 | | ▪ | RELEASED BY: | | DARK HORSE | | | ▪ | AUTHOR / ART: | | MEGURO SANKICHI / OKUSE SAKI | | | ▪ | FORMAT: | | JAPANESE / B&W | | | ▪ | PAGES: | | 216 | | | ▪ | RATING: | | M | | | ▪ | RELEASE DATE: | | 10/29/2008 | | | ▪ | REVIEW DATE: | | 12/22/2008 | | | ▪ | REVIEWED BY: | | SCOTT CAMPBELL |
Welcome to the sexy, spooky, and suspenseful world of Ghost Talker's Daydream. It’s safe to say that we here in North America are almost bored with the recurring themes prevalent in the now-cliché “speaks with the dead” genre. But for those who love the concept anyway, Dark Horse Manga brings you the manga series that takes that concept one (or three) steps further with Ghost Talker’s Daydream, a sexy and dark story from writer Okuse Saki (Twilight of the Dark Master) and artist Meguro Sankichi. In the continuing story of Saiki Misaki, the albino dominatrix necromancer, Misaki has to put her wits, looks, and knowledge of ghosts to the test. Follow Misaki as she dodges cops, fights psychos, and exorcises the dead. Fast-paced, smart, and sassy, Ghost Talker's Daydream is everything you loved about the anime and much, much more. Volume two starts off with quite a bang (no amount of puns intended). Working her day job, Misaki comes across some pretty strange individuals and their “needs.” Every now and then one of those people goes a bit too far and ends up dying for their kink, and that’s exactly what happens as the second volume opens. An office worker manages to strangle himself during a session with Misaki and the resulting police investigation is an interesting one. There’s also a 20 year old case of girls committing suicide in a particular forest, and the need for Misaki to act as a medium and understand who or what caused them to take their own lives in such a remote location. Ghost Talker’s Daydream is a mix of raunchy sexual deviancy, and unspeakable murder and wrongful death. It wraps a whole bunch of “touchy” subjects together and makes for quite a story – the kind of story we’re not likely to hear from our friends or grandmother, so it’s a story that will be “all new” to most. The art is quite mature, and actually very well done. It fits in with a lot of art from the horror/mature genre in that it is proficient and artistic in a way that should appeal to the more adult audience it is beckoning to. The art has a lot of detail – there is always a lot to look at on each page and it’s really appealing because it just makes each page last longer as you scan over it before turning to the next. The character designs are great, and the settings themselves are very believable and well researched for appropriate detail. Ghost Talker’s Daydream is quite impressive artistically for such a “dark” and scandalous little piece of manga entertainment – it almost makes the leather scene and serial killings look stylish (quite a feat?). All in all it is an interesting read and should be considered for anyone who enjoys mature material and a bit of horror/CSI drama in their lives.
IN SUMMARY:
This manga series is dark and unforgiving, but also not without some sense of humor to get you through the rough patches with a smirk. Very well written, with high quality art work, Ghost Talker’s Day Dream should be given a chance by mature audiences to see if it “fits” – you might be surprised! |
