Black Cat volume 1

Title: Black Cat volume 1

Author: Kentaro Yabuki

Genre: Adventure

Summary: Train Heartnet and his partner, Sven, are Sweepers who bring criminals to the law (and collect the bounty on their head while they're at it). Early in the manga, they meet Eve, a girl who has has nanomachines injected into her bloodstream to enhance her fighting capabilities, and a master thief Rinslet (or should I say mistress thief..?).

However, all good manga have antagonists in them, and in Black Cat, it comes in the form of Creed and his Apostles. Creed's dream is to destroy the Chronos Numbers, an organization that Train himself once belonged to before becoming a 'stray cat', but to do that, he wishes to recruit Train to their side, as Train is an exceptional gunsman and has unearthly accurate shots.

The Chronos Numbers are, of course, absolutely against this. The top of the Numbers are originally twelve in number, but a special exception was made for Train Heartnet, who obtained the number thirteen and, along with it, a legend of bloodshed and death as he was dubbed the 'Black Cat' who brings bad luck to whoever who crosses his path.

Opinion: Black Cat has been very well drawn and illustrated and the plot has few holes as far as I can see. I absolutely love the art, and prefer the manga over the anime. Train's goofy attitude is classic and he adds a comic side to an otherwise serious plot. The side characters, Eve and Sven, each have their own classic 'dark' past, and they set off Train very nicely.

(There are some Numbers I like very much, one being the master of disguise, but I won't go into much detail here right now...)

Black Cat, despite being a shounen manga, doesn't have very many bloody and/or gory scenes. Sure, there's the usual splattering of blood and injuries, but the mangaka doesn't go out of his way to illustrate how a bloody, hacked off head would look like. =) Which is good, because even though I can stomach such images, I dislike them. I mean, I wouldn't like to be staring into an eyeball or something, 2D or not.

I feel that Black Cat is very nicely balanced, and spanning only 20 volumes, if you feel that you can afford to buy them, then I would recommend Black Cat very highly. ^_^ Enjoy reading! ~rage-chan

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Title: Fantasy Trap

Author: Prince-in-Disguise

Genre: Action, Adventure, Suspense

Status: In-progress - four chapters up at time of post

Summary: Athrun and his friends test drive a virtual reality arcade game, but something goes wrong and the seemingly harmless game soon turns deadly when they become trapped inside it! Post GSD. Main cast: Athrun, Lacus and Kira. Shinn and Meyrin also feature. ~quoted verbatim

Opinion: Prince-in-Disguise writes reasonably long chapters and it's none of the fluffy sort of writing. Her chapters are the long, serious kinds, although she does try to inject humour. Athrun, Kira and Lacus start playing a virtual reality game in the arcade, but halfway through, the game turns menacing and locks them in the cyber world. I enjoyed this tremendously (seeing as I'm starving for virtual reality game fics now) and I really recommend this to Gundam Seed/Destiny fans. ^^

I also think it's fitting for Lacus to be a mage. I mean, look at her - she's the very countenance of a mage. And if you want to read about Athrun getting wings....*grin* ~rage-chan

Rating: 4 out of 5