tinaanderson's reviews
267 reviews

I love the art style and the stories in the book. I've always been fascinated by the forensic, so this book met all those expectations for me, in a junk-food Miami-CSI sort of way. No, it's not realism for the sake of being realistic; it's more exploitative than that...a great read.

Much better than Vol 1 - though I didn't particularly care for the amount of 'female death' in this collection. It's as if the male cases are glossed over with a mention or morgue photo, but the female deaths are detailed and extend well past two pages. We get it, the Japanese mook you're serialized in loves dead bloody chicks, get on with it! LOL. It does save itself by giving more hints about Amamiya's past, and we meet another personality. Yum.

Great volume, all around. We see the original children and people that seem to have sparked the various personalities of Amamiya...and of course, more about Lucy Monostone! I have to say, I'm completed impressed by the quality and excellent book design that went into this series from Dark Horse. They truly do print manga for the 'collector' rather than the 'consumer.'

Oh man, the first few pages almost turned me off. Kikuo Togushi loses it and becomes a cold-blooded spree killer, and there's enough tits and ass in this to make me hurl. It redeems itself, predicably of course --like I didn't see the Lucy connection to the barcoded eyeballs...but finding out how our subject fits into all this, should be interesting.

The only reason I give it three stars? Those gorgeously drawn men trying to kill each other.

Good volume, action packed-- to say the least.

I loved this volume because it takes us right back into the mystery of the Lucy 7, and there’s plenty of violence in it that I adore. Also, Shinji Nishizono is BACK! And there’s more than one…there’s even more than one Amamiya…yes it gets complicated, but never crowded.

For the record, I’m willing to forgive the copious nudity of 'Mother' in the volume because I won’t kid myself into thinking this series is written with a female audience in mind…however – taking one your most intelligent female characters, criminologist Machi Isono, and having her wait for her ex naked in his hotel room in order to trade her ass for information? Shame on you Eiji Otsuka. Way to deconstruct an otherwise great character, in two pages. I swear, when it comes to strong female characters—Japanese writers take two steps back for each step forward. >_<

Spoilerish, just to show what characters are in this volume: It opens up ar the Tokagushi Shrine, where a news crew follows an inept profiler [everyone’s favorite cuckold Inspector Sasayama!] through some areas where a murder took place. He gets incredibly lucky [seriously, this man is not a profiler!] when he gets the girl showing them around, to confess to a murder…but then the newscast switches gears and starts talking about next week’s show—and the anticipated arrival of American FBI profile Michelle Partner [newsflash Otsuka-sensei…we don’t name our men Michelle, they may pull that shit in Canada, but not in the US of A]. Despite his name being far-fetched, he’s a creepy addition to the series; the media plans to take Partner and Sasayama into another crime scene area and have them both engage in a profiler duel.

Next we move to the lame intro of ‘Mother’; only worth reading because this lousy construct of a femme-dom character actual fits into the Lucy-7 plot. It seems that she [or her boss most likely] is responsible for ‘switching on’ the Lucy 7 [those kids with barcodes on their eyeballs.] Then we see Tetora Nishizono, the child version of the serial killer personality [Shinji Nishizono] that lives in Kazuhiko Amamiya. Confused…then you need to read volumes 1-4. ^_^

Anyway, Amamiya goes with Sasayama to the ‘duel’ and meets Michelle Partner. I won’t spoil the rest, but from here it gets very violent and interesting, as the plot unfolds. I can’t recommend this series enough if you’re into forensic horror and a conspiracy junkie.