I Luv Halloween: You’ll Be Hard-Pressed to Find Anything You Luv in this Manga

A Review By: Amelia

I’m always looking for new and twisted manga in which to fall in love with. I’ve discovered some amazing gems like Princess Resurrection and Corpse Delivery Service and I’ve discovered some I haven’t liked quite as much: Parasyte I’m looking at you, and honestly, I didn’t think any manga interesting enough to grab my attention on the library shelf could fail as spectacularly as Parasyte did… then I read I Luv Halloween and guess what? I’ve found a new series to loathe entirely!

I Luv Halloween has an incredibly simple premise: it’s always set on Halloween and focuses on a group of trick-or-treaters as they go about doing disgusting and disturbing things in the name of Halloween.

Two guys worked on I Luv Halloween: Benjamin Roman did the illustrations and Keith Giffen was the writer. Roman made his professional debut with I Luv Halloween after having spent years trying to break into the comic book industry. Giffen is an American comic illustrator/writer who had previously adapted the Battle Royale and Battle Vixens manga series. Together, the duo were given complete artistic control over their project and spent around four years working on the I Luv Halloween series. Personally, I feel like with four years spent on the project, Roman and Giffen really should have come up with something better than what they did.

These are the 'bortion aliens

Now, the characters of the series are a group of children: horrible, demented, disgusting, grotesque children. There’s Finch, the leader. Moochie, his homicidal, seemingly retarded younger sister. Devil Lad, who only appears on Halloween to join the group in their trick-or-treating. Pig Pig, a simple-minded boy. Mr. Kitty, the pervert always looking to see tits; and his mostly silent younger brother Spike. This group of children spend the bulk of each volume talking about boobs (Nips being the name of the character with said boobs), horribly murdering people, and talking about abortion. Yeah, you read that right. The third volume of the series has a complete sub-plot about Moochie torturing and killing people trying to find out about ‘bortion. And yes, that is without the A–apparently the authors thought abortion without the A is somehow… less offensive? Less terrible? More appropriate for a full sub-plot in a manga series? Whatever the reason it’s there–along with all the upsetting pictures of ‘bortions happening–it’s still horrifying.

So, now that you know the story is the most offensive shit you’ll ever read, is there anything else that could possibly redeem the series? Well, the art style in I Luv Halloween was the highlight of this three volume manga series for me. It was original and I can confidently say I’ve never seen it in any manga before. It fits the tone and compliments the writing (well, if you can consider what was in the series writing) so yay for the art (although it’s still boo for everything else).

Where do I even begin with this manga? The artwork: alright. The premise of the series: intriguing. The way the premise was executed–also known as–the story: shit. The story is horrible, trashy, poorly thought out shit. Nothing makes sense. Why is there a zombie outbreak in the second volume and an alien invasion in the third? How do characters we watched die in the first keep coming back? Why are these children so freaky and homicidal? None of it fits together and none of it is ever explained! Seriously, if you’re going to have such an outrageous, off-kilter story and you don’t have at least a few panels of blatant exposition of what the hell is going on, your editor didn’t do their job! So it hardly matters that the artwork is good or that it really does have an interesting idea at the centre of it because all the stuff that doesn’t make sense really, really doesn’t make any sense–it’s enough to drive a person crazy!

My final thoughts on I Luv Halloween are to avoid this manga like the plague. It’s the worst kind of manga in that it’s trying so hard to be original/ edgy/ unforgettable/ insert-any-other-adjective-you-like-here that it’s nothing it sets out to be! I mean, the abortion sub-plot in the third book of the series will leave everyone upset. It’s disturbing in a way that’s not even slightly entertaining (trust me when I say I know entertaining disturbing, Corpse Delivery Service is one of my all time favourite mangas). Seriously, I Luv Halloween is the worst and should you ever come upon it, just keep going because this manga series is enough to make you hate Halloween and all those who luv it.

