Books: Kurohime #1

The diabolically sexy anti-heroine of Kurohime leers out at us from the cover of volume one, skintight outfit stretched over acres of curves. Then you open the book and find out she spends most of her time looking absolutely nothing like that, and if you shelled out $7.99 to goggle at some skin there’s a chance you’ll feel … cheated. There’s a good reason this book isn’t sold in shrinkwrap.

So what do you get for your $7.99? Well, Kurohime takes a premise that would normally be turned into something “dark” and “edgy” and stands it on its head for laughs. This is never a bad idea in the abstract — after all, there’s enough “dark” and “edgy” material out there to keep the manufacturers of black eyeliner in business for decades, so why not turn that stuff upside down and see what falls out? Incidentally, the whole thing has been penned and written by someone with the single best name I’ve seen in manga since Oh! great (Ogureito): Masanori • Ookamigumi • Katakura. (Yes, the dots are on the original copyright page, too.)

Article originally written for AMN. Click here to read full text.