Virgin Ripper

Virgin Ripper--a horrible and misleading title, by the way--is about an awkward grim reaper who is in love with her boss. The boss steals a powerful artifact and runs away with a dangerous group of minions, leaving her behind. The girl sets out to track down the artifact and find out why her beloved boss could be wrapped up in such evil doings. It's an odd manga. The content starts off stereotypical shoujo (ditsy girl, cute jerk guy), gets extremely bloody and rather disturbing by about chapter 6, and eventually settles into a plot that has a lot in common with some supernaturalshounen harem manga, except it's told from one of the girls' perspective. The end result does work; it is an enjoyable read, with an interesting set of characters and a pretty unique plot. But it is not quite good enough to be a "must-read" if you really aren't into this sort of thing--and I'm really not sure who is going to be really into this sort of thing. As for the rest: the art is pretty good, for shoujo fantasy artwork, but not spectacular. The characters are mostly interesting, and many have good backstories, although some of them are dispatched way too quickly. The pacing of the manga is pretty good, although the romantic aspect of the ending feels a bit hacked-on. So overall a pretty good, enjoyable manga... if you want an extremely bloody, and sexualized shoujo romance in a supernatural fantasy setting.