This is one of those few and peculiar stories where the main character is in fact an anti-hero. Alucard is the Hellsing organizations pet vampire. An organization whos sole mission is to deal with other vampires, monsters and 'freaks'. Think they are kind of hypocritical for having a vampire to kill other vampires? The catholic church thinks so too and has a few things to 'say' to Alucard and Hellsing.

Volume one introduces us to Serras Victora, a blonde, large breasted somewhat ditzy police officer who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Alucard ends up granting her eternal life and she joins the Hellsing organization. A side story of the novel is Serras coming to terms with her vampirism, despite her appearance, she isn't over-feminized and remains her own character, unlike a lot of girl characters in manga. There is no fan-service, the story is too dark and serious for that.

The manga contains a good mix of seriousness and comedy, Serras usually providing the later, Alucard is a somewhat serious main character, but it's clear from the beginning that his state of mind is inhuman, as it should be. Alucard is quite insane, as you can imagine someone would be if they never died. He's just looking for some fun, a good fight and a lot of carnage along the way. He's not to be confused with 'A good vampire', he isn't there to save humans, he's there to get rid of the lowly 'scum' giving vampires a bad name.

The art starts off not being exactly great, but it has it's own style and the mangaka seems to quickly get better at it, by the end of the book it's all drawn quite well. Some of the full page cells look amazing. It's a very 'dark' book as you can imagine, it's refreshing to see London as a location as well, rather than Japan again.

Hellsing is one of the best vampire stories ever, it's dark, has alot of action, a crazy anti-hero and an insane anti-villain. The first volume was great and I recommend any male or female of around 15+ to read it.

Hikari is a girl with a curse. To always lose to her male rival Kei, in both sport and school. It's not just a recent thing though, it's a mission shes been on for over half her life, since she lost to him in a wrestling match when they were six.

Kei and Hikari are part of the elite class of their school known as Special A, made up of the top seven students. Each student has relatively rich or powerful parents, except for Hikari, and all have oddball traits and personalities. Amongst others, there's a guy who randomly wanders off from time to time, an overly controlling angry girl and a mute who writes what she wants to say on a sketchbook.

Hikari is determined to beat Kei and never gives up. Unfortunately for her, things never seem to go her way. If she gets 100 on an exam, Kei manages to find a fault in the test and receive 105. Even in team based games like basketball, Hikari's team will always lose to Kei's. She just keeps on losing, but she never stops trying. It's also plainly obvious that Kei has a huge thing for Hikari, obvious to anyone else that is. Hikari doesn't see Kei as anything more than an ignorant, pompous, jerk who she must beat at all costs, but luckily, Kei doesn't give up and keep's striving for Hikari's affection, although, he still never lets her win at anything.

Special A features a slightly girly style of art. Although, it's not over the top like some manga are and can still be read rather comfortably by the opposite gender. Although the general quality of art is rather high, sometimes the pages feel a little busy and it's hard to keep up with the dialogue. Hikari isn't the average heroine of Shojo manga either, she's not a pushover and stands up for herself when she needs to, including beating the hell out of some fellow male students giving her trouble. Violence is minimal and there is seemingly no smut, which makes it easily fall into the all ages category.

Special A is a nice, clean, funny, high school romance story with a twist that will appeal to both a female and male audience.

Everything works on one principle, equivalent exchange, including the science of alchemy. When young boys Edward and Al Elreic lose their mother to an incurable disease, they attempt a forbidden human transmutation to bring her back to life.

They believed themselves to be prepared with all the elements of the human body on hand to exchange for their mother. They were wrong. Edward loses one of his legs and Al loses his entire body, in a final bid to save his brother, Edward trades one of his own arms to transmute his brothers soul into one of the armoured suits in the room. The two are left a sorry mess. One a young boys soul in a huge empty suit of armour and the other with two artificial limbs known as auto-mail, usually a sign reserved for war veterans.

