About the Mangaka

Kikuchi Hideyuki is famous for his horror novels, specifically Vampire Hunter D, and has been compared to both Stephen King and H. P. Lovecraft.

Kikuchi wrote his first novel, Demon City Shinjuku, in 1982 and has written numerous horror novels in the past 20 years, including the 19 novels about Vampire Hunter D.

About the Manga

I’ve said it before, I’m saying it here, and I’ll probably say it in the next review; but Hideyuki rocks!!!

This volume took a turn I wasn’t expecting, it tries, and succeeds at showing the Vampires as having a human side.

The entire volume is basically a big long chase , however the complexities of the chase leave you wondering what’s going to  happen next.

Hideyuki’s wording is a little weird in this volume, at times I did get the feeling that he was over describing stuff. It’s fine to describe something deeply, but you need to be careful not to go overboard. However it’s not overly frequent, so it’s not to bad.

What is interesting is the character development we get, especially in D. Though one thing I did find annoying was once again D gets a girl all hot and bothered. While the way he uses them fits fine, I do wonder at the use of them. To many girls going gaga over him every volume in a way spoils the volume.

As I said this volume has some awesome character development. D is hired by an old man to find his daughter who had been kidnapped by a Vampire. However he wasn’t the only one hired, the Marcus clan were also hired. The clan is a family of four brothers and a sister, they have earned a reputation for getting the job done, as well as wiping out any rival hunters.

Also, there is more to this couple then simply a vampire stealing a girl to drink from. Something that is only slowly revealed as the volume progresses.

What follows is a three way chase and fight, with the Clan fighting both D and the Vampire, and D fighting the Clan.

The love interest in this volume is the sister from the Clan, initially cold and aloof, she starts to fall for D after he saves her life not once, but twice. Later in the volume she’s totally besotted with him. The actions she takes feel a bit weird, but they’re part of the development so it’s for a good reason.

The fights between D and the Clan are fun to read, and Hideyuki paints a perfect picture with his descriptiveness. I said it in the original review of novel one, but Hideyuki feels more and more like Tolkien, the way he writes, and the feel he gives off in his novels.

Sadly Yoshitaka’s artwork is still as bad as ever, how people can think the black blobs of art are good are beyond me. Thankfully they aren’t very frequent, its around five or six per volumes so I can ignore them. Some of them I have to admit are passable, but meh I mean when you look at the work he does for the covers it’s awesome, why can’t he draw like that inside as well.

Dark Horse seem to have backslided a bit with their editing, and a few surplus words crept in this volume. Namely repeat words, for example: ‘and and’ but this isn’t as bad as the first volume. Though if it keep up in subsequent volumes it’ll be annoying.

The thing I found most interesting in this volume however was seeing things differently. For example the setting, while different, follows the classic story of Romeo and Juliet, a forbidden love that blossoms anyway, and ultimately leads to death.

D’s development is rather interesting to watch as well, though it’s small he seems to grow more human in this volume, right upto when his vampire side overwhelms him. It’s these sudden changes that have kept me interested in the past three volumes, the changes from human to vampire and back again.

The end of this volume is as sad as the last one, though given it’s a Romeo and Juliet styled story that’s to be expected. It’s also a bit frustrating that almost everyone involved ends up dead, I don’t know about D, but if it was me the fact everyone kept dying would leave a bitter after taste hehe.

The face on D’s palm is finally explained, sort of. While there is another like it in the Marcus Clan, it’s relationship with the one in D’s hand isn’t explained, and D’s refers to it only once as ‘one of my kin’. I’m hoping that this is explained more in a subsequent volume.

One other thing I forgot to add in my last review, and it was brought up again in this volume. In this setting incest is fine, as science has removed any genetic deficiencies that may arise. In the previous volume there’s brief mention of father taking daughter, and mother sons. And in this volume we have broth on sister. While there is no out and out graphic details, it’s worth noting that these volumes do contain these elements in a small degree, and should be handled appropriately. In other words keep away from the kiddies 

Though the violence alone is enough to warrant keeping it away from the babies IMO

Where to Buy

At the moment this titles is selling for all of £4 at the Book Depository, head on over quick!!