Blood+ Volume 1 (Manga)

Set several decades after the events in the popular Blood: The Last Vampire anime film, an amnesiac Saya Otonashi lives as a seemingly normal high school student with her adoptive family in Okinawa. Horrible nightmares are the only hints at the violent life she once led, but her past is about to catch up with her and awaken the merciless warrior within. Chiropterans - powerful shape-changing creatures who need and crave blood - threaten humanity once more, and a mysterious organization called the Red Shield needs Saya's deadly sword skills and mysterious powers to aid in the fight against these beasts. As her submerged abilities begin to reawaken and as she seeks to regain her memories, Chiropteran warriors are guided by a mysterious leader to threaten Saya and her loved ones. Asuka Katsura's manga series successfully expands upon the original Production I.G./Aniplex feature, delivering moments of jarring violence and thrilling action in a tale that spans several centuries.

From Publishers Weekly

Blood+ is a little bit of everything for everyone. As a franchise, there are two video games, soundtracks, a cartoon series, three comics and two novel series. Likewise, this first volume of the graphic novel series is a mix of mystery, vampire horror, high school romance and government intervention. Saya is a high school girl suffering from amnesia. In this volume, she's recruited for a part in the school play, hunted down by a boyish vampire, hidden by a secret sector of the government and finds out that she is an immortal and the only one who can kill the demonic monsters that threaten them. She also realizes that she's forged a special bond with her adoptive bad-boy brother, Kai. There are many strands at work in this opener, each given equal weight, which may work for the different Blood+ products out on the market but weakens this story. With so much going on, the reader is pulled in too many directions at once and the overall reading experience distracts and detracts from the story. However, this could be a good book to have open while updating a MySpace page and IMing friends on the Nintendo DS Light. (Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Asuka Katsura is a manga author and illustrator best known for Blood+. Katsura is also the author-illustrator of Hanayashiki no Juunin-tachi and Billionaire Girl.

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