With no hope of ever restoring their mother, Ed and Al set to putting things right, restoring their bodies. But for that they will need the legendary alchemist stone. Unfortunately for them, it's not just legendary, it's also more of a rumour, but this doesn't dissuade the boys, who set out on an epic journey chasing any leads they they can find. A lot of mysterious forces and obstacles stand in the way, a corrupt military, several homunculus and a man obsessed with wiping any signs of alchemy off the face of the earth. Even in the end, it's price may not be something the boys are willing to pay.

The art of full metal alchemist is of a standard anime style. The world is some sort of modern alternative dimension, different enough to be interesting, close enough to not need to explain what general objects are or do. The comic contains a lot of sarcastic humor to compliment the plot and will no doubt appeal to a broad audience. A caution though, Full Metal Alchemist does have some strong themes and scenes concerning parts of the story when human transmutation is involved, for example the very first page has a very vivid image of Edward dragging his bloody stump of a leg across the ground.

Full Metal Alchemist is an interesting and inspiring story of two brothers trying to right their own wrongs, along the way overcoming some huge metal and physical obstacles. Even though it is in a sense, fantasy, it touches on some very realistic issues that are in the world today, like religion, racism, war and the morality of science in general. Full Metal Alchemist is without a doubt one of the greatest and most unique stories ever written.

Imagine zooming along the city skyline, jumping off roofs and grinding along power lines at exhilarating speeds before bursting out into the clear blue open sky. All you need is a pair of air treks, motorized two wheeled roller blades. Welcome to the world of Air Gear.

The story focuses around Ikki, a 15 year old high school student, who is first introduced whilst piledriving someone in a brawl. Followed by a proclaimation about how great he is, some of the others present are not too impressed with his attitude and call in an air trek gang named The Skull Saders to deal with him. After being smashed to a pulp by said gang. Ikki slowly enters the world of air treks along with the help of his harem-like makeshift family, who have been a secretive pro air trek group all along without him knowing. It's not too long before Ikki gets a hang of things and gets some revenge, but now obsessed with the sensation of flight it seems that it's only the beginning for him in the sport of air treks.

Air Gear is a fast paced manga, with every page containing either humorous antics or stylish action. Ikki delivers most of the comedy himself, but he's just silly enough that he still remains a strong, cool, likable character without becoming annoying. Air Gear has a harem like side to it, with a whole collection of girls hanging around him, like a lot of manga, this leads to some pretty perverted opportunities for him, many of which, he takes. The female characters take a back seat to Ikki in relation to the storyline, but they're still very strong characters none the less. There's Ringo, his childhood friend, whom we are told is the successor to Sleeping Forest, the best air gear team in the world. Ringo seems to have some sort of crush on Ikki, but she's awfully shy about it, unlike the beautiful Simca, another air trek enthusiast who leads Ikki into all sorts of trouble seemingly purposefully.

The art breathes alot of life into the world, with characters drawn at insane energetic angles and the choice of fashion in the character designs above par. There are a lot of sexual themes, both comedic and just plain seedy, so it's probably best to keep this in a fifteen plus category.

Air Gear manages to take possibly the most fruity activity in the world, rollerblading, and turn it into something very straight, stylish and totally kick-ass. It's a great mix of action and comedy and can only leave you wanting for more.

There is a massive conspiracy going on, one huge company is calling the shots. Their sole purpose, to destroy your dignity, self esteem and turn you into a house-bound hikikomori (social recluse). Luckily one brave hikikomori has seen through their scheme and is fighting back, his name is Satou Tatsuhiro.

Satou is a 22 year old, unemployed, university drop out, who has been living holed up in his apartment for 4 years. He sleeps 16 hours a day, only ever leaves when he needs to buy smokes or food and lives off money funneled through to him from his parents. Satou hasn't given up, but any attempt to leave his apartment is foiled by the N.H.K. A real-life Japanese television channel and in his mind an evil corporation whose sole purpose is to stop him from re-entering normal society.

Satou's life is arguably changed for the better though when Misaki, a young girl with aspirations of curing him appears out of the blue. But it's not quite that simple, thanks to his perverted otaku neighbour and friend who ends up getting him into all sorts of morally questionable activities. Like downloading gigs of porn, hiding in bushes and taking photos of school girls and to top if off, attempting to make a hentai game.

