Don't go

Recently Natsuki Takaya has dealt with the relationships of some of the supporting characters... and now it's back to the main trio.<br /><br />And the nineteenth volume of"Fruits Basket" focuses on Tohru's growing feelings for Kyo, even as she struggles to free him from his curse -- and the scorn of the other zodiac members. Though there are some funny moments (mostly from the wonderfully wacky Ayame) growing romantic feelings and past regrets are littered all through these chapters.<br /><br />Heartfelt talks take up a lot of space -- when Shigure tells Tohru about the approaching"last banquet" and the cat's place, she is left struggling with her torn feelings. Kyo has a chat with her kindly grandfather about Tohru, and remembers his own talk with her dead mother. And Shigure has a soul-baring talk with Hatori about the increasingly reclusive Akito, and just what he wants from her.<br /><br />But the romantic tension growing between Kyo and Tohru are stifling Yuki, so he goes shopping out on the town, and eventually ends up visiting his brother. While the brothers talk, Yuki stirs up memories of the first time Ayame realized that his careless words could hurt people. But he isn't the only one -- amid the usual school council hijinks, Yuki finds out about a past conflict between Kakeru and Tohru...<br /><br />In the grand scheme of things, not much actually happens in this volume -- it's mostly about the characters and their feelings.<br /><br />Don't worry. It's not boring, especially since Takaya continues to weave in some darker threads about Kyo's bleak past and future, and his half-hidden regrets about Kyoko. And she lets readers have a look at how the characters are changing as they approach adulthood (Momiji has become the new"prince"). There's a bittersweet flavour even to the lighter chapters, since everything around them is changing so quickly.<br /><br />But don't worry -- despite the darker moments, we still get lots of comic relief like Kyo bashing his head against the wall in exaggerated shame. And there are some deeply romantic moments, like a beautiful flashback to the start of Ayame's relationship with Mine. These moments are exquisitely beautiful without having to be too obvious, and Takaya's delicate artwork only adds to the feeling.<br /><br />But the biggest romantic moments come for Tohru and Kyo. Tohru's inner struggles are further revealed, since she turns out to have some conflicting feelings about her parents and Kyo. And Kyo shows that he's grown out of the angry, self-loathing cat-boy he used to be, while Yuki has become more patient with his brother, and very sweet and loving toward his new girlfriend.<br /><br />And Takaya doesn't neglect the other characters -- Kakeru turns out to be a romantic, Ayame definitely isn't gay, and Momiji has some secret romantic feelings. And Shigure's darker side casts a shadow over the first half of this manga.<br /><br />The nineteenth volume of"Fruits Basket" explores the changing feelings of the characters, even as it inches toward the end. A really stellar, polished little manga.

From Hell The Compleat Scripts

All the other reviews are for From Hell the Graphic Novel whilst this book is From Hell the Compleat scripts . This is a book that prints Alan moores Scripts for the comic book series and gives the reader an idea of the detail that alan moore invests into his work. A great book for potential script writers or like myself an admirer of this authors work who is much under rated in the modern literary world. Comics is still regarded as a substandard art form by those who are unfortunately in control of weak minded fools.

As one Kira leaves another appears on the scene

The fifth volume of the brilliant Death Note manga opens with Light in jail under suspicion of being Kira. In order to get out of this predicament he gives up the Death Note and all memories associated with it and when the murders continue while Light is in prison L decides that Light can be released but must remain under his constant surveillance. As the murders continue it becomes apparent that Kira seems to have changed tact as rather than make the world a better place they seem to be targeted at the world of big business.<br /><br />Death Note continues to fascinate and entertain and the addition of a more self motivated Kira is a nice if not terribly original addition to the story. Also another good thing about this volume is that rather than reveal the identity of the new Kira right away as they did with Misa the story keeps you guessing as to their identity throughout. If there is a problem with this volume of the story it is that, despite the addition of the new Kira, it has the feel that it is mainly setting things up for the future rather than telling the story itself. In spite of this small matter I can definitely see why so many people are raving about this excellent manga.

