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This manga is probably the most intricately drawn that I have ever seen. The care and detail the mangaka puts into leather and rubber straps is, well, astonishing.

As for the story, it's compelling enough to keep your interest and it gives you a very good insight into BDSM as it is actually practiced. I came at it with a little knowledge of the subject, but Nana to Kaoru is such an in depth and sympathetic exploration that it's almost an instruction manual. The female lead (with the reader along) is introduced to the subject bit by bit, never so much as to ... scare her off, just step by small step, until she finds herself doing and craving things she could never have imagined she would. Along the way, the reader is treated to an understanding of both the practices and appeal of BDSM. It's probably one of the best defenses of BDSM that I've ever read, in any media, so if that was the mangaka's original intent, I'd say he succeeded in it.

I don't think this work is going to convince someone who isn't already interested in the subject to try it, but it does answer lots of questions and gives an uninitiated reader a very honest view of BDSM. Of course, if you are interested in it, this manga is a gold mine.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this very cliche'd story.

It's the WAY overdone tale of a poor girl who is taken in by the wealthy and powerful bad guy, and endures his unreasonable demands. This manga reminds me of the old "Perils of Pauline" with the helpless heroine falling into one horrible situation after another due, mainly, to her irresistible (at least when she's dressed up) looks.

Despite the cliche'd story, the characters are actually likable, and they get their comeuppance/just desserts in a very satisfying way. It's not a serious story, but it is enjoyable light reading, especially if you ... like Victorian era romance like Jane Austen stories. Just don't expect period accuracy in costumes or politics because I never did figure out if these characters were supposed to be Asian or European - though they were clearly in Japan somewhere. As long as you aren't bothered by such details, the story is fun.

The art is OK, a little chibi-fied for my taste, but not offensive. The characters are kind of stereotypical, but it works. They don't annoy me, which a lot of the high school romance characters do. That's a low bar, though, your mileage may vary.

I won't share actual plot details, except to say, the story does wander a bit. There's a surprise they set up at the beginning of the story that resurfaces right at the end, almost like an afterthought. It's as if the story itself got away from the author before they realized that they'd need to wrap things up soon. Thankfully, it does end happily for everyone (even the 'bad guy').

There's not much to alarm a reader, a little ecchi, but mostly damsel in distress type stuff. I would recommend this story if you are looking for light reading, nothing serious, with happy endings.

I did manage to finish this manga, which means it kept me reading, but I did find it frustrating and ended up disliking the title character a great deal.

The art is good, conveying a very good sense of space and doesn't detract from the story at all. You end up not noticing it, which is the best situation - because you can actually focus on the story.

And it's the story I had the most problem with. As the previous reviewer said, the title character is a total bitch. I kept wondering what on earth the MC saw in her because, throughout ... the story, she treats him like crap. She's moody, irrational, selfish, cruel, greedy and mean. She crushes his hopes and whenever any other, nicer girl starts looking his way, she sabotages him! I really wanted him to settle with the childhood friend who had a long term crush on him, but he screws that up because he's obsessed with the bitch. Maybe I don't understand the need to be run through the wringer by someone, but I kept thinking 'don't go back to her!' through the entire story.

Likewise, the MC is frustrating because he almost never stands up to her. There were like 6 instances in the story where she hauls off and belts him in the face! And each time, he thinks it's his fault! He never seems to find his spine, through the whole series, though they do finally start acting like a real couple near the end of the story. It's a blessed relief, but I just couldn't help still thinking he deserves a way better partner than her.

And really, that is my main complaint. The story couldn't make me really like the main characters and I wasn't able to empathize with either of them. One is a bitch and the other is a jellyfish. I'm glad they survived, but I doubt I would ever go back to reread this. If you like wishy-washy guys who stumble through life never standing up for themselves, here you go. But for me, I like men with a spine and a set on them. JMHO.

With so many vampire stories out there, you'd think it would be hard for another one to distinguish itself, but Shiki does that by going back to the roots of what being a vampire really means. It's not glamorous, it's not admirable; it's death.