It's not all fun and laughs though, with the characters all having to deal with their own traumatic emotional issues and hardships. Which perhaps reflect many of the social and mental issues associated with todays youth and modern society.

The art is that of the usual manga style. It communicates Satou's psych quite well, it can make him change from just an average guy, trying his best, to a crazy depraved molester in mere seconds. It's all in the angles, use of shadows and facial hair. Obviously with such questionable themes comes questionable imagery. Welcome To The N.H.K. is best kept to a mature audience. Also for anyone interested, the original book that the manga is based on is also available in english from Tokyopop and has a very different ending.

Welcome To The N.H.K. is perhaps one of the greatest black comedies ever written, it will make you laugh, cry and even gasp in horror at some of things Satou and crew get up to.

Dodge the lens of the camera as best you can, not because your having a bad hair day or just feeling a tiny bit shy, but because anything caught by Saiga's cameras instantly explodes.

Saiga is a famous war photojournalist, reduced to the everyday job of a bottom feeding paparazi, that is until things take a turn for the worst. Following a trail of corruption and murder Saiga uncovers a bizarre ceremony being held by an elusive underground society. When his cover is blown, it seems like the end, until the object of the ceremony, a so called goddess, gives him his one true desire. To destroy the things he takes photos of.

With camera in tow, Saiga takes the goddess hostage and to his surprise she's just a simple school girl named Kagura, unaware of what shes been doing. Both wanting to get away from the sinister underground society, they make a break for it. But it's not so simple when there are others with powers just as strong as Saiga's after them.

The art is of a very high quality, mirroring the style of Takeshi Obata (the artist of Death Note) nearly exactly. It works very well with such serious manga, theres not really many comedic moments, it's fast paced pumping action from beginning to end. It is also very violent and contains pornographic imagery, so obviously better kept to the older audience.

Speed Grapher is a very interesting title, with a cool protagonist, a violent fast paced plot and amazing art. Can't really ask for much more than that.

Mushishi is a collection of original Grimm style fairy tales that takes place in a pre-feudal Japan. Each chapter is presented in a very well constructed short story form, with only two similarities carrying through the series of different stories.

The first is a strange form of life referred to as Mushi. Life forms that don't really exist within our reality, but at the same time do. Those sensitive to the mushi are the only ones able to see them and thus a lot of people and children with this sensitivity are thought to be crazy. Mushi take a variety of different forms such as amoebas, single celled organisms, they can resemble human beings and some are even great creatures the size of mountains.

Mushi are not actually evil, they're not really sentient enough. Instead they're just like any animal or creature, doing what they can to get by. In doing so however they can cause dramatic, strange and often horrific incidents when they come into contact with human

The second connection between the stories is the protagonist Ginko, a one eyed, white haired mushishi. Basically a profession like a doctor, but for mushi related problems and conditions. Ginko is a mushi magnet, why isn't really clear, but it forces him to constantly travel the countryside, never stopping for too long. So he wanders from town to town, offering his services and helping victims of the mushi in every way he can.

Ginko is a somewhat mysterious character, he's very knowledgeable and seems to nearly always have some knowledge about what's going on. The most likable characteristic about him is just how far he goes to help those plagued by the troubles of the mushi, going to great lengths and putting his life on the line to help and save them. Future volumes will hopefully reveal more of Ginko's past and character.

These stories are obviously not aimed at younger children, having some quite strong horror themes, just like an original Grimm's fairy tail. A young teenager to an adult would appreciate the stories far more. 'A light behind the eyelid' is the story that won the manga award that is proudly displayed on the front of the cover. It's about a young girl who's eyes have been infected with mushi, and any sort of light, even with her eyes closed, causes her pain. How will Ginko be able to cure her? That's the other nice thing about this manga, the endings are never predictable, things rarely end with a "and they lived happily ever after".

Yuki has obviously mastered the art of short stories and Mushishi is an example of this art at it's pinnacle. A great read for anyone that enjoys a good story, not just manga lovers or teenagers.

