Back to Cajux's Profile Cajux's Profile

The fact that I'm starting to love even more survival horror stories made me read Bloody Maiden.

Twelve girls of a Naginata Club and their adult adviser went to a training camp on an island belonging to the club president's family. Long ago it was a hideout for a famous and extremely violent group of bandits, meaning that their goods were still on the island. However, when the girls are going to sleep their first night before training, the adviser and some few members start to disappear and get brutally murdered by a masked man. It is up to the remaining girls to survive...

The story is ... quite simple and straightforward and what I mean by that is that the mystery being the killing is not complex at all and easily understandable, even though for me, the "answer" was a little bit weird and creepy... And we got the typical survival progress where little by little, girls of the club end up dying and some do anything to (try) to survive.

When it comes to art, well, I was expecting some ecchi right before reading, because it is a manga about a group of girls, so naturally, you will see some ecchi scenes between the girls but they are not big deal at all, but it makes somehow sense because we are talking about girls, and even in real life, some of them like to compare or show their physical attributes, am I wrong? Sometimes some of their body parts are somehow a little "hidden" and sometimes they are not at all, what was the writer thinking? (xD) You can also see the girls naked when they get murdered (what a pervert killer!!! xD) and the bloody moments are fair enough, as I was expecting from a survival horror story. The girls themselves are not badly drawn even though sometimes I had some difficulties in distinguishing some of them in certain moments...

Since we are talking about a 11-chapter story and having so much characters, it is natural that some of characters are not interesting at all or don't have a unique thing in their personality, mainly because they end up dying early or they don't appear very much. However, you can see some few traits and personalities within the most important ones, which are fair enough.

I somehow got myself enjoyed because I always want to know who's the next one to die, who's going to survive and the mystery behind the murders in any survival horror story. It is mostly enjoyable you love this kind of stories or else it won't be that much for you...

Finally, my final words... Bloody Maiden is not terrible but is not that good, still somehow a little enjoyable. Read this if you are fond of survival horror stories or if you are looking for something fast to read.

First Manga I ever read, and now I'm starting to read manga, because Deadman Wonderland's anime was very incomplete, even though I loved the concept, and so I had the read the manga to get the answers I needed. And you should do the same.

So, a unique prison in Japan called Deadman Wonderland was built after an incident which involved an Earthquake. In this establishment, prisoners are in death row, getting slowly poisoned for 3 days and end up dying. However they can participate in circus like and entertaining events to an ignorant public from the outside world, thinking they are just "pretending" deaths. Igarashi ... Ganta, accused from mass murder of his classmates ends up there and meets Shiro and other characters that may help him on getting stronger, escape from the prison, claim his innocence, get revenge from the "Red Man" (the one who killed his classmates) and later with a group of characters, revealing to the public what is really going on. Some of the prisoners have special powers called "Branches of Sin". Those who have these powers are called Deadman.

The story is quite good, I really enjoyed the slow process trough chapters and explaining what could happen inside DW. When I ended up discovering more and more and unraveling more mysteries, the story gets even more interesting and I ended up reading a lot until I got to the final chapter. When a story sometimes "gets you" by surprise and ends up making your reaction being something like "Wooooooow!", then it probably is a good story.

I don't have deep arguments when it comes to manga art, since this is the first manga I have seriously read, but I quite like it, and in my opinion, it is well done, I easily understood what was going on in action scenes. I also loved the circus-like design from the prison, the bloody moments and the characters which are well made, speaking of which, Crow makes me remember of Bleach's Zaraki (xD).

Anyhow, about the characters, Shiro ends up to be more interesting than Ganta, in my opinion, because Ganta is that typical protagonist guy who wants to get stronger for a reason, and in reality, he is a weak guy. He ends up just getting very lucky for his "Branch of Sin" having something different, that's all, because he has no battle experience. It's somehow understandable that he tries to save and protect everyone (typical atitude of a protagonist too) and sometimes he ends up making decisions that brings bad consequences, but sometimes it gets a little tiring. Shiro ends up being more interesting because, despite of the sweet girl personality, quite early in the manga, you quickly understand she has "another mask", and finding out what's going on with her is just amazing. As the other characters, they are quite unique within the manga, and you end up learning about their pasts and the reason they ended up in jail and the way they somehow deal with their past thoughts. Gotta love each one's personality and traits. As I went further into the story, their importance gets even higher and I ended up loving them even more.

To sum it up, if you are one of those DW fans who got frustrated with the anime version, then read this manga, it is way better. If you are one those guys who love action, blood and also some mystery, read it too. The anime is asking for a 2nd season but since the answer is right here, at the manga chapters, I don't consider it necessary anymore. As you can see, most people made positive reviews about this manga, so it's probably worth it for you.

When I started watching this anime, I wanted to hear the voices in japanese, thing that I never managed to, because I therefore learned that this anime was an American answer to Japan.... And I'll tell you what, they were very successful, one of the best dubbed anime I ever heard.

They managed to fit everything like the art... I mean look at the details of the characters' drawings, their particular portraits, the dark "aura" they managed to bring from this dark world and look at cool gore scenes! A nice fitting music, enjoyable action moments and all in 5 episodes. What about Samuel Jackson's voice ... coming from Ninja's mouth? It is just... Awesome!!

So basically, the story goes around a futuristic feudal Japan where there are two headbands: Headband no.1 and Headband no.2. The fighter who holds the No.1 is considered god-like, the best of the best and can only be challenged by the one who holds the No.2 one. However, everyone, but literally everyone, can challenge the No.2 holder for the headband, meaning lots of trouble for that guy. Afro's father was the No.1 holder and died against a character named "Justice". Seeking revenge, Afro got the No.2 headband and is now heading to where "Justice" is waiting for him.

He goes on as some people try to stop and kill him to get the No.2 title and at the same time we learn about Afro's past as he was training to be a great samurai. The fighting scenes are very enjoyable and the story is very simple but it is the typical good samurai revenge story. However, the characters are not that much deeply explored and explained, unlike Afro, but I personally think that it's not necessary in this case.

A nice 5-episode anime to watch in a row. Everything it needs to be an awesome samurai-way entertainment. And the final scene... It just gave me chills! :P

"It's nothing personal... It's just revenge" ~ Afro