Venus Versus Virus, Volume 1

Suzumi's character illustrations and magical effects are very appealing, and the story has a great pace with lots of surprises. It's an effective combination of visual appeal, story, and character development. Manga devotees should have no trouble following the plot, which includes a moderate amount of invented supernatural terminology, and non-otaku will be able to enjoy the character development even when some of the fantasy gets a little involved. I'm pretty much an otaku, and I find the characters' situation and slowly revealed backstory of great interest. Unlike many other supernatural manga, this one makes a fair amount of sense. I also like the attention paid to Sumire's school uniform and Venus' esoteric ensembles, which makes sense both as a gimmick (cute girls in frilly clothes) and as a plot vehicle (Sumire attends a posh boarding school and Venus' livelihood involves a clothing and jewelry store). The print quality is pretty much the average for bound manga in the US (don't know how it compares to Japan's), which is to say perfectly acceptable for 1-color art. The covers throughout as much of the series as I've seen are almost worth the purchase price. For a guy my age, this counts as a guilty pleasure. Power to you if you can enjoy this type (and quality) of eye-candy openly.

While it has a lot of tags as "Yuri" ("girls love") manga, its really up to the reader if they want to make it into that. There is no kiss, no "I love you." You'd have to read heavily between the lines. In only one part does it ever suggest that something in going on between the two main characters, and its really just a presumption of a side character who was spying on them. I am a Yuri fan however, so I'm just going to assume that something WAS going on between them, because otheewise I would feel like I'd been ripped off. Although the artwork and sheer kick-assness of the main character was worth the price alone. If you like softcore lesbian friendship, eyepatches, cigarettes, guns, monsters and school girl outfits, definitely read this! I know I do. There is also a 13 episode anime series, which I'd recommend if you like this.