Imagine if you suddenly grew a horn on your forehead. But it's not really a horn, it's the portal to the belly of a robot cat. Doesn't make a lot of sense to you? Well that's what FLCL is all about, making barely any sense, in the coolest way possible.

Naota is a young boy living in a small town, who spends his days hanging around with his older brothers clingy ex-girlfriend. That is until some crazy girl riding a scooter appears and smacks him in the forehead with a guitar.

When Naoto regains consciousness he returns home to find the crazy scooter girl and some weird robot with a tv for a head working as maids in his house. Naoto has barely anytime to take this all in before a giant robot hand emerges from the guitar wound on his forehead. Before any more of the hand makes it through the TV headed robot shows up, tears it off at the root and then systematically beats it into a pulp. As the story progresses more of the robot makes it through. Naoto and crew are forced to deal with them, albeit, not in the usual battle-manga type way.

Obviously a strange story needs a strange art style and Hajime Ueda offers just that. Unlike any other manga, the art is very rough, but in a stylish way. Featuring heavy sketching, odd angles and demented characters. Even if the story doesn't particularly speak to you, it's worth a read just for a look at the unique and amazing art. There's some violence and sexual themes, but it's kept to a minimum and would be enjoyable for the usual 13+ manga audience.

FLCL has a crazy story, crazy characters, crazy art, generally a crazy manga. You'll either love it or hate it, but if you hate it, one day a crazy girl on a scooter may come and smack you in the forehead with a guitar. You've been forewarned.

Eureka Seven is an original sci-fi story set in an alternative world, where strange coral formations bulge from the ground and invisible trapar waves that people can 'ride' with strange looking aerial-surfboards fill the air. Sky surfing looks like a ton of fun.

The plot of Eureka Seven is based around that of a thirteen year old mechanic apprentice named Renton and that of a mysterious young girl named Eureka who falls out of the sky (literally) quite early on in the story in an LFO (sky surfing giant robot ). Renton immediately falls head over heals for Eureka and ends up joining her resistance group called Gekko State. Only then to find out she has three kids... It's not really made clear what it is they're resisting or why the military is after them, but there's a lot of action, giant robot fights and laughs along the way.

Eureka Seven has a large cast of characters, the main character obviously being Renton a messy brown haired kid who doesn't know when to stop. Then there is Gekko State, which includes Holland, the swish dressing know-it-all captain. His girlfriend (?) Talho, the pilot of their ship. Eureka and her kids as well as a bunch of other minor characters who have their comical moments. Eureka seveN also characterizes a few antagonists, A young military officer and a strange long haired man who is foreshadowed at the end of the volume.

The art is great, everything is in proportion, the action sequences are well thought out and the character designs are all quite stylish. It's also nice that we get the colour introduction pages in the English copy, where as normally they tend to print them in black and white for us. Violence is kept to a minimum and most of the fighting is done by giant sky surfing robots. Even though the main character is 13, the story and themes are interesting enough that anyone of any age would be able to appreciate it.

Eureka Seven is a unique enjoyable story, full of action, comedy and interesting characterization. Even if your sceptical of giant sky surfing robots, I'd still suggest giving this a try.

Born with a disfigured arm and cursed by his foster father, Allen Walker is not your average protagonist. In his curse, however, lies his power. The ability to perceive akuma, dangerous unholy monsters that disguise themselves as the humans they kill, who work for the Millennium Earl and the Noah family, those forsaken by God.

Fortunately for Allen, his disfigured arm is also an anti-akuma weapon, which are called innocence. Hundreds of innocence are scattered about the world and at the right time and place can come to synchronize with certain people. These people are known as exorcists, part of the black order, a branch of the church dedicated to destroying the akumas and stopping the Millennium Earl from destroying the world.

The object of the game lies in the innocence. One out of the thousands contains "the heart" the only way to stop the Earl. On the other hand, the Earl knows that getting his hand on the heart will mean mankind has no hope. Some of the un-synchronized innocence cause strange phenomena, like giving dolls life, vampires or even make a day repeat itself over and over. Leaving it a race between the Earl's akumas and the exorcists to investigate any strange activity and acquire, or destroy the innocence.