Shiki struck me as being an honest to goodness horror anime. You felt like the whole town was going down and they were in denial about it. but then you realize that real people probably would act the same way, dismissing seeming 'vampire deaths' as something else because, vampires aren't real. How ridiculous! They really get ... down to the wire, killing off so many characters you wonder who is left to fight back, but they do and the ending is as tragic and cathartic as the rest of it.

I wasn't crazy about the artwork, but it works for the series. In fact, were the animation any more realistic and its creep factor might be too much for me to handle. The opening and closing musical pieces are creepy and hard to forget - a lot like the series itself.

I liked this series, though I seriously doubt I'll ever watch it again. It shreds you as you watch it, but you can't look away and at the end you feel emotionally drained and wrung out, like you've just run a marathon. If you like deep angst that is almost too credible to be entertainment, then Shiki is for you.

Now that the English dubbed version of this anime is soon to come out, I should probably write a review of it. That said, this review is of the _subtitled version_ of this anime.

I hope anyone reading this will at least try this anime - it's a delight and one of the few shows that I watch over and over again. There is no single part of it that I don't treasure - and not a single character I don't like. It's wonderful!

The story is probably the part I like the most. It's got a credible and sympathetic female lead that ... finds herself without a home or income. She's quite ordinary except for her incredible fearlessness and her ability to remain positive despite a very difficult childhood. The tale of how she meets and falls in love with the male lead; a brusque, snarky fox yokai that works as a 'familiar' for the local land god, is precious.

You can read the summary of the story for yourself, but it can't express the charm and chemistry of the two main characters' relationship. Tomoe is most decidedly 'fox-like' in his aloofness and snark, but Nanami's bright personality gets to him anyway. Nanami, who, it seems, has never been able to rely on anyone, falls for Tomoe's strength and incongruous-seeming concern for her despite his repeated assertion that yokai and humans can't fall in love with one another.

The main characters grow and mature even over the short span of 13 episodes and you end up cheering for them. Side characters are charming, well crafted and add to the story perfectly. The anime is beautifully drawn with the perfect style to suit the story, a lovely pallet that's just a little misty at the edges - not too artsy, ethereal or saccharine but sweet and grounded. The musical score is bright and charming and suits the story too; nothing that memorable - it just blends into the mood overall - which is probably the best thing it could do!

I like the pacing - it doesn't have any slow spots, keeps the viewer engaged and following the story without having too many redundancies or making assumptions that the viewer will understand something that a foreign viewer might not. I really appreciate that! It translates very well to an American audience, or at least everyone I've ever shown it to has felt so, and I am so pleased to see it coming out dubbed.

After all these positives, I tried to think of some negatives, but nothing immediately comes to mind. It’s too short – IMHO – and there’s lots more interesting stuff past the thirteen episodes and one OVA in the manga if they ever wanted to do a season 2, but that’s really all the criticism I could think of for this program. It’s lovely and one of my few ‘MUST SEE’ animes.

Why is it that good anime seem to only get 12 episodes and then they are done and yet mediocre stuff like 'Angel Heart' drag on through 50?

You can read the synopsis of the story to find out what it's about so I won't repeat that here, but the show had some good and some bad points.

Good points: I like the main male character, the 'City Hunter' very much. Like the old series, he's interesting and fun, but this series focuses more on the young assassin girl who's gotten City Hunter's wife's heart. The story's art is consistent and solid - good backgrounds ... and no sloppy drawings. It works very well for this somewhat dated story. The show also has lots of potential and a somewhat interesting pre-romance that unfortunately never goes anywhere (also very typical - ugh!)- just like most of the series' other story arcs.

Bad points: The story has about 40 different 'arcs' and never really completes any one of them to satisfaction. It really feels like 10 separate stories that kind of loosely tie together but there's a lack of consistency or focus to the series as a whole. You have one arc about the girl's implanted heart giving her memories of the woman it came from's life - highly implausible, but if they'd worked on that arc for a while, I'd have bought it. There was also the one about the girl's real father - that one was mentioned and left hanging. The one about the childhood friend / fellow assassin that was completed pretty well, but the romance that they hint at never develops past 'yeah, I kind of like you but don't come any closer or I'll kill you'. You get the distinct impression that that poor boy (whom I grew to like) is really NEVER going to get any... I ended up feeling really sorry for him!

