Manga Mondays is a meme hosted by Alison at Alison Can Read where
bloggers can share their passion for reading mangas. It's a great place
to get new manga titles to try and to meet new bloggers. If you are looking for a spooky with a good dash of comedy to read for Halloween, I suggest picking up the Black Butler manga series or watching the anime.
Description: The decks of the Campania run red with blood when the corpses brought back to a semblance of life by the Aurora Society's "absolute salvation" turn on the ship's passengers in a ghoulish farce. With their investigation waylaid by this primitive struggle for survival, Earl Ciel Phantomhive and his exceptional butler, Sebastian, are trapped at the mercy of both the unnatural and Mother Nature herself. For even as dead feet shuffle along the opulent decks of the luxury liner in search of living prey, in the distance there looms before the cursed vessel a massive iceberg that glows and crackles eerily in the gloom of night...
Review: Vol 12 of Black Butler is filled with lots of action and gore as Ciel and Sebastian make a terrifying discovery of zombies on the ship. This volume is very well-paced and executed brilliantly. Toboso's artwork is always great, but really does draw engaging fight scenes which are easy to follow and understand. Often when reading action scenes in manga, I have a bit of difficulty to follow where the movement begins and ends but I didn't have an issue at all in this volume.
We see a more softer side of Ciel as he defends Elizabeth, his fiancee, and sees to make sure her family is safe on the ship. Ciel and Elizabeth have a strange relationship, more of a one-sided romance. Ciel doesn't seem to have much concept of how to make her happy. For instance, Elizabeth wants to spend time with him, but he just attempts to placate her by purchasing things such as dresses for her. I like them as close friends, but I can't really see them as a couple.
On the topic of Elizabeth, I really don't have strong feelings for her, but in this volume I'm alternating between wanting to strangle her and begrudgingly admitting that she can be cute and surprisingly awesome. Elizabeth is ordinarily used for comic relief, but in this volume she did have some great action scenes towards the end of the volume.
Like in the other volumes of Black Butler, there is a historical nod to the Titantic disaster as well as mentioning the Marconi device. Sebastian was notably violent and somewhat disturbing. He showed his demonic side and dropped all pretence of humanity, which is always interesting to watch. There are many times while reading this manga that you forget who Sebastian really is due to the slapstick humor and his type A personality of being the perfect butler. Snake was also fun to watch and it was nice to finally see Elizabeth's family who are usually talked about off the page. Volume 12 ends abruptly only to pick up in Volume 13. Will Ciel and crew be able to survive a ship full of zombies? I guess we'll find out and see!
Rating: 4 stars
Words of Caution: Strong violence and gore. Rated T+ for older teens.
If you like this book try: Black Butler Vol 13 by Yana Toboso, Blue Exorcist manga series by Kazue Kato, Soul Eater manga series by Atsushi Ohkubo
Review: Vol 12 of Black Butler is filled with lots of action and gore as Ciel and Sebastian make a terrifying discovery of zombies on the ship. This volume is very well-paced and executed brilliantly. Toboso's artwork is always great, but really does draw engaging fight scenes which are easy to follow and understand. Often when reading action scenes in manga, I have a bit of difficulty to follow where the movement begins and ends but I didn't have an issue at all in this volume.
We see a more softer side of Ciel as he defends Elizabeth, his fiancee, and sees to make sure her family is safe on the ship. Ciel and Elizabeth have a strange relationship, more of a one-sided romance. Ciel doesn't seem to have much concept of how to make her happy. For instance, Elizabeth wants to spend time with him, but he just attempts to placate her by purchasing things such as dresses for her. I like them as close friends, but I can't really see them as a couple.
On the topic of Elizabeth, I really don't have strong feelings for her, but in this volume I'm alternating between wanting to strangle her and begrudgingly admitting that she can be cute and surprisingly awesome. Elizabeth is ordinarily used for comic relief, but in this volume she did have some great action scenes towards the end of the volume.
Like in the other volumes of Black Butler, there is a historical nod to the Titantic disaster as well as mentioning the Marconi device. Sebastian was notably violent and somewhat disturbing. He showed his demonic side and dropped all pretence of humanity, which is always interesting to watch. There are many times while reading this manga that you forget who Sebastian really is due to the slapstick humor and his type A personality of being the perfect butler. Snake was also fun to watch and it was nice to finally see Elizabeth's family who are usually talked about off the page. Volume 12 ends abruptly only to pick up in Volume 13. Will Ciel and crew be able to survive a ship full of zombies? I guess we'll find out and see!
Rating: 4 stars
Words of Caution: Strong violence and gore. Rated T+ for older teens.
If you like this book try: Black Butler Vol 13 by Yana Toboso, Blue Exorcist manga series by Kazue Kato, Soul Eater manga series by Atsushi Ohkubo
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The story aspect sounds really good! I haven't had luck with manga, just because it's harder for me to understand a story in picture form, but other than that I would definitely read this! lol
Well I certainly want to know if they'll survive a ship full of zombies! Hurry up and review volume 13 Rummanah! I'm super curious about Sebastian too, he seems like a fascinating character the way he can drop the pretense of humanity so suddenly. Looking forward to your thoughts on the next one!
I've been lazy the last few weeks about Manga Mondays. I keep traveling over the weekend. I'm going out of town this weekend too but hopefully I'll get a review up. I really need to get into Black Butler. It seems like one of those things that I'll get hooked on if I give it a few volumes.