Allen's team consists of Lenalee, a girl with innocence impowered boots, allowing her to fly and kick akuma's pretty damn hard, Kanda, a young Japanese man whose innocence lies in his samurai sword and Lavi, the older of the four, who wields a hammer that can extends and grow to any size. They fight against the akuma of various shapes and sizes, they also evolve and become much more dangerous, the Noah family, super strong human beings who are marked by stigmata on their forehead and last of all the Millenium Earl, a strange, plump, mysterious being with one purpose, to destroy the world.

The art is of a higher quality than the normal shonen battle manga, the style doesn't really stand out, but it's extremely consistant and sharp. Character designs are rather good as well, except for a few strange ones, for some reason the Earl looks like Penguin from batman. There's only really fantasy violence, the weapons used would never be mistaken for anything real and the akuma are machines, rather than creatures of fleash.

D.Gray-Man is a great fantasy battle manga with a fresh story and goth overtones. Whilst sometimes it does seem to drag out a little, like most battle manga do, it keeps the story vivid and interesting enough to read on.

In a fantasy world where your neighbor could be a flesh eating monster in disguise, mankinds only hope of survival lies in beautiful half human, half monster girls dubbed claymores after the two handed swords they wield. On the flip side not everything is so great about being a claymore as they have to forever battle with the monster within, least they lose their human self and become a monster themselves.

The story revolves around a claymore named Claire and a human boy named Raki both who have had their entire family killed by monsters. After a series of events Raki ends up traveling with Claire. He tends to provide the readers voice throughout the narrative, for example, being shocked at the strange and terrible things Claire is forced to do. Raki's company makes Claire reveal more of her human side, his presence undoubtedly helping in her struggle to remain human.

The art is consistent, but the style seems a little dated and character designs are kind of lackluster. The layout is well set out, making the dialogue, story and action easy to follow. Claymore does feature quite a bit of violence and was probably aimed at older teens, but besides being in comic form, it's also fantasy violence, anyone thirteen or older would not be phased from it.

With the final chapter not really leading onto anything else, it's hard to tell where exactly where the story of Claymore is going. It's made apparent that Claire goes from village to village clearing out the monsters. The story is a bit weak in that regard, at least in this volume, there is no real conveyance of any greater goal to follow on through to the next volume.

Homunculus walk amongst us. Vile half human, half machine beasts who feed on living humans. Luckily alchemist warriors wielding powerful weapons known as Buso Renkins, work behind the scenes, protecting the unaware populace from their threat and culling their numbers.

After selflessly protecting someone who didn't really need saving from a homunculus, Kazuki, a male high school student is granted a replacement heart in the form of a spare Buso Renkin from alchemist warrior Tokiko, a serious girl with a mysterious scar across her face. Tokiko originally tries to keep Kazuki away from the world of alchemy, but his total disregard for his own safety whilst others are in trouble slowly drags him in.

Despite the serious plot, Buso Renkin is packed full of comedic moments, some in the right places, some not so much. For instance the primary antagonist has a very fruity wardrobe, which kind of undermines the serious plot earlier on. Nobuhiro is a seasoned manga veteran known mostly for his internationally successful series Rurouni Kenshin. His art is clean, vibrant and full of action. His character designs are alright, some are great, but as mentioned before some are also a little strange or questionable.

Tokiko's Buso Renkin named the Valkyrie Skirt is on the better side. The weapon starts as large metal rings around her thighs, when deployed 4 huge blades on the end of long maneuverable poles lash out, kind of like spider legs. It looks very cool and must have been insanely hard to plan or draw. There is a lot of violence and a tiny bit of gore, it is a battle manga, but it's all against monsters that barely resemble anything human at all.

Buso Renkin is an enjoyable and unique story, Kazuki's and Tokiko's relationship is a lot more in depth than your average shonen battle manga. The art is near perfect, the comedic elements and jokes are great, even the stranger characters end up growing on you later on in the series. Not a bad manga at all.