Enticing the Earl: A Surprisingly Enticing Romance Novel

A Review By: Amelia

Don’t hate/judge me for this but, yes, this is a review for a romance novel. And yes, I know, I know, romance novels are far from the best literature available, but sometimes one just needs a light read that can just be picked up and breezed through in a few days, and for me, a random romance novel fits that niche. Sometimes the books only just pass as being readable, but other times (wonderful, magical, and completely unexpected times) I find a romance novel that’s good! Shocked? You should be–because I, myself, always am!

The romance novel that managed to capture my attention is Enticing the Earl by Nicole Byrd. The premise of this book is one that’s been done many times before: a beautiful, childless widow forms a romantic attachment with an aristocrat that has a scandalous background for the purpose of redeeming a lost family heirloom. In the last year alone there have probably been a hundred romance novels with this exact plot, but Enticing the Earl also throws in a rousing mystery concerning a sunken ship, possible family betrayals, and the dangers of the opium trade.

Nicole Byrd is a prominent historical romance fiction writer who has studied English history for many years. She’s written two historical romance series: The Sinclair Family Saga and The Applegate Sisters (Enticing the Earl is the final book of The Applegate Sisters series). She’s also written magazine articles, children’s books, and has published a few young adult novels under the pseudonym of Jennifer Cole.

There are two main characters of the piece (makes sense since it’s a romance novel). Marcus Sutton is the male lead and is a rather scandalous Earl who is very intelligent, albeit a little cold and intimidating, and is rumoured to spend his time with less than reputable women. Lauryn Harris is the female lead and a grieving widow who selflessly offers herself as the Earl’s mistress in order to retrieve the deed to her father-in-laws estate (which he, of course, lost while gambling with the Earl). The two of them start from rather low and stereotypical beginnings but they actually manage to grow into well-rounded characters that you cheer for. Sure their relationship starts on nothing more than sex but it quickly develops into a mutual and respectful relationship: surprising or what?

Even the secondary characters all fit in very nicely with their surroundings. There’s an ex-lover of Marcus’ that hopes to get him back but (surprisingly) doesn’t sink to any cruel or unusual tricks in order to do it and actually ends up becoming something of a friend to Lauryn. Then there’s Marcus’ younger brother Carter who slacks off and blows all his money on gambling and drinks, but he’s a sincere man and does try (even if he fails most of the time) to impress his older brother. They’re sweet, genuine characters and add life and texture to a novel that so easily could have been so flat and boring.

Like all good historical romance novels, Enticing the Earl takes place in England in the 19^th century. Alright, alright, I’m sure there’s lots of other places where a good historical romance can take place, but a vast majority of them (and you have to agree with me here) take place in England in the 18^th–19^th century. I guess that’s just where all the sexy times happen, right? Will all the tiny buttons to undo, corsets to unweave, horse drawn carriages, country manors, and social constructs/female modesty/family honour etc etc, I guess sexy times in the 1800s are just better.

Of all the romance novels I’ve ever casually picked up Enticing the Earl is in the top five. It’s a clever book–a book that’s more than the sum of its parts: its parts being sex, 1800s England, and more sex. Of course, the sex becomes something like a second thought as Marcus and Lauryn become fuller, more satisfyingly human characters and the mysteries surrounding Marcus’ sunken ship lead to some dangerous situations and possible family drama. All in all, what’s not to like?   

My final thoughts on Enticing the Earl are that it’s a good romance novel. The history was solid, as were the plot and characters. Honestly, I think what makes this book so good is that it’s a romance novel where the romance is a second thought to the plot. The sex scenes felt like they were just tacked in afterwards and I really liked how that made it more than your regular trashy/light/fluffy (whatever adjective you want to insert there) romance novel. I can’t speak for the rest of the books in The Applegate Sisters series, but Enticing the Earl is a solid novel whether you like romance or not.       

Wonder Woman The Hiketeia: The Quintessential Comic Book

A Review By: Amelia

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Wonder Woman is a difficult subject (well, at least for most male comic book writers, but that’s a story for another day). Whether or not they don’t know what she stands for or how she should be portrayed (feminism is not her backstory nor the only part of her!) she just doesn’t get as much attention as her male superhero counterparts. 

