Yoko Matsushita

Hilarious and adorable. "Shingami" as portrayed by a horrible 90s cop show with yaoi and a bird-shaped tech services librarian as backup. Also, one of the funniest, rudest translations ever? Golden.

This volume covers a very angsty and what seems like a potentially transitional story in the series. As I have in the past, I can't help but compare the manga and the same episode in the anime. In this instance the manga has much more depth to offer. In addition, he anime's timelines for the process were a little different and the characters actions, especially in the case of Tetsuhiro, made a lot more sense in the manga.

When the ministry discovers a discrepancy in the number of people show more disappearing in Hong Kong it appears that a common denominator is the Cruise Ship The Queen Camellia and Tsuzuki and Hisoka are sent in undercover to investigate. Because Hisoka is an empath being forced to spend time with so many people proves difficult, but Tsuzuki is in his element acting as a card dealer in the onboard casino. To the dismay of both Shinigami one of the passengers turns out to be the sadistic doctor, Muraki, who is caring for the daughter of the ship's owner. When a rash of murders starts Tsuzuki immediately suspects Muraki, but when Muraki shows up dead himself he and Hisoka are forced to look for other suspects.

I felt terrible for Hisoka in this story. Here we are presented with the details of his torture and death at the hands of Muraki. Hisoka's memories of the accident do serve as a catalyst to show how much he has grown to trust Tsuzuki, not that he would willingly admit it. I do enjoy the relationship between these two. Right now I'm not getting any BL vibes from it, just an affectionately antagonistic feel. It makes an already interesting mystery/murder/paranormal story even more appealing to me.

The artwork is still very nice although it troubled me that Hisoka and Camille looked so much alike in some places. It made it a little hard to tell them apart in the face only panels. The sidebars are always an interesting bit of trivia. The manga-ka seemed to get annoyed by her fan mail a little much although some of her complaints made sense (who wants to read about other authors in your fan mail?) She does make the comment about feeling like these characters are her children, which is an idea I'm personally rather familiar with.

There is only one more disc to the anime (three episodes) for me to watch and I'm guessing it will continue to follow the course of the manga. I am very happy that the manga has more volumes than that and am really looking forward to it. show less

This volume starts off with a story about a dancer dying of cancer that is not in the anime which is nice because it gives me a chance to experience it without comparisons. The second story, "The Devil's Trill" was in the anime but is presented here with some very small differences, like the continued allusions to the similarity between Hisoka and Hijiri (although I guess with the anime they figured it was just so apparent it didn't need to be addressed specifically). I enjoyed both stories. show more It certainly does bring to light Tsuzuki's kind hearted personality and almost tragic ability to fall in love quite easily.

I particularly find the theme in "Devil's Trill" to be kind of disturbing. The idea that transplants can carry over memories, or in this case a written contract, from one host to another, is one I've always thought as interesting.

This manga is very episodic which can be good or bad. Time will tell if it just goes from one story to the next or if it will start to build on itself. There is a great mixture of humor, angst and drama which makes it all very appealing. The drawing as well is easy to look at. I really do like Tsuzuki who is drawn at times as almost heartbreakingly, beautifully handsome and at times with quite comic intent. There are two panels which stick out for me as really gorgeous. The first is in "The Last Waltz" where Tsuzuki is leading Hisae out for the dance contest and the other in the infirmiry where he first meets Hijori and is so tall he towers over him with his head inclined *sigh*. He's easily becoming one of my favorite manga characters for both the way he is drawn and his personality in the series.

I'm continuing to enjoy both the manga and the anime and look forward to reading/watching more. show less

This is another manga series I've decided to start after watching part of the anime, so comparisons are inevitable. In this story we are introduced to shinigami, Tsuzuki who is one of those seemingly lackadaisical yet actually totally responsible and deeply dark, law enforcement types that I totally love. In this series the Shinigami are enforcers of death, leading spirits who have not moved on to where they need to go. In this volume he starts off with one young partner who sacrificed show more himself to save his cousin and then broke all the rules by not allowing her to appease her guilt by committing suicide. The next segment starts off at the same point as the anime where Tsuzuki is paired up with yet another young partner in Hisoka, who seems very upwardly mobile and has secrets of his own. Together they go after a seeming vampire and uncover someone much more sinister.

I have to say that at this point I enjoyed the anime version a bit more. I think that the anime did a better job of showing us the emotional depth of the characters along with being both more dramatic and clear of plot. I also might be more partial to the anime because it seems slightly slashier in content (I know, I'm soooo bad!) On the other hand, the manga does give us a better understanding of exactly what the shinigami are and what it is that they do. Perhaps both reading and watching is the best way to approach the series to get a fuller understanding of what's going on.

I'm looking forward to further exploring both the manga and the anime although I am kind of concerned as I'm not entirely sure if either version of the series has a finite ending. I truly hope one or the other does. show less