Manga Review: Grand Guignol Orchestra, Volume 5, Kaori Yuki

Rating (Out of 5): ~4

Publisher: Shojo Beat (VIZ Media)

Release Date: 2011

Volumes: 5.

Spoilers?: No.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells. RightStuf.

Volume: 1. 2. 4.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Can a boy named Lucille defeat the dolls of the living dead?!

Reads R to L (Japanese Style).

Final Volume! Troubadour's Love Song Everything is finally in place for Lucille to face down the horrifying Queen Gemsilica. But unbeknownst to him, Eles switched the powerful Black Oratorio for Lucille's own blank hymnal. How can Lucille keep the queen from destroying the world with nothing but his voice to back him?

Review:

I’ve been meaning to finish this series forever. It’s one of the few Kaori Yuki series that’s fallen on the wayside for me. It just didn’t stand out, and I had a hard time remembering what had happened. It was mediocre. And so I’m surprised by how good the ending turned out to be. It was worth it, and I’m glad I stuck through to the end.

This is a zombie series; they’re invading, growing, but this orchestra knows how to calm and kill them. Only the royals are opposed to them, and there’s something more going on here.

We finally get to see real plot, meet up with the queen again, find out how this all started and what Lucille has to do with it all. And it’s a Kaori Yuki book, so of course it’s rather horrible. It’s bloody, there’s death, and a horrible reasoning behind it. It’s what you expect, and it’s well done. It’s surprising, exciting, bloody, and well-deserved.

But the most surprising part to me was the ending. Because it’s actually kind of happy? I was not expecting this, at all. But it was an actual happy ending, and I liked it. It was good and fitting, and made this even more worthwhile to read.

There was also an extra one-shot at the end, and it was surprising and intense, and also very good.

This turned out to be an excellent series, and it’s made me even more excited to read her newer books.

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.

Manga Review: Grand Guignol Orchestra, Volume 1, by Kaori Yuki

3 of 5 Stars

Publisher: Viz Media

Goodreads Synopsis:

Lucille and his orchestra encounter a town overrun with the worst kind of audience: the Living Dead! Well, not really. They’re people who have been turned into doll-like zombies. And they are definitely not a crowd to take lightly. Can a group of roving musicians use their skills to calm the beasts? Or is this curtains for the Royal Orchestra?!

Review:

[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.