angelsreviews

Welcome to a shop that makes your wishes a reality… scratch that, this is a shop that will stock the rarest animals in the world that will make your dreams a reality. Sometimes the explanation of this manga and xxxHOLiC sort of mix with each other. The idea is pretty much the same though in that we have the owner of the shop who helps people, a outsider brought into the shop to learn about it, and a by chapter storyline that is new every, I want to say two or three chapters. And then the ending goes into one big storyline at the end, but that would be a spoiler so let’s not worry about that.

Now all through the books, there are times when we would have parts that didn’t feel like any part of the main story or the little people stories. I consider them more like side stories. Even though we have those side stories, they actually work well in this since most of the story is really dark and depressing; we need a little bit of something comedic in order to break it up. The little stories were some of the animals play around with each other or when D is being his fun cute self are actually enjoyable before we go back into the dark depths of peoples hearts and minds.

I love the rather fun style of D although he feels like Yuko from xxxHOLiC a bit. He is always going gaga over sweets and answers questions in a rather whimsical mysterious manner, never giving an actual straight answer to the question. Because of this, most of the time we are left to wonder what he means and makes us think or, in my case, sometimes doing a little soul searching. Leon is like Watanuki without the large amount of whining. Although Leon isn’t there for most of the times people buy pets from D’s shop, he is basicly our inside look to the shop being a newbie himself. He is always asking the questions and although he does get annoying at times with acusing D of selling dangerous animals (and yes, I do believe some of them would never be allowed to be sold if the government knew exactly what was in the shop), he does have his good points in that he is willing to try and learn what is going on.

Another thing I was so happy about was the informational pages that were placed at the end of each book. They explained each mystical animal more thoroughly for those that never heard of them. It helped a lot in being able to find if the animal was made just for the manga or if it truly had a place in myths and legends.

The artwork is very beautiful in many of the areas, showing a lot of details, flowing hair and clothing and the most fantastic clothing designs I have ever seen. Some of which seem almost as though they could be part of the character themselves instead of being just normal clothing. Wings look like wings, fur looks like fur, and many of the humanoid animals look very close to their animal look with none of them looking like any other unless they are supposed to. With that said, sometimes it does lack like when there are funny little moments when D is sort of playing around or when some of the normal creatures we see are doing playful little side stories that really don’t mean anything to the actual story taking place. There are also times when things are very hard to see such as in misty areas and times when a color blends with the background. It is a problem with the rather fine lines this artist gives the manga.