Skull & Dog

Blood +

Volume 1

Asuka Katsura

2005, Kadokawa Shoten, Japan

Camellia Nieh (English Adaptation)

2008, Dark Horse, USA

Horror

9 ½ /10 stars

                At first glance, Saya Otonashi is an ordinary school girl with an extraordinary appetite.  But look beyond the outermost layer of this cheerful track team star, and the truth soon becomes apparent: terrible nightmares, inhuman cravings and shaking dé jà vu are symptoms of her bloody, veneered past.

 Trying to fit into a new school, not to mention a new family, is tough, and Saya isn’t helped by her inability to remember anything prior to the past year.  She’s in for a rude awakening.  She alone is capable of defeating the Chiropterans, monstrous creatures which lust for the blood of the living.  To do so she must first embrace her own brutal nature, but unfortunately for Saya, it’s not a role she’ll have time to get comfortable with.  The Chiropterans, the U.S Army, the leader of her high school theatre club...everyone wants a piece of Saya. Hopefully her friends, bad-boy Kai, fellow track star Kaori, and the mysterious cello player Hagi can help Saya hold onto her peace of mind.

 Asuka Katsura’s Blood + manga is one face of a new range of media spinoffs of Production I.G’s Blood: The Last Vampire short film.  While the recent anime series is undoubtedly the most prolific of these spinoffs, there are also light novels which compliment the anime and manga.  A preview of said novels was included in this first volume of the manga, and I can attest firmly from its few pages that if you’ve managed to read this far into the review, you’ll find these novels far too “light”.  The manga, however, is a different story.  It’s fantastic, for starters.  I cannot praise the art enough.  The graphic style, while typical manga and not particularly stylish, adeptly encapsulates the essence of Japanese comics.  The characters, backgrounds and objects are beautifully rendered; the pages of a high quality that you’d frankly hope Dark Horse would manage given its generally exorbitant prices and incessant boasting.

 In all honesty, the Blood + manga was less devastating on the pocket than I had expected.  A copy of Dark Horse’s Hellsing will set you back AU$25.00, while Blood+ was under $20.00.  It’s definitely worth it.  It’d be worth paying $25.00.  While the story is initially clichéd – amnesiac girl, violent past, heroic older brother – it quickly becomes utterly engaging, bloody and beautiful, and very much leaving the reader wanting more.  It’s not really true horror: the gore is comparable to Hellsing, while the teenage drama is closer to Fruits Basket.  Dialogue from kid vampire Charles adds spice to the story, and emphasise the sexy side of Saya and her eternal follower, Hagi.

 Lastly, I guess the majority of readers will not appreciate this consciously, but I definitely think it’s worthy of a mention; the composition.  The layout of panels and the arrangement of graphics within them is beyond excellent.  I would say that the composition in Volume 1 is by far the best use of this technique that I’ve ever seen.

 My goodness, you’re still here?  Volume 1 of Blood +: read it now!