Since this is my first review, bear with it being a bit simple, there will be a full better review later on in time.
Alright to get into this it's really hard to put these books into words and how much I love these books, they are are only two of them, since Hiroki Kusumoto only makes short series, which isn't a bad thing, just a little sad. Still now to really jump into the review, I am going to break it down into different categories ranking them and blah blah blah.
Characters: Being as there are only 2 books, don't expect a lot of characters, in fact there are are only 4 characters in the books.
The Uke: Lou; Lou is a young artist who used didn't have much money and used to do street paintings for a living. One day a man came up to him with and odd request, he requested him to "Paint his true face." being captivated by his he goes along and pretty much lives with the guy till the panting is done. Although sadly the man was never pleased by the art work. One day being displeased again he went to slash the work and ended up cutting Lou's hand, which caused to him drink Lou's blood. Oops, sorry for the book summery. Ok Lou as I was going to say, is the uke of the story, which means he is the submissive partner. He is a bit typical, if you know yaoi you know what I mean, if not, he is childish, foolish, feminine, stubborn, but is still willing to fight, typical uke. The interesting thing about him is, he is the "light" I guess you could put it. In this whole Gothic style book, he stands out really, everyone is dark, when he is not. He is also very innocent...which is yet another typical thing. Character wise, you grow to love him.
Seme: Mr.Sein; God he is sexy, not even going to lie there, for a fictional character he is fucking sexy.
He is the vampire, yet another typical seme, but for him, he makes it work. In case anyone doesn't know what a seme is, it's the dominate partner, so he is manly, strong, and well you get the picture. He is an interesting vampire, because yet again someone felt like messing around with the vampire story. In this book, he can go out in sunlight and crosses have no effect on him. He can also eat regular food, but it has no taste to him. He was before he became a vampire, a powerful warrior with his brother. they both used to defend their people from invaders and were damn good at it, but one day his brother was on a trip and came back a vampire and turned him into a vampire, how sad. Since that day he pretty hated himself and tried to find his way in life, but without the fear of death, there was no way in life. So he is a pretty depressing dude and pretty abusive, but lovable at the same time. He has a lot of back story and a lot of shit in his past, hard to really say too much about him without giving out the whole book.
Antagonist Uke: Adam; He is a pretty damn typical antagonist, till the end. He owns Sein's soul thanks to his family's bloodline. He seems like an asshole and pretty much is an ass at first, later he comes to be a good guy in the end. Eh, he is a spoiler really.
Real Antagonist: Verloren; Just as equally sexy as Sien, his older brother. He is the real main villain of the book. he is the main reason Sein is a vampire. He is slightly a typical bad guy, in fact his character is pretty much Satan. He is sexy, seductive, misleading, sadistic, and all around evil. But what really sets him aside is his main goal, he wants to kill himself. Odd really, he wants to be the one to die and for him to die is to kill the the root to the vampire gene inside him, which only Sein can do. Hmmmm, strange long convoluted shit behind that really and way too long to get into in a review without just posting the books themselves.
Characters: 9/10. Why because of Adam
Art style: Being as it's a Gothic style yaoi manga, it's not very surprising that the art style is something of a mix of a typical yaoi art style mixed with the art style of Vampire Hunter D. Which is impressive to say the least, since it takes the typical yaoi art style any yaoi fan is used to, then beats it with Edgar Allan Poe, until it's dark bloody mess that most yaoi fans would be like
when they see it. But over-looking that, it's an amazingly drawn manga. Each character is detailed and original, all of them fitting almost stereotypical characters, the uke looks like and uke, seme looks like a seme, but the same time they aren't so stereotypical, that they stand out. Next being the background. Being as it takes place in modern day France (ha take that Transylvania!) It wasn't hard to match the Gothic environment with the overall area, which was a great idea on Hiroki part, looking at it in a Japanese setting might not have had the bigger atmosphere as being in the Gothic style France. Next being it's bloody as all hell. One would be shocked reading this manage the amount of blood, violence and gore there is in it. Most see a yaoi and think romance and some hentai, this one death. Being as it's about vampires, it's not shocking...it would be shocking on the other hand if you read it and was hoping it would Twilight in yaoi form, ha ha, WRONG!
Art Style: 8/10, Why 8/10, because of the use a very very typical antagonist design for the second antagonist character and some what typical drawing style.
Story: As I said before, it's a bit of a typical romance story, almost similar to Twilight, minus the girl and being a massive trend that I wish Blade would come to put an end to. The story is a yaoi story, guy meets guy, they fall in love, shit happens, they come out in the end, all is good. But a review can't be that short can it? No. The story is great passed being typical at first, but as it goes along it starts to deepen and starts to get into a darker path as some characters start to reveal some of their pasts. The only real problem with the story would really be, it can get very confusing, it starts to really jump around and throw later explained shit in there which is so very hard to fallow and often needs to be read like two or three times to really understand what's going on. The bright side to this was book two explained everything in book one, which was good. The bad side again is that book 2 took like a year to come out after book one, which was a real pisser to wait for since book one left so many unanswered questions, which made you have to go out and get book 2. That is a slight flaw and can be over-looked now since both books are now available on the market. So really looking at it now that I have both books, the story is almost flawless, it's detailed, bloody, dark, and even humorous at the same time.
Story 9.8/10, why? Because of of the jumping around and unexplained parts.
