Orochi: Blood

Rating:
Summary: An excellent manga
Review: I don't know what the 2nd reviewer was thinking this is an amazing manga! If you are a collecter of anime and/or manga you HAVE to own this! This is one of my all time favorites!

Rating:
Summary: sigh, a disappointment
Review: I have been familiar with Kazuo Umezo's work since we own a few of his graphic novels and my mom basically translated what was going on for me. The novels were volumes in a series of horror stories that were both intriguing and creepy and I really liked them. So anyway, i was really excited when I found out Viz had actually translated something by him. when i read this novel however i was greatly disappointed.

The story wasn't that great or even all that interesting. It's one redeeming quality was the ending, which was decent but not as surprising as the writer must have hoped since I was able to predict the conclusion. I was left wondering why they had chose to translate this story out of every other thing Umezo had ever written, when this story really did not show his true potential at all. Then to add to my disaproval, there's an artical in the back that says that this is the final volume in a series of six novels titled Orochi. Gee, no wonder I was so confused. Maybe if they didn't skip to the last volume I would have liked the story better, but who knows.

Anyway, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this novel is that bad, it's just not great, and everyone has such a wide variety of tastes that someone could think this is the most awesome thing they ever read. I think I was also disappointed since I was looking forward to reading a good horror manga and instead got some kind of wierd mystery type thing, so keep that in mind as well. Hope this review helps :D

Rating:
Summary: It's okay. VIZ should have done better.
Review: The most interesting thing about this book is the Author's history at the end. The second most interesting thing is the art work, which is really really good. The third most intersting thing-which should have been the most intersting, but isn't-is the actual story line. One of the reviewers have already said that this is the last book of the ongoing series. It made me wonder why VIZ would translate this book first. It makes no sense. It takes a while to understand who is doing the narration. And as narration is so important in this book, it makes no sense that VIZ would just throw the reader into the end of a series.

But don't let this review keep you from reading this book. I'm glad I got it. I've read it over and over again, and each time I find something new and truly genius about this author/writer. I find it facinating that someone can use a subtle shading to change the mood of the story.

Rating:
Summary: The Roles Cast By Fate
Review: Younger siblings sometimes find themselves overshadowed by their elder's accomplishments, much to their perpetual dismay. Still, sometimes the role cast is that of an inferior and one must accept the fact that their deeds will not shine as brightly as those that came before. For Lisa, however, its something altogether different, reaching depths of woe that few youths could conceive. No matter what she does, her sister Kazusa has done it better in numerously impressive ways. Whether its lessons in school, the playing of a piano, or ever the growth of flowers in a garden just for fun, Lisa is always told that she'll never be comparable to her sister. Even her footsteps are louder than those of her, and her abusively matriarchal family points that out to her time and again. So, as she grows she learns to hate and sometimes to lash out at a sister she's loved, wanting nothing more than to escape.

Escape is sometimes a fleeting thought, however, and fate, she intervenes in the oddest of fashions. The methods used come like cruel barbs, furthering the intrigues that fill minds already fueled by loathing of the most insidious kind. Still, to understand this mindset as an observer is divine and diviner still when the account plays out before our eyes. That's where the outside spectator of the two sisters, Orochi, comes into play. Through her we see the sisters and they grow into the beasts that time has moulded, leading the pondering mind to something unpredictable - to say the least.

Within the arena of unsettling Japanese horror, Kazuo Umezu is something of a legend. His works, fueled by character-driven plots that sink deeper and deeper into the realms of the distraught, capture many subtleties that other artists in the genre lack, making his something of an enigma to the artform. Such is the case with Orochi Blood, where the horror is in the finality of the story and the movement toward it, while sometimes slow-going because of the induction of oddities into the loop and because of a sequential ordering that makes you think, is ultimately rewarding. Here, watching the plights of Lisa play out as she finds herself engulfed in her elder sister's shadow is sad in its own right, but sadder still is the developments that this brings about. To me, the understanding therein, the reasoning behind why the horrible can be committed, is just as important as the deed itself.

If you are excepting something ethereal to impede upon the natural order of law like is often showcased in these types of tales, then perhaps you should rethink your purchase. This is powered by the persuasions of people, the horror that comes from existence, and the need to find yourself standing upon a plateau all your own. It works in subtle ways sometimes, keeping those who need an immediate fix sometimes shaking their heads in disbelief while proclaiming how bad the conceptual work is. Still, if you can work within those parameters, keeping the textures of neglect and revenge as bedfellows in your sadistic need to understand, then I would recommend Orochi Blood.