The Hiketeia is the story of a young woman hunted by Batman for crimes she committed but protected through an ancient Greek bond by Wonder Woman. It’s a simple story: simple and sad, and nothing short of a modern day Greek tragedy. It was written by Greg Rucka with the art being done by J.G. Jones. Surprisingly, it was Rucka’s first go at writing for Wonder Woman and, even more surprisingly, he did it well.

The main characters of the piece are Danielle, a young woman who’s out for revenge against the men that wronged her sister, and, of course, Wonder Woman. Batman is also part of this story but he’s more a background character–kind of a passing thought–as he moves with the story (instead of the story moving around him). Danielle is a little cut and paste of a character as she goes through the motions of revenge and guilt and shame like they’re a mask instead of things she’s actually feeling, but Rucka’s handling of Wonder Woman is absolutely amazing. She’s a real person, not a cookie-cutter model of feminism or a ‘strong female’. She’s shown as thoughtful and caring: there’s even humour in her which is something you don’t see in a lot of other Wonder Woman pieces.

The art style is lovely in The Hiketeia. It’s a style with lots of shadows and

dimensions, but there is also a lot of colour and detail that comes through. Sometimes shadows overpower the piece, but they are in perfect balance in this graphic novel. The only thing I’d change about the art work is that some of the poses that Wonder Woman strikes are just wrong: her proportions or the angle she’s standing at just make it very put on, very a-man-drew-this-and-because-it’s-a-female-character-her-tits-have-to-be-visible in-every-picture-I-draw. As a female comic reader, that gets under my skin. Other than that though, the style is spot on, and those few sexist poses can be forgiven for the overall experience of the piece.

I loved The Hiketeia. I loved everything about it: the story, the art, the mythology, and the tone. More than all that though, I loved how it’s a story that shows that Wonder Woman deserves respect in the comic book world because she is just so very different from her male counterparts. Batman sees the world in black and white, but Wonder Woman knows that it’s only shades of grey. She’s capable of understanding people as the male superheroes never will and, honestly, that’s probably what makes her such a hard character to write for!

My final thoughts on Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia are that it’s a really great graphic novel. The art is beautiful, the story amazing, and Wonder Woman is treated with the respect she deserves! Probably the best aspect of the piece (at least for those trying to jump into Wonder Woman but having no idea where to start) is that you don’t need to know anything about Wonder Woman to be able to pick this up and enjoy it! There’s humour and revenge and, truly, what the world needs is more Wonder Woman work like The Hiketeia!

The Mothman Prophecies: Conspiracies, Aliens, Abductions–Oh My!

A Review By: Amelia

The universe is infinite. Even if life on Earth was created by chance, the universe is so big that somewhere in the vast expanse of space, the circumstances that led to life on Earth, could also have occurred elsewhere. Is it possible that other life that has formed in other parts of the galaxy have visited Earth? Since the sixties, a whole form of study has formed around not only alien life, but the possibility that it’s come to Earth–that maybe it’s here right now. The Mothman Prophecies is a book dedicated to this theory.

John Keel was an American journalist and a very influential UFOlogist. He wrote scripts for Get Smart, The Monkees, Mack & Myer for Hire, and Lost in Space. His true love however, was for UFOs and in 1967 he popularized the term ‘Men in Black’ and created theories linking supernatural concepts like monsters, ghosts, and, demons to extraterrestrial visitations. He was prolific and imaginative and is considered a significant driving influence within the UFO field of study.

The plot of The Mothman Prophecies relates Keel’s account of his paranormal investigation into the Mothman: a large, winged creature that was haunting and harassing the people of Point Pleasant, West Virginia in 1966-67. This book combines his investigations and his own theories with various supernatural phenomena to explain who or what the Mothman is.

