Dragon Head

I read all 10 volumes of Dragon Head in the span of one week. And I would have completed it even sooner if it wasn't for Christmas and finals. Interesting right? Now onto the review. STORY: 8/10 If I had to sum it up in one word I would say "Thrilling". It's palm sweating, mind numbing, edge-of-your-seat excitement. Teru (the main character) finds himself trapped in a dark tunnel along with all his dead classmates. Dazed and confused, he lives on. Why is it so hot in the tunnel? Whats with all the earthquakes? Why have people gone crazy? Teru is faced with all of these questionsand more as he slowly begins to realize what has become of the peaceful world he once knew. The world has become hellish for reasons unknown to everyone, including yourself. The mangaka doesn't hold your hand and spoon feed you answers. You have to piece together the information along side Teru. The story is nearly perfect except for a couple of chapters leading up to the finale. It tries a bit too hard to be emotionally deep, and you get a ridiculously long speech about fear. If that tiny boring part didn't happen I would give the story a nine, but it did happen so the story gets an 8. And thats a darn good 8. Like 8.9 or something close like that. I don't round. ART: 10/10 OH MY GAWD. The deatil put into the backgrounds is almost too detailed. It's hard to descibe how vivid every thing is. From the subway system, to the ghost towns, to the trash-littered buildings, they all come together perfectly to create the apocalyptic world that is Dragon Head. For fear that the druel pouring from my mouth will short circuit my computer I will stop talking about the art. Simply amazing. CHARACTER: 9/10 No shounen heroes here. Every character is constantly overwhelmed with fear. Sometimes they feed on that fear and are able to do miraculous things. They will somehow figure a way out of their situation and live to see another day. But more often than not they snap. Teru might stab somebody if he's too scared. Or maybe he'll set an inocent person's arm on fire. Ako will faint at the drop of a hat. Nobu hasn't un-snapped since the train crashed. One word to describe the characters? "Flawed". ENJOYMENT: 9/10 If it hadn't been Christmas and if I didn't have finals I might have finished this in 1-2 days. I was hooked. I wanted to find out what became of the world along with Teru. I was on edge every page. It was seriously hard to put down from start to finish.

Well, I finished the manga yesterday and I need to say I'm a bit disappointed. The beginning was awesome. I really couldn't stop from reading. It felt to me like some Horror survival games I used to play. When you go around some dark mystery place and search for things. Really similar atmosphere. but then its just got ruined. There was so many potential, really sad. From something about vol 3 the story begins to drag and drag and there isn't such much of a development except for the characters. There is also this feeling like the mangaka killed every character when he finished using them. I Kinda mademyself to finish reading it. very predictable. One thing that was good is the character. I didn't really liked any of them but they felt real enough to feel the story and not only to read it. The art was so beautiful and detailed. especially the backgrounds. I don't remember when was the last time I have seen in a manga such realistic beautiful art. The ending was a real disaster. I was like wtf where is the sequel? this cant be the end. And i think there should be more romance in this because it seems Ako and Teru really liked each other. what a shame nothing developed of this. It wasn't really a waste of time, and i kinda enjoyed some parts of this. A very unique work. You won't really find something like this, But still there are better Mangas out there.

I purposefully extended my reading pauses, just so I didn't go instantly through it. It's one of THE best horror manga out there. Fear, part of humanity, part of every living being. The story explores an idea previously seen before, what happens if the world gets plunged into the unknown? No more rules, no more society, humans are open against a world that they don't control anymore. It's a harsh manga. It begins with the claustrophobic scenario of being buried alive in a sauna that doesn't stop heating up. Every subsequent place they escape to become increasingly worse, people they encounter turn less human by theday. It's all a question that's hard to answer, what happened to the world? I'd say this is more of a character piece. Our main characters are impossibly realistic, erratic in front of this situation. They scream, want to die, think about death, about hurting, about hurting somebody, about life, about why, why would this happen to them? It's SO tragic, to the point I think they used the rare trope of Diabolus Ex Machina. Nobody comes out unscathed, and somehow, our characters manage to grow with each other, to change, some pushed to diverse sides of the moral coin. Perfect writing from the characters, even if sometimes they annoy me, they aren't perfect people, just people suffering. The art too, holy mother of god. From the very beginning, the art manages to convey darkness. What's behind that curtain of blackness? Beyond what your flashlight can reach, or what your little torch can light. How does our main character react to it? It's an immersive experience that forces you to look at a panel, maybe there's something, anything, it turns you paranoid, there's gotta be something. Questions on top of questions, just from what can fit on a panel. Of course, not only the dark, but the unfathomable look of a destroyed earth. A catastrophe, the distant pillar of fire akin to a biblical prophecy. Art gives you just enough to fill in the blanks, while showing you enough to get the brain running. It's fantastic, and not only that, the author slowly gets better with character expressions, with the small details of an expression to define fear. I could gush about it a lot. I loved it so much, and I have to get the physical version of it. It's an intense series that never lets go from the ride. Every episode obligates you to flip again and finish it instantly. Sometimes dialogue doesn't appear much, so many portions are all about looking at action that's still extremely engaging. If I had to mention problems, it's just one arc, where it slows down and turns more into a thriller series, but I still enjoyed it a lot. People talk about the ending being unlikable. I believe the ending is perfect for this series, and only pacing problems, and some strange saves for the characters make this slightly below a 10. Read it, I tried not to spoil, just so you can experience this incredible series. 9.2/10, you won't believe how good this is.