Dreams on the menu this volume: a restless soul, a murderous beauty, a woman afraid of falling apart, a grieving lover, an unforgiving son, a suicidal actress and a mysterious voice on the other end of a lonely young man's phone.
Book Description
Special Offers and Product Promotions
- This item is eligible for our 4-for-3 promotion. Eligible products include select Books and Home & Garden items. Buy any 4 eligible items and get the lowest-priced item free. Here's how (restrictions apply)
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up–This book draws on the Japanese folkloric figure, the baku, or nightmare eater. Hiruko, a feminine-looking man in a black cape, headquarters himself at the Silver Star Tea House. He consumes no human food, living instead on the dreams he takes from his visitors. His clients include a servant boy who has nightly visions of his dead mistress, a young woman who dreams of losing a body part and a bit of her memory, and an obsessed fan who wants to save a beloved movie star from suicide. These people, and others, come to Hiruko with the hope that he will enter their subconscious thoughts and take away these bad images. He professes an interest only in the tastiness and nutritional value of the dream–as with chocolate, the darker the better–he even encourages one client to commit suicide in a dream, because death has a particularly satisfying flavor. At the end of each dream, he explains its meaning to the loyal waitress at the tea house, leaving readers to wonder if the baku has some emotion after all. Mature and detailed, the graphics resemble those of both Hajime Sawada's Orphen (ADV Manga) and Mark Crilley's Miki Falls series (HarperTeen). The folkloric elements would fit in well with a curriculum unit, while the dreams themselves, sometimes bloody and always dark, would prove interesting to graphic novel fans.–Sarah Krygier, Solano County Library, Fairfield, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
About the Author
Shin Mashiba's first manga, Yumekui Kenbun (Nightmare Inspector), premiered in Monthly Stencile, a shojo magazine, in December 2001 and was then serialized in Monthly G Fantasy from 2003 to 2007.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good start,
By
This review is from: Nightmare Inspector: Yumekui Kenbun, Vol. 1 (Paperback)
Nightmare Inspector was an interesting surprise. With not much in the summary box and a misleading title, I wouldn't be surprised to find low interest or disappointed readers.
Summary: The work centers on a Pet Shop of Horrors-esque tea shop in a time period that can only be described as Godchild (Old England) meets some girls in distress wearing kimonos. It makes the work somewhat surreal in that sense. The tea shop is where the main character, a nightmare eating baku, resides. His promise is simple - he'll end your nightmare if you are willing to let him have/eat it. Naturally, there is a horror element to the work due to the nightmares. I'm not sure where the title came from or if this is a case of lost in translation. There is no "inspection" at all in this work, no police undertones, no detective work period. Rather it is dream interpretation, which the author does nicely. There are seven chapters in this first volume - six which are episodic in nature. The final chapter is a cliffhanger. Based on this I don't know if the author can maintain a longer story. The stand alone chapters are entertaining and improve. The first chapter is by far the dullest and will sadly be the preview you get on websites. The second chapter improves vastly and each successive chapter becoming more and more interesting. The endings become more macabre with eerie touches and a sense of malice coming from the clients. By the sixth chapter, I was hooked, loved the writing and decided that my $9.99 wasn't wasted (which was a concern I had after chapter one). The only problem with the writing in that each story begins with the same fanfare - "At this tea shop those that blah, blah, blah, people who have nightmares." Also the nightmares begin in the same fashion with the same dialogue repeated. The art improves as well and begins to touch the horror elements. The first work doesn't even look all that interesting despite the well drawn characters and use of screentone. Once again by the sixth chapter the characters begin to interact in more interesting ways and the art is more graphic. However, the seventh chapter, the cliffhanger, leaves me hopeful that both will only continue to improve. The twist that creates the cliffhanger is good and spices up a somewhat dull chapter. All in all, I eagerly await vol 2. If you are a fan of works like Pet Shop, Godchild, Descendants of Darkness (sorry no shounen-ai), Tactics (minus the humor), Ghost Hunt, or just a fan of fantasy works this is something you should enjoy. I would however encourage others to read the second chapter in stores if you are sitting on the fence.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nightmare Inspector vol. 1,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Nightmare Inspector: Yumekui Kenbun, Vol. 1 (Paperback)
This has a nice opening into the series because it doesn't have introductions and because of this it is more realistic. I like how it starts off with the westernization of Japan but still has Shintoism throughout.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nightmare Inspector-series review,
This review is from: Nightmare Inspector: Yumekui Kenbun, Vol. 1 (Paperback)
I really liked the whole series of this whole book! It's a kind of book that would maybe hint something, but really lets you think about what might happen. It makes you think about your own dreams, weather they mean something. That every dream or even nightmare has something to do with either they way you live, think, or even if your own life is in danger and it is warning you.
I would recommend this series.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
