Customer Reviews

D. Gray-Man, Vol. 1

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As noted at the beginning of the book, D. Gray Man is set at the end of a fictional 19th century Victorian England. This blend of horror and action follows the exploits of Allen Walker, a boy who appears to be 15 years old but isn't at all what he seems. Walker is an exorcist, born with a cross embedded into his hand that is a powerful weapon that he uses to battle Akumas. Akumas are weapons of evil that use a human soul as their power, and a human skin to hide within. The Akumas are created by a demonic figure known as Millennium Earl, A Top Cat & Tails wearing figure who is somewhat reminiscent of Batman's arch-villain The Joker. Millennium Earl creates the Akumas out of great human tragedy and plans to eventually destroy mankind. The Akuma's are cyber-organic weapons (when not in their human skins) that fire poisonous bullets that turn a human's skin to dust. The more they kill, the more powerful they become.

We meet the first as two cops explore an abandoned, gothic looking cathedral. Officer Moa's partner is killed and only the arrival of Walker saves the young female cop Moa. But Moa is in for an even worse shock. The Akuma turns out to be her brother-in-law. Moa's sister had been killed in a tragic accident and her brother-in-law Marc, a pastor, cursed God. This allowed Millennium Earl to take her sister's soul as a vessel for the Akuma, and used it to kill Marc and take his skin as a disguise. Allen has to face off against the Akuma to free Moa's sister's soul. In a later story, we'll go back to Allen's earlier life and see his first meeting with Millennium Earl and how he became an exorcist.

Katsura Hoshino's superb art is suitably dark and his imagery is among the most ghoulish you've ever seen in a Manga. Millennium Earl is pure evil and Hoshino pulls no punches with him as the body count is extraordinary. A terrific, true horror Manga that has a great look and atmosphere.

Reviewed by Tim Janson

D.Gray-Man is an excellent manga with good action, solid story, and good laughs. However it has believable slapstick and not commedy where the victim gets hit with something that would kill them normally. This is a nice change and is backed by a solid story.

Well, this is a very fun book for manga fans. The story develops at an acceptable pace, and the action is gorgeous. Add that to some pretty impressive visuals, and you have a wonder on your hands. If you like this, try Deathnote, too.

If Tim Burton were ever to attempt a steampunk horror story, then I imagine the results would be something like "D.Gray-man."

And the first volume of this gothic, deeply quirky manga series attempts just that kind of atmosphere. It starts off relatively strongly with an "akuma of the week" storyline, though it remains a bit slow-moving. But Hoshino Katsura's story really blossoms as our likable, haunted hero begins his new life among other exorcists.

Two cops are investigating an old abandoned church when they meet a strange boy with a deformed hand, Allen Walker. After one is killed, he manages to save Officer Moa from an akuma -- an enslaved human soul who is under the control of the evil Millennium Earl, a demon who is trying to destroy God. When Allen is placed under house arrest in Moa's home, he reveals that the akuma is nearby... and very familiar to Moa.

In another town, Allen finds a young boy named John, who is obsessed with defeating akuma and the Earl. Allen tries to warn him off, but John won't be dissuaded -- until he is lured into one of the Earl's traps, and Allen must rescue him. But even more shocking is the revelation of how Allen first encountered the Earl -- and why he is so obsessed with defeating the Earl.

Finally, Allen arrives at the Exorcist Headquarters to introduce himself as an official exorcist. But things don't go very smoothly -- the exorcists turn out to be a bunch of weirdos, governed by a mad genius and a strange alien creature. But they also have great knowledge -- Allen finds out just what "innocence" is, and why the exorcists are racing to find it...

Cyborg demons, cross-embedded arms, virus-filled biobullets, giant glowing worms with collagen lips, and a mountain fortress filled with eccentric exorcists out to save the world from a grinning, rotund demon who looks like a Blue Meanie and may (or may not) have rabbit ears. Yup, "D.Gray-men" is not your typical manga series, even as horror goes.

Hoshino Katsura takes his introducing the gothic Victorian world he's created, and uses the first two stories to introduce the akuma, the Earl, and Allen's tragic history. The plots are secondary to the infodumping and flashbacks. Then we find out what the Earl's plans are, and what the exorcists' goals are. It's a pretty standard get-the-artifacts-before-the-bad-guys-do goal, but with a couple interesting twists.

And along the way, Katsura fills the pages with macabre creatures, graveyards, dark thoughts and even darker memories. The stories of how the akuma come to be are truly tragic and horrific. But Katsura also injects a lot of humor into the story, especially when Allen meets the bizarre exorcists of the Black Order ("If you don't want to be traumatized, it's better not to look").

Allen is a pretty endearing hero from the start -- polite, apologetic, selfless and courageous, even when people are nasty to him. But he becomes a truly striking character when Katsura reveals how he got his cursed eye, white hair, and ability to kill akuma -- turns out it's connected to something terrible he once did, connected to the Earl.

The first volume of "D.Gray-man" is a strong start for this ghastly, gothic manga with a twist of deliciously eccentric humor. And it only promises to get better from here on.