Keel was a man who knew what he was talking about. Whether you believe in aliens and their visitation of Earth or not, Keel wrote a book full of reasonable explanations and well presented theories and their ‘evidence’. As a narrative, or a case study, though, The Mothman Prophecies falls short. Keel had the facts, but how he presented them was a little muddled. He jumped around between what he had experienced, what he had researched, and what he thought just a little too often and a little too haphazardly.

My final thoughts on The Mothman Prophecies are that it’s okay. It’s not quite a memoir, not quite a case study, not quite a supernatural/horror/science-fiction thriller and that makes it just okay. I felt like the writer was using to jovial a tone and it took away from the tension that he was trying to create with his retelling of all the should-be-creepy stuff that happened to him. He’s done his research and I have no doubt that he believes all this happened because of aliens, but as a writer, he didn’t convince me of it. Still a book worth checking out if you’re interested in the topic, but not so much if you’re expecting a memoir, a case study, or a supernatural/horror/science-fiction thriller.

Journey: A Journey Into the Imagination You Won’t Want to Miss

A Review By: Amelia

I always found–even as a child–that books written for children try to force a message or a lesson down your throat. Authors and publishers of children’s books seem to think that unless kids are learning a life lesson that the book isn’t worth reading. I think that in itself is a terrible life lesson right there! With thoughts like this as the general mentality, amazing books like Journey–that don’t have a single word within its pages let alone annoyingly obvious life lessons–might be passed over and that is a serious shame!

Journey is about a lonely girl draws a magic door on her bedroom wall and through it escapes into a world where wonder, adventure, and danger abound. Red marker in hand, she creates a boat, a balloon, and a flying carpet that carry her on a spectacular journey toward an uncertain destiny. When she is captured by a sinister emperor, only an act of tremendous courage and kindness can set her free. Can it also lead her home and to her heart’s desire? With supple line, luminous color, and nimble flights of fancy, author-illustrator Aaron Becker launches an ordinary child on an extraordinary journey toward her greatest and most exciting adventure of all.

Aaron Becker, the writer and illustrator of Journey, has worked as an artist for such film studios as Lucasfilm, Disney, and Pixar, where he helped define the look and feel of characters, stories, and the movies they become a part of. With Journey, he created characters and worlds of his very own using traditional materials and techniques and it is, surprisingly (because it’s so amazing) his first book!

The main character of the piece is one lone girl who’s ignored by her family and seeks her own entertainment in the form of a red crayon and her own vivid imagination. Without ever saying a word this young girl comes off very whimsically. She emotes perfectly and you feel such immense empathy for her within the first few panels as she’s ignored by her family that you forget that you don’t even know her name!

The main character within Journey is also the creator of all the locations. She imagines her surroundings and then draws (with her red imagination crayon of wonder) any objects that she needs to help traverse them. An example of this is how she rides down a gentle river in a boat and ends up in a city made of nothing but different levels of canals. Becker’s amazing style and use of colour really lends themselves beautifully to the little girl’s imaginative journey. 

Without a single word this children’s picture book can ensnare children and adults alike. It’s a dazzling debut that will sweep everyone off their feet with the immense detail and amazing colours. It’s intricate and creates such a longing to just sit and imagine your own fantasy worlds or just to go back and look over each page over and over again.

My final thoughts on Journey are that it’s a book that should be on everyone’s shelf. It can appeal to everyone: children, adults, artists, writers, the fantastical, and the whimsical. You’ll find something new every time you open the book and will inspire you to no end. This is a fantasy environment that will draw you in and keep you coming back!

Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service: Do Yourself a Service and Read This Series!

A Review By: Amelia

I’m a huge fan of Dark Horse and–conveniently for me–they frequent English adaptations of one of my favourite kinds of manga: anything darkly humourous. That’s how I stumbled upon Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service–funny characters mixed in with a dark plot–what’s not too immediately love? 

The story behind The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is a simple one that gets a lot more complicated the further into the series you get. Put simply it’s about five recently graduated university students who have formed a company which specializes in dealing with the dead and their last wishes.