Good Bat-Guide

I'd expected this to be a cheesy text-only (in huge type) Dark Knight cash-in guide with precious little information and stock images. I was delighted to discover, then, that is was in-depth, well-written guide to the Dark Knight Detective's comics career. I only received it yesterday and have hardly put it down since. Highly recommended.

The taskforce closes in on Kira III

Although still a marvellous read the previous volume of Death Note had something of a filler feel to it but thankfully this sixth volume sees this excellent manga series back on top form. Having identified that the new Kira is among seven individuals working for Yotsuba Light, L and the rest of the taskforce must find a way to get the evidence of how Kira kills his victims before the move in on the seven. When Misa is sent to get close to the seven the Shinigami Rem complicates things by revealing itself to her and Misa comes up with a plan of her own.<br /><br />This volume is probably one of my favourite to date with some great action and some nice plot twists. It is also good seeing the Shinigami again after there brief hiatus in the last volume, and we also learn some more about the Gods of Death themselves. Although not really much of a cliff-hanger, the ending of this volume leaves the story in an interesting place and it will be interesting to see where Death Note goes from here but with the story only at the halfway point I am worried that it could be starched out too much in the later volumes.

Hellboy is great.

This volume has plenty in it! It's a fair bit larger than the first two, and packed with fantastic short stories that had previously been unavailable for ages. The title story, 'The Chained Coffin' gives a great look at more of Hellboys' origins and.....daddy??!!. Plus there's the fan favourite 'The Corpse' (nasty irish fairies) and 'Almost Colossus', which introduces Roger the homunculus before he joins the BPRD. <br /><br />What I really love about this is how a lot of the stories are grounded in traditional folk and fairy tales from around the world, like the Russian witch Baba Yaga. There is something here most people will recognize. Plus its kinda nice to have a hero who's a bit of an anglophile! And to top it off there a neat art gallery section at the end! Marvelous! A great anthology for Hellboy fans!

Light's plans bear fruit

This seventh volume of the truly excellent Death Note manga is something of a book of two halves. The first half of the volume sees the conclusion of Light's rather complicated plots and it looks like he is well on his way to creating his perfect world. The second half of the volume sets things up for the second half of the series with new opponents arising to challenge Kira and events take a turn that he does not expect.<br /><br />This series continues to impress me and some of the twists in the plot of the story, although seeming somewhat contrived in places, are nonetheless fascinating and do enough to keep you reading. I will definitely be interested to see where the story goes on from here.

Pretty Cool

Interesting story and art. This is not as good as some of Miller's other Sin City graphic novels but it is deffinately worth reading. This is the first part of series within the Sin City books including The Big Fat Kill and Family Values. Dwight is an interesting recurring character. He is a photogropher turned criminal and friend of the Sin City hookers.

Who's side are you on?

When I first heard about this book, I was very excited and after reading the first issue I wanted more. Its one of the best story lines I've ever read. Not only is the story awesome, but the artwork is amazing. Some of the fight scenes were amazing aswell, all your favourite heroes beating the living daylight out of each other.<br />I was so excited reading this, I really wanted one team to win. It wasn't like reading a normal story with heroes and villans, it was pretty much just heroes. <br />This was another great job done by the writer Mark Millar.<br />I recommend this to anyone who loves superheroes, reads comics or is just getting into comics. I'd also recommend this to anyone who loves a good story.

Legacy

This series goes from strength to strenth and this collection is no exception! The plot is cunning and the veil is lifted concerning the true identity of the new emperor, Darth Krayt is revealed at last. Also we find out which double agent is also Cade's mother which i would never have guessed anyway.<br /><br />This collection is by far one of the best i read and i would recommend this series to anyone who wants to expand upon watching Revenge of the SIth and follow the Legacy of the characters from the trilogies.

Quirky and Dark

This narrative is another entertaining chapter in the story of Hellboy's life. It tells some more strange tales of his journies and shows a very dark and bleak view of the character4s that Hellboy comes across. In the same league and of the same high quality as the previous Hellboy volumes. Mignola is a beacon of his generation and this chapter is a good omen of more to come

A great buy!

