Reviews

Hotel Voynich is a story about the titular hotel, the island it's located on and its inhabitants. The story follows a bunch of different characters, ranging from a trio of female drug dealers, competing assassins, a suicidal chef and the hotel manager who supposedly bested Chuck Norris in combat. The main focus rests on a Japanese guy named Taizou though, a man with a past. As you may have noticed, the cast is pretty colorful, and combined with the varying points of view it conveys the basic set-up for a slice-of-life. At least I thought it was a slice-of-life at first, albeit a quirky one. It's not though, and that's the most wonderful thing with this manga.
It actually has a plot.
In the start stuff doesn't make that much sense. Though as you progress through the chapters, getting bits of information from the different narratives, you start to get the general idea of the history of the island, what's going on and the back story of the different characters. A lot of things are only implied (rather heavily though), leaving you to piece together the last bits yourself. The ending leaves you with a lot of loose ends, which makes me kind of sad since I possibly have to wait four years for the next volume (the chapters of the first volume were serialized between 2006-2010). Also, there's some comedy mixed into the story as well. It doesn't try being funny all the time, but when it wants to be it is fucking hilarious.
In conclusion: if you can read Japanese, read this.