Book Review- Rosario and Vampire vol 1 by Akihisa Ikeda

Title: Rosario and Vampire vol 1

 Author:  Akihisa Ikeda

Series:  Rosario and Vampire #1

Published: 3 June 2008 by Viz Media (under Shonen Jump advanced)

Length:192 pages

Warnings: suggestive situations, fanservice in the form of school uniforms and short skirts, violence, vampires, werewolves, monsters,

Other info: There are ten volumes in this series. The series has now finished. There is also Rosario and Vampire Season II, a continuation which currently stands at 4 volumes.

Summary : PJV’s Vampire Challenge #7
All round average student Tsukune can't get accepted to any high school save one... But on his first day, he finds the rest of the student body doesn't appear to be average in the least. Best of all, the cutest girl on campus can't wait to fling her arms around his neck! Wait a sec, are those her TEETH around his neck too? Tsukune's going to have one heck of a hickey when he gets home from Monster High. But does he have a chance in H-E-double hockey sticks  of pairing his grades when the turf war isn't between the jocks and the nerds but between the vampires and the werewolves?

Review : Tsukune Aono enrols at the only school that will take him. Which he doesn't particularly like, considering the only  way of accessing the school is through a long tunnel, and the bus driver tells him he might not see anything other than the school ever again. But things start to look up when he comes across a really cute girl who seems to fall in love with him. The bad side: she's a vampire who immediately snacks on his neck. And the rest of the students and staff are also monsters of various kinds.Everyone seems to want to get hold of Tsukune for some reason, because he's with a hot girl, because they're in love with him, or they just want to dial a fight with him. But never mind-when the Rosario around Moka's (the vampire) neck is pulled off, she  transforms, into her powerful form, whose kicks are able to knock the wind out of almost everyone. Which is a good thing for Tsukune, the only human with a zero tolerance policy on them-one that involves killing them.

The whole school for monsters idea is done quite a bit, but I don't think I've found a school with such a varied amount of monsters in it. You get the normal, vampires, werewolves etc, but you also get things like mermaids, succubi and lizardy things that don't have a name, as well as traditional Japanese monsters, yokai. The plot can get a little bit repetitive:its the first volume so it's all intros, and it wouldn't really move very much,  but each chapter is just:a little context, monster goes after Tsukune and Moka, Tsukune pulls off Moka's Rosario, Moka transforms, shouts "Learn your place", defeats enemy. While the backing behind each chapter is varied and interesting, it does get a bit boring, as each chapter doesn't seem to lead upto a climax. However this is only the first volume, so it should build up a bit more as the series goes on.

The romance in it is very funny. It's not the human falls hard and fast for the vampire, instead the human got into an incredibaly awkward situation which led to the vampire falling in love, and things go on from there. There's even the beginning of a love triangle, with Kurumu the Succubus falling for Tsukune. ((side note:even more girls start falling in love with Tsukune, ending up with a harem))

The art is well done. It's easy to distinguish the characters, even without colour. However, without colour it's hard get an idea of details such as hair colours.

The comedy at times can be a little adult, stemming from the extremely awkward situations that Tsukune gets himself into. However it is very funny and there is other flavours of humour and a few slightly more serious undertones. The pointless omake theatre, bonus panels at the end, are very funny, particularly the one involving Gin, the perverted werewolf.

It's an interesting take on vampires in that their power can be kept in check by  holy items, and that they transform when said holy item is removed.

Overall:  Strength 3 tea to a book that is a fun cute read with plenty of action included.

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | Publisher website | 

Book Review- The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

Title: The Monstrumologist-The Terror Beneath

Author: Rick Yancey

Series: The Monstrumologist #1

Published: September 22 2009 by Simon & Schuster

Length: 448 pages

Warnings:gore, monsters, references to prostitutes, very gory deaths.

Other info: There’s two more books in the series- Curse of the Wendigo and The Isle of Blood.

Summary : To most people in his Victorian-era town, Dr. Warthrop is an odd recluse who roams cemeteries and frequently visits lunatic asylums. But Dr. Warthrop's 12-year-old apprentice Will knows the truth. The doctor is a monstrumologist-someone who tracks and studies real-life monsters.

Late one night, a grave robber brings Dr. Warthrop and Will a hideous creature without its head. The wretched animal is an Anthropophagus, a terrifying beast that devours human flesh. And where there's one, there are sure to be others. Soon Dr. Warthrop and Will are on a thrilling quest to destroy an entire pod of Anthropophagi before every human in the community becomes food.

Review: We open with a prologue in the present day explaining that the following is a diary and the only adjustments that have been made are those that make the story easier to understand. Fair enough. But isnt that what most historical first person novels are? Leaving the prologue, onto the story.

Will Henry is an orphan who now works for Doctor Pellinore Warthrop, the titlular Monstrumologist. And Warthrop has Will Henry doing quite a lot of fetching and various errands etc. And quite soon, as promised by the blurb, a graverobber comes along with two bodies, one of a monster which is vaguely humanoid minus a head,  and one which is a pretty young woman which has been half eaten. And so they dissect the monster and so on, and come to the conclusion that there are many more monsters living in an American graveyard, outside their normal habitat, and that they plan to eat the population of the town and go from there.

In order to stop this Will Henry and Warthrop go various places such as a lunatic asylum and the scene of a slaughter of a family carried out by these monsters. And finally them and some people they pick up along the way plan to venture into the monsters' lair and attempt to kill the monsters. Fun times.

The first strong opinion of this book (and last) I had with this book is the prologue and epilogue are pointless. Both are present day and seem to add very little to the  story, the rest of which is set in Victorian-era America(where exactly in America I'm not sure).

Then theres the story. It starts off quite fast paced,  with the graverobber bringing in the bodies and Dr. Warthrop examining it quite soon. And then it all seems to slow down, with each part of the story taking too long to get through.

The characters can be split into two groups: one with characters like Will Henry and Warthrop and Malachi and most that appear in the first third of the book that I remember and have distinctive personalities, and the rest that all seemed to merge into one character as it was impossible to tell them apart.

The imagery was good for things like the setting and of the monsters and of the atmosphere.

The prose was too long winded and annoying. And what was wrong with saying woeful instead of saying acheronistic (or something like that-i've forgotten exactly what it said), or saying his soul instead of his psyche? If I'm reading something written in the 21st Century, I don't particularly want to come across words that come out of some book of Greek Myths (Acheron is the River of Woe and Psyche is a goddess of souls and soul mates).

The layout was slightly annoying. Every now and again there would be a picture behind the text of bloody scissors or other tools. And while it broke up the monotony of a lot of text, to have these little drawings randomly appear is annoying and just makes you wonder what the point of it is.

Overall:  Strength 2 tea to this book which had a good concept but got boring

Links:  Amazon | Goodreads | Author Website