Blood Sucker: Legend of Zipangu, Volume 4

夜刀の神つかい [Yato no Kami Tsukai] #4

by Saki Okuse, Aki Shimizu (Illustrator)

The dark bloody past of Magoraka is finally revealed... The clash between the Church of Magoraka and sinister "K" organization has left the world in ruins. Hikage and his sister Hiiragi were once "normal" human beings. Now, only one of them has survived, and Yusuke is still searching for answers in a world filled with blood-thirsty vampires...

Genres: Manga, Horror

192 pages, Paperback

First published June 24, 2002

Reviews

[Leila Anani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even the story so far and cast list had me confused - there are so many characters with similar sounding names and the jumping back and forward in time doesn't help matters. In the end I had to ignore the greater story (of the series as a whole) and just focus on the events revealed in this volume. What's here is actually not bad. The first 'scene' deals with Kikuri's origins - an athropologist who finds a country shrine that worships a mummified vampire. He kidnaps the shrine maiden (Kikuri) feeds her blood to the vampire awakening him. Next we jump forward into Yusuke flashback (he's the hitman hero having an affair with the adult Kikuri) - We follow him trying to rescue her and coming face to face with random vampire Hazuki at one point they end up underground and find a shrine with the head of the main vampire Migiri. The last scene reunites Yusuke with his best friend Hikage (now a vampire) - Hikage reveals that he's always been in love with his friend, but their love's impossible because now he's a vampire and Yusuke is now in love with Kikuri. He suggests they team up one last time to rescue the girl and kill bad guys.

Individual scenes are pretty good and there's some nice vampire artwork - the vampire that attacks young Kikuri and the snake vampire woman before the shrine look great. Had terrible difficulty following who was who and keeping the story and timeline straight though.