Grand Guignol Orchestra 01 [Anglais] [Broché]

While I have been a huge Kaori Yuki fan for many years, I had been disappointed in her recent work. Blood Hound left a lot to be desired, Ludwig Revolution was fantastic, but the ending did not satisfy... But Grand Guignol Orchestra strikes me as her best work in years! The art is gorgeous, especially the color illustrations, and it seems like Yuki's characters designs are sloooowly gaining more variation.

If you like her previous works, both her long series, and one shots, then I highly recommend this.

My one complaint would be that her anatomy in this series gets a bit sloppy at times, particularly with the character of Berthie. Other than that, it's great to see Kaori Yuki write another series that exceeds one or two volumes.

Here's hoping some day we'll get another manga that spans the length of Earl Cain, or Angel Sanctuary. But for now, we get to travel along with Lucille and orchestra. And the journey is a fairly epic one.

For those who are not fans of Kaori Yuki's work, be aware that her manga tends to be rather dark compared to most shojo. Be on the look out for creepy dolls, tragic characters, supernatural occurrences, and a good deal of death here and there. But if you like lushly detailed art, music, zombies, traps, and reverse traps? This is the manga for you.

I won't go into telling you the story, I bought it on because it was a shojo beat manga. I love all of te shojo beat line so I thought what the heck! The artwork is awesome but a little busy, but you get in depth pictures of whats going on. The storyline is pretty great too. I like that you don't know what time period your in, the author tells you in a side bar but it really doesn't matter. I am excited to see how this story unravels. Can't wait for volume 2!

3/5
[Contains Spoilers]
I've put off reading this for a while now, mostly because I haven't been in the mood for this type of manga. I've read Kaori Yuki's other stuff, aside from Angel Sanctuary, and liked it. She tends to write complicated stories and they can get to be confusing, but I still like them. Her art as well, seems a little complicated, but it's very pretty, and almost delicate and harsh... Which doesn't make a lot of sense, but still...
The book is about a grand royal orchestra that is kind of fighting guignol, which are zombies that are also kind of dolls. I'm not big on zombies, so I was reluctant to start it for this reason as well, but it is very interesting. The orchestra has three members at the start, Lucille, Kohaku, and Gwindel. We don't get a lot, or any, background for them, but it's obvious that something is going on with them. Lucille is kind of charming, and the one that takes charge in the group. He also gets taken for a girl a lot, because of his long hair. Kohaku is harsh, rough, but I quite like him, and hope to find out more about him. And then Gwindel, who owns a hedgehog, and who we don't see a whole lot of . He's in a lot of scenes, but we don't get a lot of him in this volume. I'm hoping, and assuming, that we get more later. And that we find out what's going on, what happened with them before the start.
In the first two chapters, we meet Eles, and what is going on is his town and his background. Including that he is actually his twin sister, Celes, who supposedly died when actually it was Eles who did. Because she can play the piano beautifully and so they were attacked by the guignol and everyone was turned/died in result. This isn't as confusing, and is explained much better in the book. At the end of the second chapter, Eles (as I've decided to call her until she decides to go by Celes,) decides to join the orchestra and they are on their way.
In the third and fourth chapter, their car crashes and they stay at this guys house. He has a bunch of maids who he has infected with a different version of the zombie curse, and who are like slaves, and he is obsessed with women. And he thinks that Lucille is a woman This problems is solved at the end of the fourth chapter, but we get to meet Spinel, who is an old classmate of Lucille and who we will probably see in later chapters. She is very tough, and I'm a little intrigued by her.
This wasn't an amazing first book, but I liked it, and I am interested and will be reading more of it.