Yes, I did just post one. Yes, I really should be sleeping, otherwise Ill miss shakespare lecture tuesday for the......6th week running. Oh well....

Im reviewing one of my favourite series and for all of you that judge thusly, its manga. Run away now.

Namely, the manga series Rebirth. Actually, its Manwha, being korean, but still good.

Plenty of those amusing manga moments with facefaults and out-of-proportion mouth extensions.

Basically, the story starts of with a bunch of morons (professors of paranormality...yeah, they die, we can skip them) the daughter of one of them, and the exorcist hired to help them. It starts in a place in Europe which is nothing like eastern high carpathian dracula land. Really.

Monsters attack. Humans die horribly. One monster slain by exorcist (who is laughably weak) blah blah blah, vampire emerges from monsters remains. here is Deshwitat! Call him Desh.

after a few wellplaced manlove moments, Deshwitat saves the two girls. To do this, he has to suck the blood of the father of the aforementioned daughter, turning him into a soon-to-bezombie vampire. To avoid this, he burns him and turns him into The Dust Of Death. Yes, its corny, and so very TP, but it sounds better in Korean, I hope.

So, to explain - Deshwitat and his love, Lilith (bible abuse abounds btw) were killed by his once friend, Kalutika, who has recently become a god.

He now wishes to destroy the world. Hey, why not. Theres a big arc in volumes 5-12 which goes back in time to explain all the subtleties.....Enjoy the bits where it seems one of the male characters is wearing drag queen makeup. Also a great joke using the word "Dandy".

This is a fun, violently dark story with a lot of action, sexy costumes and interesting, if a tad predictable, plot twists. Ill now list its bad points.

Occasionally, bits just dont make sense. Secondly, at times its oversimplified or repetitive (Think alex's goldfish comment earlier)
Thirdly...character wise, its a mess. Some of them are great as cliches. some are great as against type. And some...generic. Probably the worst is the one I swore was a chick for 2 books....that was bad.

On the positives - theres a few great descriptions of love in it. And no, not all violent...ok, yeah, mostly. Some are possessive, some are protective, some are just plain strange (the old lady is a bit creepy!). It is, technically, a love story (so far, may change) and a mix of religions show up. Theres some really interesting costumes in it (which the author mocks in the extras) and I actually like the female characters.

So no one thinks Im misogynistic, I will explain this.

A: I doubt any of you can match me in my anime and manga nerdiness. If one of you has endeavoured to do so, then I aplogi- well, youll agree with me.
B: Manga females, unless its shoujo or such, are often crap. Fillers. Useful, amusing, but as people? No. Not always, but often.

So, I usually hate them. Or at least, the creators for them. Here, I liked them. Millenear is a vampire writers dream! Or nightmare, depending. In fact, now that i write this, its eerily creepizoiding how similar they are to us...

Overall, its readable, enjoyable, and emotionally amusing. Nothing heavy, but fun. If anyone in Chch wants to, ask me for all the english volumes released.