About the Mangaka

This series is a collaboration between Ryukishi07 who, as well as doing the original game, does the story. And Suzuragi Karin who does the art.

Ryukishi07 is the pen name of a member of a doujin group called 07th Expansion. They are famous for their visual novels, of which Higurashi is the most famous. You can check out their website here (NSFW & Japanese).

Hardly anything available on Suzuragi sadly, beyond that she works exclusively for Square Enix, and specialises in titles that have been ported over from games to manga.

About the Manga

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Can only say one thing about this series, and that is awesome.

I saw the anime some time ago when it was being fan-subbed, and to be honest it freaked me out to much to really get into it. So when I heard this was being licensed I was going to give it a wide birth, thankfully I didn’t because this is one hell of series.

Ryukishi07 created the game, so is the best person to do the adaptation, and lets face it he did a freaking superb job of it. The characters he created have all the great aspects of the genre, and none of the failings.

All of the characters, including the support ones have well fleshed out personalities, and fit into their surroundings perfectly.

The flow of the story is consistent, and to be honest I have yet to find any hiccups in the way it progresses. He interjects humour and horror just when it’s needed and likely to have the greatest impact.

Suzuragi is the icing on the cake, her art style is perfect for this series!!

I found myself drawn more and more to her style as the volume progressed. I was especially please at how close the characters were to the anime version. Her ability to turn characters such Rena from the super cute and adorable girl, into the demon version, is amazing, and chilling.

I could never get into the anime because I found it overly creepy. While the manga is just as creepy, it has a softer feel to it that mutes this and allows me to enjoy the story. This I believe is due to the combination of Ryukishi07 and Suzuragi.

This anther Yen Press release, and frankly they’ve out done themselves this time. Althea and Athena Nibley (Ya know, I wonder if that’s their real name, or just a pen name, it’s been bugging me for a while!!) do the translation, and I’ve not found anything wrong.

As you expect with Yen, they’ve left the colour pages intact, and this time it’s especially well received because this volume has a colour page that gives you nightmares.

Needless to say this series goes straight on my Essential Read list, hell it’s a must read for everyone!!

However there is some bad news, Yen Press only licensed the first three story arcs, covering a total of six volumes. Currently there’s over twenty volumes in the series. My guess is they want to see how the series goes before licensing the rest of the series.

Also the light novel series (published by Enix), and the novel series (Published by Kodansha Box) have yet to be licensed as well. Hopefully Yen will pick up the light novels series at some point, as they have for others in their catalogue.

Where to Buy

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