Black Rose Alice

This is a really tragic and interesting story. This is technically a vampire manga, but if you go in expecting to see creatures of the night baring their fangs and seducing/sleeping with many women, you'll be very disappointed. This manga takes vampires to a completely new realm- it's so unexpected and strange. It took me a while to get used to this type of vampire, but the concept is really interesting, and love to see such fresh ideas with one of the oldest and most re-told monster story around. Kuro Bara Alice starts out in turn-of-the-century Vienna, where we meet two of our main characters.For the first couple of chapters, there's not even the slightest mention of vampires. But soon, through a series of unfortunate events, the lives of our main characters are completely changed. Without giving anything away, the story adds a few more characters as it progresses, with the full cast being a group of vampires and a girl, so it's very much a reverse harem. If you're into those, you'll love this. This manga deals with a lot of very mature themes, mostly pertaining to the darkness that can dwell in humans, as well as many unfortunate accidents with truly sad outcomes. There's a bit of violence, particularly towards women, and there are a few fairly sexually explicit moments, but nothing is done distastefully. Overall, the artwork is beautiful, the plot is wonderful, and it's a manga that's extremely hard to put down. The character development is good, but I can't help but feel that it's somehow lacking. Overall, I'd definitely recommend this manga to anyone who enjoys drama, romance, and fantasy, or just wants to read a beautiful story.