Ama no Mura Kumo

There are times when you hear a story concept, and you think to yourself "Wow, that sounds awesome!" Then when you see what direction the concept was taken in you are almost always disappointed. This could be due to trends in media, pandering to what the public wants, etc. This manga is another example of a cool story concept that let me down. Here's the concept. Curses have been used by rulers and politicians since ancient times to get the leg up on their opposition. Even in the modern day, politicians call upon priests to curse their opposition and rise to power. To me, that soundspretty cool. A unique take on political power struggles. Maybe this will be a drama about one such priest who has a moral dilemma about if he is doing the right thing, and his eventual acceptance or refusal of his role. This isn't the case, however. Instead they take their unique concept and make it akin to Bleach. When a curse is undone, the curse leaves a person and becomes a creature that must be fought. And these curses are powered by ghosts, who become stronger depending on the number of people their curses affect. So then they fight these ghosts. Why is there fantasy shounen fighting here? The shounen aspect really kills the concept, making it something typical instead of something new and interesting. The main male and female are shounen stereotypes, and the side character we want to know about we don't get to know about. To be fair, the manga was obviously supposed to be longer, and given time I'm sure each character would have gotten their own stereotypical back story. The manga isn't longer though, and as such the characters and story just seem pretty typical. The character art is the strongest point of this manga, even if the character designs themselves fall flat. The artist deserves praise for bringing more life into characters that would have been even more dull without it. I really wanted to like this manga, as the concept seemed cool. Yet, the author opted for a more generic approach, and as such it is hard for me to recommend this. I would recommend it if you like shows like Bleach; however, since the manga is incomplete that makes me not want to recommend it even to Bleach/Shounen fans. Too bad.