant five wishes for the young girl. But as we have been told time and time again in our lives… be careful what you wish for- you just might get it.

The book draws heavily from classic stories like “The Monkey’s Paw,” but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The fun in these types of stories is in the creativity used by the creators in how the wishes can go horribly awry. Hana is forcibly placed in an “adopt a grandchild” type of program early in the book, and when she wishes that the man won’t want to see her anymore… the results are nasty and tragic. The rest of the wishes aren’t quite as clever, but the book is still successful in what it’s aiming to do.

Done in color and printed on glossy paper, 5 WISHES looks lovely, and D’Errico is a real find. While there’s reason to be wary of any book coming from the inspiration of a music star, this is an above average effort and worth a look.

Marc Mason

I’ve never quite been onboard with the whole “Clamp as goddesses” thing. Their talent is, of course, undeniable; but previous volumes of XXXHOLIC and TSUBASA have left me pretty flat. I had eventually decided that I just didn’t get it because I wasn’t a teenaged girl, and that I would continue to read their work and shrug my shoulders. Turns out I was wrong.

Why? Because these two volumes of XXXHOLIC really worked for me. The story was peeled back nicely, and the clarity of what was happening made a huge difference. Watanuki’s continued work for the time-space witch wasn’t nearly as important as the character arc that Clamp puts him through during these two volumes. In the first volume, his main rival, Domeki, is saddled with a curse thanks to actions taken to help Watanuki, and in response, he offers up an eye to rid Domeki of the grudge. Thus, Watanuki begins to learn the value of sacrifice and the value of himself and what he has to offer as a human being. The lost eye becomes a full-fledged plot point as the story progresses, and Watanuki is forced to decide whether or not the return of the eye is truly a necessity versus what he can do to help others.

Clamp also does a nice job of managing the time-space witch as a character in these volumes. Her strange and flighty nature has read as purely obnoxious in earlier volumes, but she softens some here and feels like a more fully realized person. As I mentioned above, the book looks great, and to me it finally reads like something I want to continue to check in on. That should be the general idea as it is, right?

Marc Mason