The author of the series is Eiji Ōtsuka and the illustrator is Housui Yamazaki. I couldn’t dig up much on Yamazaki, but Ōtsuka is a social critic and novelist that has a degree in anthropology, women’s folklore, human sacrifice, and post-war manga. In addition to his work with manga he’s a critic, essayist, and author of several successful non-fiction books on Japanese popular and otaku (a Japanese term for people with obsessive interests) sub-cultures. Aside from Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service he writes Multiple Personality Detective Psycho.

The characters this manga series follows are a rag-tag group of young, Japanese adults that–for one reason or another–have a strange talent or connection to the dead. There’s Karatsu who is able to speak to recently deceased people by touching their bodies. Sasaki is the brains of the operation with excellent hacking skills and a general computer expert. Numata is the heavy lifter (the one that lugs bodies around) and uses dowsing with a pendulum to locate dead bodies. Yata is a timid guy who channels a rather crass alien through a puppet on his had and has a vast knowledge of things like math and literature/urban legends. And last, but not least, there’s Makino who is a licensed and very talented embalmer–which is a rarity in Japan as most are cremated and not buried.

This colourful cast of characters are all so good: I could gush about them forever! They’re all very human and, even though they all have such weird and peculiar talents and lives, they’re very relatable. Numata and Karatsu are my favourite pair because they’re hilarious together! All the characters will give you a good laugh here and there, but these two are consistently comical. Of course that makes their tragic back stories all the more heart breaking when you learn of them (Numata’s especially, at least by my standards of seriously tragic).

The art in Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is great. It’s a realistic style of art, and when I say realistic I mean the characters are proportioned like actual human beings and buildings and landscapes aren’t stylized. Some of the characters expressions can be a little wild but they’re not at, say, Sailor Moon manga level. Besides, it’s a manga after all–allowances have to be made!

One of the creepiest story lines featured this thing here!

Everything this manga does is just right. The art style? Just right. The characters? Just right. The ‘monster of

the week’ formula? Just right. The number of creepy things this manga presents its readers? Just right. This is a seriously dark, creepy, funny, compelling manga series and–even though I just said it, I’m saying it again! Everything this manga does is just right!

My final thoughts on Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service are that it’s great. It’s so super disturbing and gross and for mature audiences only–I can’t stress that point enough! Despite being one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever read, Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is also one of the funniest, saddest, most touching manga I’ve ever read. If the gore puts you off, please–I beg of you!–stick with it anyways; this is a manga that should not be missed or ignored. Trust me, you’ll want to read this before the corpse delivery service comes for you!

Let Me Off At The Top!: Stay Classy? More Like Stay Away!

A Review By: Amelia

Anchorman is one of my favourite movies. There’s just something about it that’s so ridiculous and over the top that it’s perfect. I mean the part where all the different news teams fight in an alley is cinema gold! All in all, fans of Anchorman had much to look forward to in 2013–the sequel to the film was announced and Ron Burgundy wrote a book! Well, according to critics and fans alike, the second film didn’t go over all that well and–after I raised my hopes that the book wouldn’t let me down–I’m sorry to say that it did. Let Me Off At The Top: My Classy Life and Other Musings was a huge disappointment, and below, I’ll tell you why.

Let Me Off At The Top is the memoirs of the number one news anchor in America: Ron Burgundy. He writes about his humble beginnings in an Iowa coal mining town through his whirl-wind career as the top anchorman ever.

It’s hard to tell you about the author of this piece. It’s a book written as a memoir by a fictional character from a movie. I don’t know if Will Ferrell (who played Ron Burgundy in the film) wrote it himself as he pretended to be Ron Burgundy or if it was a ghost writer pretending to be Will Ferrell as he pretended to be Ron Burgundy! For lack of a better way to say it, I’ll just refer to the author as Burgundy from this point out.