This manga totally rocks. I love how eccentric it is, how clever, how very awesome! I lve Allen as a character, to. Not generic, that's for sure. A wonderful book, i recommend it wholeheartedly!

This book is a great must have for any manga fan. It is about a boy named Allen Walker, who goes around destroying akuma. Which in japanese means devil or demon. Its artwork is awsome, and I hope that they have a video game or a anime. It is a very good horror/fantasy/history manga.

I'm sure you don't want me to drabble on about what the book is about, so i wont ruin the story for you.

The book is beautifully drawn, and although this is technically a horror manga, it has just the right amount of comedy mixed in. About all the characters are based on real people and their personalities are quite interesting.

The story is also original, so you don't have to worry about boring yourself with it.

Overall, I suggest this book to any manga lover, whether you love horror or not.

First let me start by saying that I bought this manga at random and have not read anything besides the first volume so don't mind if I am unable to give you the best review.
The story revolves around an older teen, mabye young adult with the ability to destroy or purify the demons that are sent for the main antagonist of the story the Gray Earl.
The first volume introduces the character and does not really give any real plotline untill the last chapters of the volume, but this is a positive because only enough backround info was given on the main character to make him extremely intresting.
There is not really any friend making in the first volume, and don't really expect much romance, but the story is turning out to be great with the foreshadowing of future allies and a bunch of action... enjoy.

Katsura Hoshino, D. Gray-Man, vol. 1 (ViZ, 2004)

What is it, exactly, with the Japanese attraction to spiritual forces? You release a manga with lots of supernatural atmosphere and the hits just keep on comin'. In this case, we've got Allen Walker, an orphan with a deformed hand. Which, as it turns out, is very useful in exorcising Akuma, which are basically psychic vampires capable of possessing dead bodies and taking on the personae those people had when alive. Akuma are the henchmen of the Millennium Earl, who kinda looks like an overinflated carnival barker. Walker's teacher sent him to London in order to become part of the Black Society, a ring of exorcists whose aim is to destroy Millennium Earl. Of course, Allen can't get there without a number of Akuma-related adventures (which may be setting up characters for future volumes)... not at all a bad beginning. I'm interested to see where it goes from here. *** ½

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(here we go again with Amazon not understanding how to separate products...)

Katsura Hoshino, D. Gray-Man vol. 2: Old Man of the Land and Aria of the Night Sky (ViZ, 2004)

After I read the first volume of D. Gray-Man some time ago, I didn't quite get all the hype, which comes from everyone from the expected otaku right down to the reviewer at Publishers Weekly, who calls the series "...a fantastic vision of Victorian England." I'm starting to get it a little more, having now read the second volume as well, but it still doesn't rank with the classics, IMO. I'll give it a few more volumes and see where we get. In this episode, Allen is teamed up with Kanda (they don't like each other, of course) and sent to Italy to discover an Innocence that's currently being pursued by an akuma. The expected battles ensue. Rock 'n roll! Okay, maybe I'm not doing it the justice it deserves, because there are some glimmers of what could be amazing here. The relationship between the last living human in the city and the steampunk-like doll he guards is quite nicely done, even if it does seem at times like it exists solely as a way to highlight the differences between Allen and Kanda. That said, once we delve into that part of the story (the last quarter or so of the book), Kanda actually seems as if he's going to become more than a two-dimensional "evil good guy" who exists solely as a foil for Allen's good-heartedness and naivete. Not great, but not bad. ***

Can something so deritative be original? Well, that's D. Gray Man, which I humorously call Fullmetal Hellpotter. You've seen it all before (in fact the author seems to be purposefully derivative), and yet it's something fun and unique.

Set in a 19th century that never was, the Exorcists of the mysterious Black Order (your usual demon-fighting organization) protects the world from the mysterious Millenium Earl (who looks like a Blue Meanie from Yellow Submarine), who steals human souls to power villanous demon machines called Akuma (steampunk demons that look like something out of a Cyberpunk version of Nightmare before Christmas). They do this with innocence, a strange divine substance that syncronizes with humans (shades of many a mecha show), and can be used to make weapons - and at times infects people.

Into this heady mix comes Allen Walker, a boy whose arm is posessed by innocence (think a cross of Ed and Al Elric, down to a weaponized arm). He's been trained by a rather abusive master from the Black Order, and plans to help them in their battles - for reasons that become sadly known.

However, Allen may actually be the normal one out of the Order. There's an angsty samurai, the mad-scientist leader of the European Black Order, a Innocence-forged hammer-wielding historian, a flamingly flamboyant cook, a pretty girl who wreaks mass destruction with Innocence boots, and more. That's not even mentioning the villains, who are what you'd get if the Adams family were supervillains, and had a strangely biblical background. Somewhere between Harry Potter, Legion of Superheroes, Hellsing, and Tim Burton lies this series.

And it all works. Fun, clever, witty, and often touching, the series keeps delivering shocks and delights. It's a gothic rollercoaster of entertainment.

As a far warning - I actually find the first volume to actually be the weakest. The series really takes off in Volume 2.