Looking for something new to read? Check out Blood Lad a manga by Yuuki Kodama. It’s a Action, fantasy, comedy filled with a assortment of colorful characters. The style reminds me of Ao no Exorcist (Blue Exorcist in America) meets Soul Eater, if you like thoes series then you will enjoy this series. The story is about Staz a powerful Vampire who is one of the district bosses of the east side of the demon world. Of course our main character has to have his quarks, turns out he’s a massive Otaku who loves anime, manga , video games and anything from the human world especially if its Japanese.
Fuyumi on the left Staz on the right
Our manga starts off with our fearsome boss lounging around playing video games when he gets a call from one of his many followers about a strange event. A human girl Fuyumi Yanagi finds herself in the demon world out of nowhere. This intrigues Staz and he starts to geek out about meeting her. Meanwhile a demon enters Staz’s district and challenges him to a fight to take over the east coast. Staz pauses his visit with Fuyumi to take out the boss to only find out when he comes back to his apartment that she gets eaten and is now a ghost. It is here when Staz promises to help find a way to resurrect Fuyumi back into her human form.
In our next chapter Staz learns how Fuyumi entered the demon world. She apparently found her way though by entering a black curtain, a very rare item in the demon world that only high level demons can conjure. Staz sees this as his first opportunity to visit the human world and basically makes Fuyumi take him there. While they visit the human world they learn a few things. Fuyumi learns that she can’t stay there in her ghost form and has to depend on Staz to even survive in the human world or she will fade away. Staz learns who is the real owner of the black curtain, a top level telepoter named Hydrabell (aka Bell). She basically irritates Staz and suspects him of reopening her curtain and using it without her permission. As the two fight about it our main characters learn from Bell that there is a book that can help bring Fuyumi back to life but there is a catch. The book is in the West district which is controlled by Staz’s friend/ rival Wolf.
Our characters now travel to the west where Staz and Wolf meet again and battle it out to only find out that Bell had the book all along. But now there is another catch no one can read the book and Staz now has to travel to Demon World Acropolis to find the writer of the book to translate it. The writer is none other than his biggest rival his brother Braz D. Blood.
I found that this manga was entertaining and it kept surprising me in every chapter. There were many comedic moments with all the characters it has introduced so far and at the end of the last chapter it made me want more. Personally I would say this manga was worth buying, the characters were rich and colorful the story kept my attention and I personally can’t wait to add the rest of the Blood Lad mangas to my collection. The next issue of Blood Lad will be released in March of 2013 so there is plenty of time to check vol.1 out.