Really, the bad points of this story are almost entirely story and character based. I really wish the people that make anime would spend the time and talent that they obviously did illustrating, animating and producing this one on a story that more deserved it. This one came off as wholly mediocre.

Since this manga has only a couple of reviews, let me add one more '9' to the list.

This manga has a somewhat predictable but solid storyline set in the Warring States era of China (240 BC or there abouts). It may be a typical story line, but it's done very well and in my opinion, the reason certain storylines get told so often is because they are interesting to people! You can read the summary to see what this manga is about, so I won't bore you by repeating it, but I did want to touch on the high points.

Story: Well paced, easy ... to follow and the characters have credible reactions to the situations they are presented with. What happens to the main character is improbable, but through the skillful storytelling, you can easily believe he gets to the place he ends up. I'm not usually into this sort of battle manga, but the story is intricate enough and credible enough to keep my interest.

Art: The art is acceptable - nothing fantastic or horrible - it satisfies the requirements of the story telling, though I wouldn't be able to single it out for being notable in any way except that it is superior to the atrocious art of the anime. *shudder*

Character: As I indicated above, the characters are very credible and their actions are believable. As with lots of other shonen stories, you don't see a lot of introspection from them, especially the very simplistic protagonist, but you get enough to remain interested in the story and engaged in the characters. I don't feel a whole lot of emotional connection to the characters, but what I do feel is consistent and solid. No weird OOC stuff to distract from the story.

Enjoyment: I managed to get through 292 chapters of a shonen manga when I don't usually like the genre. It kept my interest and while I wasn't dying to get back to it, I did read it through because the story was good.

Overall: I've read lots worse 'poor boy makes good' stories in my time but this is one of the solidest and most credible. I sort of wish the author had had a more talented artist to showcase the story, but I think for the audience it is aimed at, it is adequate. A definite 'should read' if you like solid story telling, lots of battles, camaraderie among warriors and period settings. There's no magic (though Xin's fighting skills are a bit incredible), but it is a very good tale worth reading.

Also should note that I have tried watching the anime for this but haven't finished it yet. While the artwork for this manga is nothing spectacular, the anime's art is horrible; cheap looking CGI with some hand drawn parts that make the CG stuff stand out (badly!) even more. If that kind of thing bugs you, stick with the manga - you won't get anything more from the anime than you already get from this manga.

After reading this manga and enjoying it quite a lot, this anime was a disappointment for two main reasons.

The first, and probably most jarring, is the unfortunate overuse of computer generated graphics. Contrary to the animation team's apparent belief, computer generated graphics do NOT look good. Their movement and expression, despite many years of video game advancement, STILL look stilted and odd when used on main characters and in closeups. If the animators had only kept the computer generated stuff to backgrounds, armies and wide shots, it would not have been a problem but half the time, the main characters ... are computer generated and half the time (for the main character, probably less than half the time) they are hand drawn. This makes the difference in quality GLARING - with the overwhelmingly better quality of the hand drawn stuff making it hard to tolerate the computer images.

I imagine computer generated is cheaper, but in the case of this anime, it cheapens the look almost to the point where I don't want to even watch it. I thought I'd get used to it after 18 episodes, but if anything, I find myself pointing out when the main character is hand drawn and when he's computer and it is really distracting.

There's nothing that can be done about the animation, but I feel as if I'd actually rather just keep reading the manga if the animation is going to continue this way.

The second thing that has been irritating me has to do with the subs - after reading the manga, I know what the characters names are and they are written correctly (for the most part) in the English versions of the books. HOWEVER - in the anime, though you can hear the Japanese voices saying the names as they are presented in the manga, the English subtitles are presenting completely different names! If you have listed to subbed anime for as long as I have, you can pick out lots of words and I know when they are saying someone's name and they have a completely different set of names in the English subs!

