Descendants of Darkness: Yami No Matsuei

Description:

(quoted from the back of vol. 1 of Descendants of Darkness)

As a Guardian of Death, Asato Tsuzuki has a lot to think about. First of all, there are all those dead people. Someone’s got to escort them safely to the afterlife.

Then there’s all that bureaucracy. The affairs of death come with a lot of paperwork, budgetary concerns and endless arcane.

Combining supernatural action with heavy dollops of romance, sex and humor, Descendants of Darkness proves on thing: Death is big business…and business is good!

Contains:
Chapter 1: Two on the River’s Edge
Chapter 2: Descendants of Darkness
Short Story: A Fairy Tale
The Ministry of Hades: Orientation

Story:
The first volume of Descendants of Darkness: Yami No Matsuei is very deep. Actually, it could be considered almost too deep. Probably the biggest flaw with the first volume is the extremely difficult setting and storyline. The author never really gives a detailed explaination of where the characters are. The walkthrough of the Ministry of Hades clears this up a bit (one of the extras of the first volume), but even that is pretty confusing. Thankfully, if you reread the volume it probably will seem a bit more clear. I admit that the first chapter seems kind of pointless, but from that point forward the book is a page-turner. The dark pasts about the characters and the comedy relief all blend in perfectly.

Artwork:
The artwork for this series is very clean and precise. The artist uses darker colors to represent the darker atmosphere of the series. The author does an excellent job of expressing each of the characters. The characters are all drawn with amazing detail and it is very easy to tell the characters apart from one another. When it comes to the expressions of the characters and their postures you could probably tell what was going on even if you didn’t read the text. Plus, Tsuzuki goes into his chibi-form (what I call it when a character looks chubby and miniature) at just the right moments during the novel, which gives the reader a good laugh in between the few stale moments.

Characters/Character Development:
The characters of the first volume were all given a great sense of balance. With Tsuzuki and Hisoka being the main characters of Descendants of Darkness, they seem to form a yin and yang relationship. They balance each other out quite well, with Hisoka being the very withdrawn and level-headed partner and Tsuzuki having a dark past and a happy-go-lucky attitude. The best part about the characters (BTW: I’m into all types of romance novels) is when Tsuzuki makes comments that suggests a possible romance forming between the two characters.

Summary (may contain spoilers):
Descendants of Darkness (Yami No Matsuei in Japan) vol. 1 basically consists of an introductory chapter (which introduces the main protagonist, Asato Tsuzuki, and gives the reader a basic understanding of Tsuzuki’s personality) and then the rest of the chapters in Descendants of Darkness consists of Tsuzuki’s first case with his new partner Hisoka Kurosaki.

Part 1-

In chapter 1 you are introduced to the world of a shinigami (a Guardian of Death). A shinigami is an immortal who was brought back from the dead and given an immortal body so that he or she can work for the Ministry of Hades. Their job is to find out why people haven’t died when they needed to and stuff like that. Anyway, Tsuzuki gets a new partner named Asuka and their first job is to help a young girl kill herself. When they go to the girl (BTW shinigami can travel between the living world and the world of the dead) they find out that she wanted to die because she felt like she had killed her older cousin a few years ago. For some reason someone kept preventing her from committing suicide and you find out what happens later in the chapter.

Part 2-

In chapter 2 Tsuzuki gets a new case. His job this time is to find out who has been committing some recent murders. He goes down to Nagasaki to meet his new partner for the case, and ironically, gets held up by a young boy claiming that Tsuzuki was a vampire who had been killing the victims. Tsuzuki quickly learns that the young boy is his new partner, Hisoka, and after the misunderstanding clears up they get to work trying to figure out who has been killing all the people. Throughout this section you learn about Hisoka’s ability to sense the emotions of others and how Hisoka was murdered three years ago, at the age of 16, by the main villain of the series, Muraki.

Later on, Hisoka gets kidnapped by Muraki, and Tsuzuki goes to rescue his new partner. This is probably the only fight in the whole volume and you learn a lot about Tsuzuki's real power. Tsuzuki turns out to be the strongest of the shinigami and together with Hisoka they are able to (what seems like) kill Muraki. At the end of this section Hisoka decides to stay with Tsuzuki as his partner for the time being.

Extras:
The first volume contains an extra story that has nothing to do with the series (Personally, I hated that story). Then it also includes: author commentary, a walkthrough of the Ministry of Hades, a few cute pictures, and adaption notes. Overall, not a bad batch of extras, Del Rey is much better, but still this isn't bad.

Content Warnings:
- Language: Yes
- Violence: Yes
- Nudity: Partially
- Sexual Situations: Yes

Purchased At:
Waldenbooks

Overall:
I really love this series and I’m really into romances and stuff so if you are more into a lot of action, action, action, then you might want to knock off a point. Still, this series hits all the right areas that makes a manga great. Descendants of Darkness: Yami No Matsuei vol. 1 is a great manga and I can’t wait for the future installments.

+ excellent characters and an excellent storyline.
- the extra story sucks, very complex setting for the story (takes multiple readings to get a rough idea of surroundings).

Score: 9/10