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I've been reading Vampire Hunter D novels for years, but stopped keeping up with the releases to let them build up for a while. I'd forgotten just how addicting they are to read. I can't read the original Japanese, so I have no idea how much is Kikuchi's talent coming through or the editor's skill in making it readable, but I love the post-apocalyptic noir style in general. This is the first book after the huge four-parter, Pale Fallen Angel, and I feel it marks a change or evolution in Kikuchi's style. In Twin-Shadowed Knight, he explores a rather random idea--what if there were two D's? It sounds ridiculous when simplified, but we all know nothing is simple in the universe of the Frontier, and the places we're taken in this story might not be what you'd expect. My biggest surprise in this story was the female side character. There's always at least one in these books, and since D is the original Mary Sue, they all fall head over heels for him. I think the thing that makes that aspect tolerable in these books is the knowledge that D will never fall for them in return, so it's not a distraction from the story. However, Mia is a spirited young woman who gets closer to D than I think anyone else has in the past. The fact that this happens right after the Pale Fallen Angel series, where we see D acting more like a Noble than ever, is really exciting. We get to learn much more about D's past than even D knew himself, and Mia's by his side throughout. I've never pulled for a girl to actually get through to D before, but Mia was it for me. And for Left Hand, coincidentally. The endings of this series and the previous one slayed me. You go into these novels knowing there aren't truly happy endings, but this one was brutal after the way Pale Fallen Angel ended. That's Kikuchi's magic, I suppose. Combined with the art of Amano, this is another beautiful, tragic, terrible tale in the VHD series.Read full review
