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Saturday, December 1, 2012

Manga Review: Grand Guignol Orchestra, Volume 2, by Kaori Yuki

              Rating (Out of 5): ~3

Publisher: VIZ Media (Shojo Beat)
Volumes: 5

Goodreads Synopsis:

Reads R to L (Japanese Style) T+ audience.

Lucille is loving heading up the traveling Royal Orchestra roving from town to town entertaining the masses and making money. But now he and his Orchestra have met their match: people infected with the Guignol Virus, turnings them into zombie dolls intent on killing all humans!
Now that Lucille and the musicians know what they are up against (the zombie-esque Guignols!), they have to figure out how to stop them! Kaori Yuki's new epic adventure offers up not one but two new storylines to savor with "The Queen and the Jester" and the title story, "TragÉdie Lyrique." Is the orchestra any closer to stopping the Guignol infestation?

Available on Amazon.

Review:

I remember liking the first volume of this quite a bit, and wanting to know more about the characters, but this volume was not all that exciting or good for me. Maybe it’s because I waited so long to read it, but I’m not as excited for it as before. I still plan to finish the series, since there are only five books, and I love Kaori Yuki, but it might take me a while.
There’s quite a bit of violence and killing of zombies (among others) in this book, but that’s not a surprise, since this is a zombie manga. Also, Yuki usually has some violent things happening in her books.
In the first two chapters, we see some of Lucille’s (the vocalist’s) past. He had two friends when he was little, but there was some kind of spat that they have not moved on from. And then the group is summoned to see the queen, whom they are working for. The queen is a bit crazy, and not at all happy with Lucille. Because she is his childhood friend, as is the guy working for her, who spars with Lucille, because the queen loved(loves?) Lucille, while the other guy loves her and only ever wanted her to pay attention to him. So, the queen’s a bit psychotic, and the guy should have smarted up, and there isn’t a very happy ending to this plot. Although I’m sure we’ll be seeing her again, since she did not die, and the group is still working for her.
In the last two chapters, Lucille and Eles (the actually-a-girl pianist and protagonist of the series) have to go undercover as nuns at some convent, where some suspicious things have been happening. And, yea, some pretty suspicious things happen, because the head nun and their ‘goddess’ or whatever are crazy, and they don’t like it when people question them, like Lucille and Eles have been doing. There’s a killer piano, and some hidden keys and some guy in a mask is sneaking around and watching Lucille and the group (the other two are sleeping in the car, away from the convent). The guy in the mask is, I’m pretty sure, their old pianist, and he’s upset with all of them.
The volume ends with a cliffhanger, of the masked guy holding a knife to Eles’ neck, threatening Lucille, and kind of/somewhat telling us (Eles) that Lucille is hiding things, and he plans to maybe make Eles a sacrifice in order to overthrow the queen? I’m not too clear on that, but I’m sure that it will be cleared up in the next volume. Looking forward to that, a bit.
Thinking back on the book now, I am still a bit curious about the past of the other characters, although I wasn’t while reading. This book wasn’t that bad. It was a bit messy, but Yuki tends to write books with storylines that are a little messy, and I don’t mind too much; it’s still rather interesting.
It might take a while, but I do plan on getting the next volume, and reading the rest of the series.

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