What is this page for?
This is all for fun. Manga fan reviews for people who like their manga to have dark edge to them. If you like it simple, straight forward and no spoilers then my reviews are for you. I'll be posting new ones up here now and again. (With respect to spoiling stories I give away no more than you would learn from the first 2 chapters and sometimes less than that, basically you get enough to go on with)

Most of the stuff I review is of a more adult nature with respect to depicitions of violence so please look at my suggested ratings for the different titles.

The reviews below are just a few that I've got up on myspace. If you want to have a look at some more go to:
http://www.myspace.com/darkmanga
There you will find my reviews of MPD Psycho, Digimortal(one-shot), Alive, Blue Heaven, Dorohedoro and more.
Almost all of the titles (translated to english) are free to be downloaded, just go to my page linked above and follow the links.
Hope your grinnin and winnin
DarkManga


Dorohedoro Review

Author: Q. Hayashida

Rating: M (Some graphic depictions of violence)

"Discover this post-apocalyptic and hyper-violent world, where mutant factions and survivors engage in a guerrilla war where no mercy is shown." Not a bad run down (From Project Omanga) on this particular manga but I thought I would add in a bit more detail.

Join Nikaido (a young girl) and Kaiman (a guy with a lizard head) as they travel through the town of Hole, killing magic users who are crossing over from their own world. The magic users are unable to practice their art unless they are in someone elses realm. Kaiman was a normal human survivor until he was changed into his current lizard form by someone "practicing". When this occurred he not only lost his memory of his past life but he also picked up a hitchhiker in the form of a guy who now resides inside Kaimans body. Kaiman is on a mission to find out what the hell this guy is doing and somehow reverse the spell that transformed him. He did get one bonus out of all of this and has found that he is impervious to magic.

Awesome artwork and some really dark scenes make this manga really stand out for me when comparing it to the norm. (No billiard balls for eyes here ;) I really like the lettering they have used for the text and I find it really complements the overall style of this title. Dorohedoro was one of the first titles I obtained from the Omanga Project and it is still in my top five. At the moment there are two volumes that make up this title and within that there are ten chapters. (Each volume also has a bonus chapter so you are looking at 12 sections all up) - I have a feeling that more has just been added ...

Berserk Manga Review

Author: Kenturo Miura

Rating: R (High Level Violence)

Set in a world of medieval fantasy, Berserk is an epic tale of unrequited love and betrayal. We start out with Guts, a hardcore mercenary for hire to the highest bidder. He wields a sword that seems to be custom made to bring down the horse as well as the rider (which happens occasionally) and has a prosthetic hand that has a few tricks built in. The driving force of this story is that Guts not only has a big sword, and is good at using it, but he also carries a brand on his heck that marks him out as 'cursed'. While he carries this brand 'supernatural' forces will continue to hound him until they finally succeed in defeating him. How did he get the brand? Where are these forces coming from? What made Guts the man he is today? All of these questions are answered as you work your way through the 24 volumes. The story starts with Guts in the present and we constantly delve back into his past to put all of the pieces together. Berserk is not all blood and guts, with a love triangle occurring between our protagonist and 2 other major characters in the first major story arc. It is an integral part of our story as it helps us to discover many things about the past experiences of Guts.

The artwork is a standout with this particular series, with the battle scenes being the highlight. There are a lot of battles and fighting in general throughout Berserk and, accordingly, a lot of effort has gone into bringing these sequences to life. The level of detail on the two page spreads is incredibly high and time needs to be taken to soak it all in. If you have already seen the anime adaptation of Berserk then you may think you have a handle on the story, but the manga adds a lot more to the overall story and takes you beyond the ending of the anime. If you liked the anime then you NEED to read this title.