So, as stated before, this book is a memoir written by Burgundy and it’s all about his life (although most of the time it’s so off topic that Burgundy himself plays very little into it at all). After about the first chapter, Burgundy’s writing voice comes off as nothing but arrogant and annoying. And (if we’re going to be honest) if the movie Anchorman had been any longer than it was, he probably would have come off arrogant and annoying there too, but the movie was just enough of him and his news team (of which he has the highest respect for but hardly mentions at all in his memoirs) so to not become overbearing. In the book, it was all him. It was obnoxious to begin with but almost unbearable after about half the book. Everything that made him charming in the movie is forced and awkward in the book and just not fun to read. There’s no humour because it’s so forced–this book was about as natural as the polyesters that make up Burgundy’s suits.

I had such high hopes for this book but unfortunately, it fell short. It fell way short. Burgundy comes off charmingly stupid in the film, but in the book, he quickly becomes the worst person to ever have written a book (and yes, saying that a fictional character wrote this book IS killing me!). There are some great one-liners that came off naturally in this unnatural/forced piece and they made me stop to think if they had been in the movie, but most of it was just mindless filler, unfunny nonsense, and just plain bad material. Honestly, there’s a whole ten pages on Ron Burgundy’s interpretation of the history of Mexico and it’s awful. It’s truly awful. If this book were a stand-up bit that Will Ferrell performed as Ron Burgundy, it might stand a chance. But as a book that you sit and read, well, let’s hope most people don’t waste their time.

My final thoughts on Let Me Off At The Top: My Classy Life and Other Musings are to save your money. If you’re a fan of the first Anchorman movie and want more Ron Burgundy I suppose you could risk it, but for the love of Odin’s raven, borrow it from a library and completely skip over the Mexican history chapter! Ron Burgundy, I’m afraid to say, has not followed his own motto and stayed classy.

How to Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting To Kill You: Cat Comics From the Internet Now In a Book… And It’s the Best!

A Review By: Amelia

I usually don’t go for websits / blogs / Tumblrs turned into books but there have been exceptions. Stephen Fry’s twitter turned book Mrs. Fry’s Diary is one such book (which I have reviewed and posted here before). Another exception is the book How to Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You. It’s a comic website turned book and since it’s about cats, there was literally no way I could pass up reading it!

“If your cat is kneading you, that's not a sign of affection. Your cat is actually checking your internal organs for weakness. If your cat brings you a dead animal, this isn't a gift. It's a warning.” How to Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You covers all this and more with the wit and humour of Oatmeal comics and even includes never before posted comics about–you guessed it–cats!

The author of How to Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting To Kill You is The Oatmeal. The Oatmeal (aka as Matthew Inman) is an online comic site that’s been around for years drawing comics about cats, sriracha hot sauce, and really anything else that comes to his mind. He’s a pretty funny guy and you should check out his site: http://theoatmeal.com/. If you’d like a certain genre of comic of his all lumped together–like, say, CATS–then this book is right up your alley!

The art style of the book is that of The Oatmeal. It’s a unique style that’s simple and minimalistic (most of the time). It’s not an overly attractive style of art–some of it is down right ugly–but that’s kind of the point… at least, I think it is. Either way the cats are drawn adorable so don’t worry yourself about the art!

If you’ve never read Oatmeal comics, the art is what’s going to put you the most off. The writing in the comics though is what’s going to keep you coming back to read more!

My final thoughts on How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You are that it is amazing! I do admit that I might be a bit biased as I love cats, but cat lovers are who all these comics were drawn for in the first place!

sTORI Telling: Bear With The Obnoxious Use Of Her Own Name And You’ll Find An Addictive Read

A Review By: Amelia

 

I love to read tell-alls. There’s just something about troubled lives that draws my attention and doesn’t let go until the last page is turned. With Tori Spelling’s book I figured I get some juicy gossip from the set of Beverly 90210 and spoiled brat stories. Much to my surprise, sTORI Telling gave me only got a little bit of gossip here and there and there were absolutely no spoiled brat stories, but her book was still interesting and definitely a compelling read.

sTORI Telling, as I mentioned above, is Tori Spelling’s memoir. This memoir was Tori's chance to finally tell her side of the tabloid-worthy life she's led: parties and plastic surgery that she’s had, her fairy-tale wedding to the wrong man, her so-called feud with her mother, how she always wanted to do nothing but comedy but found it hard to find any openings due to the stigma attached to her name. She tells all and with the sometimes self-deprecating, always witty prose she writes with, it’s hard not to be enchanting by her mostly less-than-enchanting life.