Maybe they have done more research than I did and have corrected names, but it's really disconcerting when you can hear the Japanese saying the old names and they don't match what's written AT ALL. I think for the sake of continuity, they should have just translated what the Japanese actors had said regardless of what names they wanted to give the characters.

If inconsistent animation bugs you as much as it bugs me, I'd suggest passing on this one. It's followed the manga very faithfully so far, so you might want to try reading that instead. It's very well written and the animation hasn't offered anything above what the manga has so far. In other words, you won't be missing anything if you read the manga instead.

I get very tired of CLAMP.

All of their offerings feel the same; insipid, juvenile and tedious. Perfect fare for a toddler, but rather boring for an adult and as I've gotten older, I find myself disliking their works more and more. xxxHolic has a little bit more of an interesting feel, but the male characters don't act like men and the enigmatic female makes me want to slap her.

Like other Clamp offerings, you never really learn what is going on in the story - you never really learn who the characters really are and why they are doing what they ... are doing. For a while, that sort of story telling seems like the author is being mysterious, but by the end of the series, I was convinced they wrote like that way because THEY didn't know what was going on in their story either.

Perhaps the story is quirky and odd enough someone would like it, but I didn't much like the stretched out art, the strange relationship with the wishy washy lead and his terse companion whom he seems to hate but who keeps saving him. The relationships all seem hard to believe, stilted and strained - as if the authors don't have much experience with relationships in real life and so don't know how to write or draw them. Of all the Clamp offerings I've suffered through this was possibly the least painful, but in retrospect, it's just so not worth wasting time reading or watching.

Probably one of the most underrated manhwa I've yet found, but there is a very good reason it's been running for over 430 chapters in Korea! It's AWESOME!

This manhwa has great battles, martial arts, comedy, sexual innuendo, angst, romance, blood and gore, a lead character who grows and matures over the life of the story and LOTS of chapters that are finally getting translated into English!

Han Bi Kwang is an engaging, brash but very lovable scoundrel who'd rather run from a fight than engage in it. His head is easily turned by a pretty face but because he has no finesse when it ... comes to women, he's never been with one himself. When the story opens, he has become the disciple of a famous master of martial arts because that master sees great potential in him, but Bi Kwang refuses to spend any time learning how to fight - he picks things up almost perfectly by watching so he doesn't see the need.

Through the story, he meets a beautiful and skilled swordswoman Dahm Hwa-Rin, who is the pupil of his master's arch enemy. She dresses as a man to protect her identity and even fools Bi Kwang for a while (not hard to do). The banter between the two leads is a large part of the story's charm - as Bi Kwang's wandering eyes (and hands) make Hwa-Rin want to kill him as often as she worries he's going to get himself killed! The two leads seem to be the last ones who realize how deeply they are falling in love with one another.

The main overarching narrative has Bi Kwang travelling deep into the enemy's territory looking for Hwa-Rin's grandfather, the great swordsman who, along with Bi Kwang's master, is one of the finest swordsmen of the age. Several smaller archs along the way have him making friends and running from enemies in the mythological world somewhat reminiscent of medieval Korea. The cast of this manhwa is huge and you might find yourself forgetting who one of the characters is, but there is excellent continuity of story and a nice, believable progression in the main characters' maturity and romance. The battles are well drawn and exciting too and I'm not one who usually enjoys endless battles in a story.

I was surprised by how much I liked this manhwa - it's unlike anything else on my favorites list - but I found myself reading through this one to the exclusion of just about everything else. It's addictive if you give it half a shot. The art looks a little dated at first, but understand this manhwa began in 1995 and is apparently still being produced. The first three volumes were translated and published here in the US, but I've not been able to find more than that. There are 51 volumes available in some other countries and, at long last, a generous and wonderful fan is translating the manhwa into English. I don't know if anyone will ever put the rest of this story into English officially, but if you are looking for something good that even the person who's read 'EVERYTHING' hasn't seen before, this may be it.