Shiho Inada

How I rate this volume would be primarily knowing if it is meant to be the last of the series or not, but I'm not entirely sure. As a last volume the unanswered, unspoken and unresolved issues would keep me from being overly thrilled with the story. As a conclusion to the particularly horrifying tale of the missing children without being the conclusion of the series, well, it would be just fine. I did like that Mai seemed to finally come into her own as a full fledged member of the psychic research team and that she finally realized her own feelings about Naru.

As always the darker panels of the ghostly children are pretty disturbing while the human characters are generally all attractive to look at. There isn't a great deal of attention to background with the exception of a few panels, but the sparse look fits the story.

Although the writing, and so my reading, of the series has generally been sporadic making it hard to keep track of the ongoing storyline, I can say that I've enjoyed the series and truly hope that it is not really over yet.… (plus d'informations)

Mai is a typical teenager who likes to tell ghost stories. When she hears the one about the cursed school in back of their school her curiosity draws her in to it. A freak accident with an expensive camera leads her to be the indentured servant of a young ghost hunter, Shibuya (or Naru-Chan as Mai nicknames him for his narcissistic attitude). Mai's first assignment is to help Shibuya and a group of psychics called in by the principal discover what the true curse is and exorcise any evil spirits.

This was more of a stage setter with an interesting plot than a horror story. However, I still enjoyed the manga very much. I like the idea of a ghost busting unit with the variety of personalities this one is apparently going to have. They are all so different that I can see that amidst the ghosts and spirits the interpersonal stories should be interesting as well. The artwork was good, but kind of busy in places and I kept getting John and Mai mixed up. I have to keep reminding myself that John is the one with the pretty, pretty eyes LOL! I was very interested to learn this manga is based on a series of Japanese young adult novels. I would love to read a translation of the novels themselves but it doesn't look like there is one available *sigh*

Overall I thought this to be a good lead in for what looks like it will be a fun series and I'm off to check out volume 2 next.… (plus d'informations)

Ghost Hunt is a Del Rey manga. It reads like an episode of Scooby-Doo, except the main male-character "ghost buster" does not out-and-out deny existence of paranormal-- he simply disproves the paranormal is at work.

The gist of the plot: The story is told from the point of view of a naive school girl who winds up helping a pretty-looking, science-obsessed guy who was hired to check out a supposedly 'haunted' school building, using high-tech equipment. The principal would like to demolish the old building but cannot because of a plague of weird 'accidents' surrounding the site.

After a single day, the principal invites a medium, a miko, and a Catholic priest to help solve the problem. None of these people get along. In the end, of course, Mr. Science solves the case.

The story is not particularly interesting, nor original. I found the main female-character annoying. The book ends with her becoming Mr. Science's employee for sequels.… (plus d'informations)