Pistol packin’ mamas. Chibis gone wild. Vampire knights and vampire-slaying princesses. Yes, it’s time for another batch of Manga Minis! This month’s column examines the first volumes of four brand-new series—Canon, Hoshin Engi, Platina, and Princess Resurrection—as well as the second volume of Vampire Knight and Junko Mizuno: Pure Trance.

Canon, Vol. 1

By Chika Shiomi
CMX, 200 pp.
Rating: 16+

The eponymous heroine of Canon is a smart, tough-talking vigilante who’s saving the world, one vampire at a time. For most of her life, she was a somewhat sickly but otherwise unremarkable human—that is, until a nosferatu decided to make Lunchables of her high school class. Canon, the sole survivor of the attack, was transformed into a vampire whose blood has an amazing property: it can restore other victims to their former human selves. She’s determined to rescue as many human-vampire converts as she can, prowling the streets of Tokyo in search of others like her. She’s also resolved to find and kill Rod, the vampire who murdered her friends. (Uh, Rod? Was Vlad taken?) She’s aided by two vampires with agendas of their own: Fuui, a talking crow who’s always scavenging for blood, and Sakaki, a handsome rogue who also loathes Rod.

Though I enjoyed Canon, I had two reservations about this volume. First, Shiomi’s action sequences are sometimes hard to parse. There were several close-up panels that left me utterly mystified: just what the heck was I looking at? Second, Fuui is more of creaky plot device than a character. As several other reviewers have observed, Fuui’s primary function seems to be intoning expository dialogue. To some extent, such passages are unavoidable in a series with a complicated mythology, but Shiomi doesn’t integrate them gracefully. That said, I have a feeling that future volumes will be more enjoyable now that Shiomi has laid the foundation for her story. I’ll be tuning in, if for no other reason than to catch a glimpse of Rod.

Volume one of Canon is available now; volume two will be released in July.

Hoshin Engi, Vol. 1

By Ryu Fujisaki
Viz, 202 pp.
Rating: 13+

In the Hoshin Engi universe, real Chinese emperors co-exist side by side with a group of demi-gods called Sennin, who normally reside on a higher plane of existence than humans. The story begins when Dakki, a female Sennin, uses her power to usurp the Chinese throne. She then embarks on a campaign of wanton destruction and self-aggrandizement that rivals only the modern-day antics of Kim Jong Il. Taikobo, a young shepherd, is one of Dakki’s many victims, losing his entire family in a raid on his village. To avenge his family, Taikobo becomes an apprentice of Genshi Tenson, a Sennin elder. But Taikobo lacks the discipline to attain demi-god status. Frustrated by Taikobo’s slacker antics, Genshi devises a novel training regimen for his underachieving pupil: kit Taikobo out with a fancy ride and a cool weapon, then dispatch him to the human world to round up 345 dangerous demons.

Though the set-up has great potential, I found Ryu Fujisaki’s storytelling uninspired. Taikobo is a generic shonen hero—all action and no reflection—while his sidekick/vehicle Reiju Supushan is a classic fuss-budget foil who questions the wisdom of Taikobo’s decisions. The first two chapters are a slow read, as Fujisaki tries to cram as much exposition into those early pages as possible. Once he’s dispensed with the basics—names, realms, spells, and such—the story quickly falls into a predictable pattern: Taikobo engages a demon, feigns oafishness, then gains the upper hand. No doubt Hoshin Engi would make a terrific RPG or anime, but I didn’t find it a compelling read.

Volume 1 of Hoshin Engi will be available in June.

Junko Mizuno: Pure Trance

Junko Mizuno: Pure Trance is available now.

Platina, Vol. 1

By Yeon Joo Kim
Central Park Media, 177 pp.
Rating: 13+

As best I can tell, the plot for Platina goes something like this: Auna is a former aristocrat whose family suffered a disastrous reversal of fortune. As a result, Auna has been reduced to scrubbing floors at Princess Vellotte’s palace. For reasons unknown, Vellotte entrusts Auna with Jinen, an adorable little fox with a very big secret: he’s actually a handsome human thief who, thanks to a curse from the princess, transforms into a kitsune for twelve hours each day. No matter what form he takes, however, Jinen has a knack for getting into trouble. In the short period of time that Auna has custody of him, they endure kidnapping attempts, shoot-outs, and a stint in jail. What makes Platina a fun—if sometimes confusing—read is Yeon Joo Kim’s decision to dispense with the fourth wall, allowing her characters to poke fun at her, discuss events from previous chapters, crack wise about comic clichés, and speculate about how the story will unfold. With so many digressions and meta-jokes interrupting the narrative flow, events don’t always have a logical connection, but Platina’s kitchen-sink humor and stylish visuals compensate for its shortcomings.

Volume one of Platina is available now.

Princess Resurrection, Vol. 1

By Yatsunori Mitsunaga
Del Rey, 224 pp.
Rating: 16+

Meet Princess Hime. She’s equal parts Cinderella and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, dispatching werewolves, vampires, zombies, and creatures from the Black Lagoon while clad in a tiara and crinoline. Her entourage includes Flandre, a cute robot with Hulk-like strength; Hiro, a nebbish that Hime resurrected after an unfortunate traffic accident; Hiro’s older sister, Sawawa, a none-too-bright maid; and Riza Wildman, a brash werewolf girl who favors mid-riff baring tank tops and rides a motorcycle. Together this improbable team fights armies of the undead, transforming a variety of objects—SUVs, chainsaws, cardio paddles—into lethal weapons with MacGuyver-esque ingenuity.

Whether or not you warm to Princess Resurrection will depend on how funny you find the principal joke, as the plot and characters are wafer-thin. I enjoyed the Disney-does-Dawn-of-the-Dead premise, but found one of the series’ running gags less amusing. In his recent review at Comic World News, David Welsh coined a memorable phrase for this weird and distasteful bit of fanservice: mood boobs. He explains, “You can tell when the sister [Sawawa] is preoccupied, as her giant breasts don’t jiggle as vigorously.” So if mood boobs don’t distract you from comically gruesome goings-on, you’ll probably enjoy this smartly illustrated series.

Volume one of Princess Resurrection is available now; volume two will be published in August. To read a short excerpt of volume one, click here.

Vampire Knight, Vol. 2

By Matsuri Hino
Viz, 208 pp.
Rating: 13+

When I reviewed the first volume of Vampire Knight back in January, I expressed some reservations about the series’ generic characters and warmed-over vampire lore. A surprising number of fans posted polite but firm rebuttals, informing me that the story improved in subsequent chapters. Impressed by their depth of commitment, I decided to give the series a second look.

On the plus side, Matsuri Hino seems to have found her footing with the material. She adopts a more appropriate tone for her story, dispensing with the shojo slapstick of the early chapters in favor of supernatural suspense. She also fleshes out the vampires’ backstory, explaining why they have enrolled at Cross Academy, delineating a hierarchy within the vampire world, and introducing a new character, Yagari Toga, a vampire hunter who packs heat, talks tough, and has history with Kaname and Zero. On the minus side, I couldn’t distinguish the male vampires from one another, as most of them look like members of Duran Duran (at least to this child of the 1980s). And I still found Yuki a less-than-compelling character. Not all heroines need to administer karate chops to be powerful—or empowered, for that matter—but Yuki seems incapable of tying her shoelaces, let alone subduing vampires. Unless she engages in some serious slayage in volume three, I’m probably going to focus my energies elsewhere.

Volume two of Vampire Knight is available now; volume three is scheduled for publication in October. To read a short excerpt from volume one, click here.