A regular Halloween in the Spelling household

Tori Spelling–television producer Aaron Spelling’s daughter–is known, honestly, for her name. Her first major role was portraying Donna Martin on Beverly Hills 90210 and, in doing so, became the world’s biggest case of nepotism. All through her teenage years she had a not-so private private life and was one of the most recognizable women in show business. Or at least B-list show business. Over the course of her life she’s had plastic surgery, a clumsy and awkward love life, a complicated relationship with her parents (and that’s putting it lightly), and ultimately, a hard time overcoming the nepotism that got her into show business in the first place!

My final thoughts on sTORI Telling are that it’s a surprisingly good read. Tori Spelling might not have lived a life of drug addictions or being a bitch on set–I’m waiting for Shannen Doherty’s book for that topic–but it’s still a compelling read, especially for all the passages about her over-bearing yet under-caring mother. You might believe that you already know everything there is to know about Tori Spelling because of the things you’ve read on magazine covers; I thought I did anyways. When I came upon her autobiography on the shelves of my local library I thought ‘what the hell?’ all the while believing that everything I was going to read, I would already know. But, really, everything I knew was only half truths. Her memoirs tell her side of the story and, as it turns out, it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than anything you can read in a rag magazine!

Parasyte: A Manga That Sucked The Life Out Of Me

A Review By: Amelia

I’m going to start off this review by saying that I’ve never really been into science-fiction–it’s not my cup of tea. That being said, why did I choose to read a science-fiction manga? I wish you could see my shoulder shrug because after reading Parasyte, my opinion of science-fiction remains the same.

Parasyte is an action/science-fiction/horror manga about a super invasive alien parasite that invades a host body and then becomes a horrible cannibalistic being that can morph the form of its host body to devour its prey. The series focuses around one teenage boy - Shinichi Izumi – whose body was invaded by a parasite with complications to the process. Shenanigans ensue. 

Parasyte is a twenty-four year old series–having started in 1990–and the author and artist of all ten volumes is Hitoshi Iwaaki. His primary work is Parasyte and he’s won numerous awards for it.

The main character of the piece are Shinichi Izumi, who is an average high school student, and the alien parasite that possesses his hand and gets nicknamed Rightie. They’re pretty balanced characters and, surprisingly, they work well together. Shin is kind of a lovable goofball and Rightie is a super-intelligent parasite that doesn’t understand sarcasm. As I mentioned before, shenanigans ensue. I’d love to say more about them, but honestly, there isn’t that much.

The art style in the manga is two completely different things. The alien designs for the grotesque way the parasites morph and change the human body were highly original and a visual feast for the imagination. However, the art style that it’s drawn in is kind of bland. It’s a realistic style in terms of human body portions and attractiveness (unlike some mangas, this one is filled with average looking people) but with it being a science-fiction story, I felt the art was just really lacking.

With bland artwork and a plot that’s supposed to be filled with action and itsn’t the only thing that really made me keep reading Parasyte was the plot, and even that became tiresome about three volumes in. I’m sorry to say it–because I seem to be the only one who is saying it–but Parasyte just isn’t worth it. At least not if you’re only a casual science-fiction fan like myself.

My final thoughts on Parasyte are that it’s a little dull all things considered. A strange alien parasite infects humans and changes them into horrible cannibalistic monsters and the only thing I can think is ‘when is this gonna get exciting?’ It’s got an interesting premise, but with actions sequences few, far between, and over too quickly, shallow characters, and a somewhat bland art style, Parasyte’s premise just wasn’t enough to keep me interested.