Slightly Biased Manga

I saved this series up because I thought it might be a good horror series to leave for October.  Unfortunately it’s… not so good.

I can’t adequately describe what is wrong with it, exactly.  I want to say everything, but it’s not really as bad as that sounds.  The premise is sort of poorly explained, and not so much explained as it is just shown to you in the first chapter.  The main characters are part of a supernatural investigation unit that seem to specialize in exterminating “freaks.”  What exactly freaks are is left up to interpretation as you read the series, but we are told they are a type of monster, which is helpful.  Apparently the members of the unit are “stands.”  Stands are not really explained either, and are once again left up for you to figure out, except the stands are a whole lot more confusing than the freaks.  One would also expect Star Platinum to number among them, but alas, this series isn’t nearly that cool.

As you watch the exterminations, you see that the freaks are… malevolent… things that possess humans, and the stands draw them out with their… eye.  After they are drawn from the human, apparently they have a physical body that can be eaten by the cute little girl who sort of doubles as a rabbit mascot.  This is the gist of it, except in the first story it’s implied that there are different types of freaks, which is true, because I still don’t know what was up with the freak in the second story.  For the most part, they seem to be either lingering emotion or ghosts, I don’t know.  The stands, as far as their power and origin goes… what the hell.  Let me tell you, with no explanation, the main character pulls up his shirt, and he’s got an eye for a stomach, and this seems to stop them every time.  One time, the main character turned into an Alucard-type monster, I think, but I’m not sure that this actually happened.  There’s also the little girl, who was a rabbit one time, but seems to have limited vocabulary and just eats the leftovers after the exterminations.  NO EXPLANATION IS GIVEN.  I can’t stress this enough.  I can understand leaving an element of mystery to reveal later in the series, but the nature of their powers and what the hell it is that they’re doing should not be something I have to speculate on.

Also, there is a female member of the team.  There may be two female members.  It is possible these two females share the same body.  This may have something to do with the fact I’m not sure if the meek girl summoned the strong girl or the head stand through her body during a fight.

Also, the characters don’t really get proper introductions, and as a result I don’t know any of their names, and had to constantly refer back to older stories when they started talking about one another, trying to see where they refer to each other by name to try and pin it down.

I wept tears of blood.  Not really.  I mean, it’s not AS confusing as I make it seem, because it’s a pretty formulaic good-guys-bust-bad-guys in every chapter, so it’s not like you can’t figure out what’s going on.  I… like the idea of the eye that kills monsters, but I just want to know why it does this, or what is supposed to be going on when it does this.  I will read the other two volumes in the series because I already have them, but this… this is not good.