Language: English
Direction: Left to Right
Pages: 186
by: Hideyuki Kikuchi (story), Jun Suemi (art)
Publisher: Digital Manga Publishing
Type: Series, Novel
Genre: Action, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Sci-fi, Supernatural, SeinenSynopsis:
In the second volume of Maohden, Setsura Aki arrives at the Coliseum Death Matches to rescue the seal—the girl known as Mayumi. But Setsura is not the only one who knows Mayumi’s secret. In the shadows beneath the Coliseum, his arch-enemy Gento Roran works to pull the strings to outwit Setsura’s every move.
Meanwhile, at the other end of Demon City, Azusa Sasaki investigates the suspicious dig behind the new mortuary. What dark thing does Gento Roran seek beneath the earth? And can Azusa ferret it out before Gento’s henchman Hyota tracks her down?
As Setsura moves closer to the truth, new alliances and allegiances are forged in the city on the edge of the abyss. Even the Demon Physician, Doctor Mephisto, is brought into the conflict—at Gento’s behest. Gento’s secret plan to overpower Setsura finds a willing accomplice in Mephisto—or so it seems.
Destroying Gento’s seat of power is Setsura’s aim. When Setsura discovers its location, a new crisis arises. For the place that holds Gento’s accursed coffin is the most haunted building in Demon City Shinjuku—and home to its most terrifying monster.
Don’t miss the thrilling second installment in Hideyuki Kikuchi’s acclaimed horror trilogy, Maohden.
Okay, first the bad news, the series isn’t finished yet, now the good news THE SERIES ISN’T FINISHED YET!!!
Kikuchi is probably, scratch that, he IS my favourite author. The way he writes draws the reader into a world that you don’t really read, you experience. In other words he’s one of the few great authors.
Maohden volume two steps up it’s game from the previous volume, we get a lot more action and story, and a lot of development in both characters and general story, with things moving along at a fairly steady pace throughout the volume, with only a few hiccups. Surprisingly, rather than starting to bring things to a conclusion, we get introduced to new players.
The story continues from where volume one left off, but it sadly doesn’t really progress the story all that much. While we do get a lot of action, and progression, part of me wishes the main story progressed a bit more. Rather it’s not until the last quarter of the volume that we get some story progression.
As you would expect with Kikuchi’s adult styled stories there’s graphic sex in the volume, and i have to admit i found the sex in this volume a bit much. I don’t mind sex in my stories, but i felt this time it was a bit misplaced and over emphasised.
The few images in this volume once again don’t really look that good on the kindle edition, and given how bad they look; I’m surprised that DMP didn’t just remove them. There are a few parts where the story slows down and gets bogged down, though after reading a lot of Kikuchi’s releases this is a common trait in his writing.
I have serious concerns over DMP’s handling of their Kindle releases however. Their print editions are always a high quality release and it’s a very rare blue moon occurrence when i find something wrong with them. However their Kindle release don’t seem to get the same breadth of Q&A before release. I’ve now read three of their four Kindle novel releases, and all of them have had spelling mistakes, misplaced words, errant letters and others that really spoiled the reading experience. though thankfully nothing as extreme as what we saw in Demon City.
That said, the errors in this volume were minor, though noticeable. Hopefully they’ll release an updated version (like with Demon City), and if they release other Kindle releases (which i do hope for), they’ll give them more Q&A.
Overall, I have to admit, this is a really good story and well worth picking up. I love having Kindle editions but I’m still holding out for a omnibus edition in print when volume three is released. Sadly no date for volume three yet, which i need!!! I need to know how it ends!!