It's January 4th, and Gotham City witness two arrivals: the arrival of Lieutenant James Gordan, and the return of millionaire Bruce Wayne. Wayne and Gordon both see that Gotham needs to be cleaned up, but each has his own ideas of how it should be done. While Gordon begins his cleaning under the eyes of the press, Bruce Wayne assumes the identity of a bat and begins cleaning up the city under the cover of darkness. But, with the two working from such very different angles, confrontation is inevitable, and out of the confrontation comes...friendship?

This book was published in 1988, containing BATMAN #404-407 (1987). The quality of the illustrations is a bit lower than one has come to expect from more recent graphic novels, but the fact is that the story is excellent and makes the whole book a great buy! As with the stories of the Golden Age comic books, this story pits Batman against an array of regular bad guys, rather than super-powerful super-villains (although the genesis of Catwoman is included!), which I rather enjoyed! Overall, I found this to be a great introduction to Batman, one that keeps up the excellent tradition. I highly recommend this book!

The heirs to L fight back

Although Light is close to creating his perfect world, he has started to encounter some unexpected problems. Near and Mello, the two genius youngsters who have taken over from L, are competing with each other to try to solve the case first, Near working with the FBI and Mello with the Mafia. Having kidnapped Light's sister Sayu, Mello appears to have the upper hand as he blackmails the NPA for the Death Note but Light is soon making plans to retake the initiative.<br /><br />Death Note continues to be nothing less than involving in this eighth volume of this fascinating manga and the plot seems to be getting thicker and more convoluted as time goes on. If there is a downside of the story so far it is that the two replacements for L, Near and Mello, don't seem to be as interesting or likeable as their predecessor but I suppose there could be more characterisation of the two in future volumes. Death Note remains to be nothing less than a compulsive read and I cannot wait to discover how the story turns out.

Light closes in on Mello

In this ninth volume of the excellent Death Note series, Light Yagami conceives a plan that could potentially halve his opposition at a stroke and bring his perfect world one step closer. He moves against Mello but not everything goes as planned and Light discovers that Near may be closer to the truth than is comfortable. Despite this Kira is making progress with the general public and this opens new possibilities for Light to manipulate. <br /><br />Death Note continues to weave plans within plans, with all three of the main characters trying to out do each other in cunning. This volume does see some good twists and some surprising losses that could shake things up slightly. Overall Death Note remains a very well written and carefully plotted series that is a cut above some others that I have read but this second half of the series does seem rather less than it could be.

Ambiguity

Like many of these encyclopaedias for fictions this contains a lot of completely uninteresting information. However, there are a few really fascinating bits of info - that Ohba regards both L and Light as evil, that neither of the creators liked Near, that Ohba is inspired by the works of artist Jean Jansem. Most interestingly is the fact that both Ohba and Obata emphasised the philosophical ambiguity and the absence of any pretentious, didactic message; for me this is what makes Death Note so fascinating and so open to meandering and entertaining speculation. Death Note 13 also increased my respect for the artwork and the complexity and skill invested into this side of the manga.<br /><br />The best feature of this bonus instalment was the inclusion of the Death Note pilot. This gives the reader real insight into how the idea developed from an interesting semi-philosophical (meta-ethical) thought experiment into one of the greatest fiction thrillers ever conceived. The flaws in the pilot have been aptly removed from the series, leaving only what makes Death Note the classic manga that it is.

More like Hulkling

When I first saw this was coming out I thought wow, the Hulk is coming back to Earth and he is gonna go nuts and have a massive fight with the Illuminati( Ironman, Dr Strange, Black Bolt, Professor X and Namor). I never read Planet Hulk, but I got the general idea of it from reading Illuminati. <br />The first couple of issues of World War Hulk were good, but by the third it had slowed down and didn't really seem to be going anywhere. The artwork by John Romita jr is alright, but its not his best work and lets the book down abit. <br />The World War Hulk tie-ins in my opion were alot better than the main book...<br />Overall this book is alright if like the Hulk, the army and one of Marvel's most power heroes going toe to toe, but if you want to read a good story that doesn't seem to just disappear half way through the book, I recomment Civil War.