Reviews for Dragon Eye, Volume 1

The average rating for Dragon Eye, Volume 1 based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-09-28 00:00:00 Mike Calhoun Ten years ago, a pandemic, known as Virus D, managed to turn both humans and beasts into creatures known as Dracules. If humankind was to survive, they needed to fight back with whatever means they had available - magic and technology joined together to create a group of warriors and investigators to combat the Dracules and keep normal people safe. This group is known as VIUS. Leila Mikami lost her parents to a Dracule, and has vowed revenge. Unfortunately, the Dracule who killed her parents is very strong, and she will need a Dragon Eye to combat it. She decides to join VIUS to aid her in both her search for the Dracule, but also for the Dragon Eye. On her initial testing session, she is paired with a young man, Issa Kazuma, and while they face Dracules, she discovers he is in possession of a Dragon's Eye, embedded in the center of his forehead and only activated when he strokes the cross-shaped scar there. She finds out that Issa is the captain of a VIUS squad known as Squad Zero, and she (and a dog) are the only other members. The first actual mission of Squad Zero involves Issa borrowing two other members from other squads, Sosei Yukimura and Hyuga. While Hyuga isn't much help (being part of investigations), Sosei is an excellent swordsman, though he has his own agenda, much like Leila, and has plans for his sojourn with Squad Zero that could wind up in someone's death. The art style in this manga is very clean, and it's easy to tell the characters apart, even in the midst of battle. For a shounen manga, there isn't really all that much fanservice, even if Leila does wear a rather impractical tutu-style miniskirt for her fighting uniform (I have seen worse). The battles don't take up the entire storyline, and there are hints that there are more secrets to be revealed, making this an enjoyable read.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-05-28 00:00:00 Claude Mathess I really liked the first two volumes. I particularly like the characters, particularly Issa Kazuma and Sosei Yukimura, but what started off as a strong, Bleach-like title (just think of Dracules as Hollows and you're all set) has a lot of weaknesses. The first two volumes were great. By the third volume it had become really obvious that the plot was moving at 90mph with no signs of slowing down. It feels very rushed, and a lot of new characters are introduced with no real purpose in the story. The last thing that really spurned my hopes for this series was the entire lack of subtlety in volume 3. It's cool to find out more about our mysterious Squad Zero captain, but the way it was done was so cringe-worthy. I wished they could have revealed things more suddenly, more shockingly. As it was, it was like, "oh so that's why he's the way he is." And then moving on... Still worth a read though.