Overall: A Gothic, romantic, humorous, and all around interesting. These two books can only be described as a hidden jam among yaois. A book that really anyone could enjoy, not just yaoi fans, yeah not just yaoi fans. The sad part about these books is the fact that they are so damn hard to find, in fact they are pretty much only able to be bought online, and where my boy friend got mine they pretty much only had like one in stack in like one place in New York. So I can see why the fan base isn't that large. But if you see these book pick them up and give them a read, you wouldn't be able to put them down once you started.
Overall rating: 9.5/10
Looks like he sparkles doesn't he?
Alright to get into this it's really hard to put these books into words and how much I love these books, they are are only two of them, since Hiroki Kusumoto only makes short series, which isn't a bad thing, just a little sad. Still now to really jump into the review, I am going to break it down into different categories ranking them and blah blah blah.
Characters: Being as there are only 2 books, don't expect a lot of characters, in fact there are are only 4 characters in the books.
The Uke: Lou; Lou is a young artist who used didn't have much money and used to do street paintings for a living. One day a man came up to him with and odd request, he requested him to "Paint his true face." being captivated by his he goes along and pretty much lives with the guy till the panting is done. Although sadly the man was never pleased by the art work. One day being displeased again he went to slash the work and ended up cutting Lou's hand, which caused to him drink Lou's blood. Oops, sorry for the book summery. Ok Lou as I was going to say, is the uke of the story, which means he is the submissive partner. He is a bit typical, if you know yaoi you know what I mean, if not, he is childish, foolish, feminine, stubborn, but is still willing to fight, typical uke. The interesting thing about him is, he is the "light" I guess you could put it. In this whole Gothic style book, he stands out really, everyone is dark, when he is not. He is also very innocent...which is yet another typical thing. Character wise, you grow to love him.
Seme: Mr.Sein; God he is sexy, not even going to lie there, for a fictional character he is fucking sexy.
He is the vampire, yet another typical seme, but for him, he makes it work. In case anyone doesn't know what a seme is, it's the dominate partner, so he is manly, strong, and well you get the picture. He is an interesting vampire, because yet again someone felt like messing around with the vampire story. In this book, he can go out in sunlight and crosses have no effect on him. He can also eat regular food, but it has no taste to him. He was before he became a vampire, a powerful warrior with his brother. they both used to defend their people from invaders and were damn good at it, but one day his brother was on a trip and came back a vampire and turned him into a vampire, how sad. Since that day he pretty hated himself and tried to find his way in life, but without the fear of death, there was no way in life. So he is a pretty depressing dude and pretty abusive, but lovable at the same time. He has a lot of back story and a lot of shit in his past, hard to really say too much about him without giving out the whole book.
Antagonist Uke: Adam; He is a pretty damn typical antagonist, till the end. He owns Sein's soul thanks to his family's bloodline. He seems like an asshole and pretty much is an ass at first, later he comes to be a good guy in the end. Eh, he is a spoiler really.
Real Antagonist: Verloren; Just as equally sexy as Sien, his older brother. He is the real main villain of the book. he is the main reason Sein is a vampire. He is slightly a typical bad guy, in fact his character is pretty much Satan. He is sexy, seductive, misleading, sadistic, and all around evil. But what really sets him aside is his main goal, he wants to kill himself. Odd really, he wants to be the one to die and for him to die is to kill the the root to the vampire gene inside him, which only Sein can do. Hmmmm, strange long convoluted shit behind that really and way too long to get into in a review without just posting the books themselves.
Characters: 9/10. Why because of Adam
Art style: Being as it's a Gothic style yaoi manga, it's not very surprising that the art style is something of a mix of a typical yaoi art style mixed with the art style of Vampire Hunter D. Which is impressive to say the least, since it takes the typical yaoi art style any yaoi fan is used to, then beats it with Edgar Allan Poe, until it's dark bloody mess that most yaoi fans would be like
Art Style: 8/10, Why 8/10, because of the use a very very typical antagonist design for the second antagonist character and some what typical drawing style.
Story: As I said before, it's a bit of a typical romance story, almost similar to Twilight, minus the girl and being a massive trend that I wish Blade would come to put an end to. The story is a yaoi story, guy meets guy, they fall in love, shit happens, they come out in the end, all is good. But a review can't be that short can it? No. The story is great passed being typical at first, but as it goes along it starts to deepen and starts to get into a darker path as some characters start to reveal some of their pasts. The only real problem with the story would really be, it can get very confusing, it starts to really jump around and throw later explained shit in there which is so very hard to fallow and often needs to be read like two or three times to really understand what's going on. The bright side to this was book two explained everything in book one, which was good. The bad side again is that book 2 took like a year to come out after book one, which was a real pisser to wait for since book one left so many unanswered questions, which made you have to go out and get book 2. That is a slight flaw and can be over-looked now since both books are now available on the market. So really looking at it now that I have both books, the story is almost flawless, it's detailed, bloody, dark, and even humorous at the same time.
Story 9.8/10, why? Because of of the jumping around and unexplained parts.
Overall: A Gothic, romantic, humorous, and all around interesting. These two books can only be described as a hidden jam among yaois. A book that really anyone could enjoy, not just yaoi fans, yeah not just yaoi fans. The sad part about these books is the fact that they are so damn hard to find, in fact they are pretty much only able to be bought online, and where my boy friend got mine they pretty much only had like one in stack in like one place in New York. So I can see why the fan base isn't that large. But if you see these book pick them up and give them a read, you wouldn't be able to put them down once you started.
Overall rating: 9.5/10