After death, some souls linger in this world. Left to loiter and brood long enough and they turn into hollows, huge deadly masked creatures invisible to the living who eat souls and people alike. Unfortunately for high school student, Ichigo Kurosaki who can see ghosts, hollows prefer to hunt the those with a strong sensitivity to the world of the dead.

Soul reapers, dressed in black and wielding swords formed from their own soul are tasked with killing hollows and protecting innocents. Rukia, a female, dark haired soul reaper is tracking a hollow hunting Ichigo and his family. When things go wrong and Rukia is injured, Ichigo makes the choice to borrow Rukia's powers and become a temporary soul reaper in order to save his family. Afterward Ichigo is forced to take on Rukias soul reaper duties until she gets her power pack and unwillingly some of Ichigo's friends and schoolmates are drawn into the esculating conflict in the world of the dead. Unfortunately, Ichigo's borrowing of soul reaper powers also goes against the laws of the soul reaper society and when found out, Rukia is taken by her fellow soul reapers and found punishable by execution.

Ichigo is the primary protagonist of bleach, a 15 year old that looks more like hes 20. Ichigo has the typical "I don't know what I'm doing, but I will stand up for what I believe in!" attitude of most shonen jump heroes. When turned into a soul reaper Ichigo wields a gigantic blade to supplement his head-first attitude. Although bleach has a huge supporting cast, Rukia can be considered the main supporting protagonist. Shes short and overly serious but has a cute side displayed through means such as her terrible artwork and love of bunnies. She also actually looks like shes 15 but claims to be over 100 years old, quite the opposite of Ichigo. Other members of the supporting cast include Orihime, a shy, comical girl, who acts a healer. Chad, a huge Mexican with incredible strength and Ishida, a priest like archer who hates soul reapers a lot. The cast is rather varied and helps keep the manga interesting, as well as perhaps helping to draw it out.

Bleach's art and style relies more heavily on action and movement than on each frame being an individual work of art. Tite Kubo also has a good sense of style and shows in most of his characters, in particular what they wear. Besides the fashion sense, nothing really stands out about the art, but there's nothing drawn badly enough for you to stop reading, which in reality means the art has done it's part in telling the story efficiently. Since most of the fighting is not incredibly realistic and more often than not is against a fifteen foot monster, it can easily be read by a broad age group.

Bleach is a great modern world/fantasy cross over, it's has a broad range of characters all interesting and cool in their own way. The idea of sharing a world with spirits obviously isn't incredibly unique, but bleach still has a good go at the concept and obviously did something right as it is currently one of the more popular manga titles out there.

What would you do if you were offered the power to kill anyone? Would you take it? Would you use it? What if you could make the world a better place, reduce crime and punish the wicked, could you bare the burden?

Death note is the name of the novel and is also the name of it's plot device, a shinigami (soul reapers) notebook. All you have to do is write a name in a notebook, envision the persons face in your mind and write a cause of death and BAM, they're dead.

Light Yagami, an grade A student is bored out of his mind and sick of the way justice is handled in the world. Light stumbles upon the death note by chance, on the grass outside his school. At first he believes it's a hoax, like anyone would, but after testing it on a criminal holding kids hostage, he confirms it's legality.

A few days later Rukk, a winged dirty looking shinigami confronts Light and explains the rules of the death note. Basically Rukk who is visible only to him intends to follow Light around watching what happens purely because he's bored. Light plans to force his sense of justice on the masses, killing the wicked and sending a message out that if you sin, you will be judged.

Unfortunately for Light, it does not take too long for L, world's greatest detective to get hot on the trail. L also remains anonymous to all, making it impossible to simply kill him with the note. L doesn't agree with Light's version of justice and sees him as nothing more than a murderer.

The art is dark and everything remains in proportion, although the theme and plot of Death Note is quite sinister, it's not very violent visually. Once again, a 13+ year old could read it, but to really enjoy and understand it's themes/messages about justice, being slightly older would be preferable.

Death Note is a great detective/crime story, with an anti-hero protagonist, but is Light really bad? I guess it's up to you and your sense of justice, should one person really judge us all by their standards?