ComicBookBin

Johnny Bullet
Manga
Jiu Jiu: Volume 3 manga review
By Leroy Douresseaux

January 7, 2013 - 10:50

Publisher(s): Viz Media
Writer(s): Touya Tobina, Tetsuichiro Miyaki, Annette Roman
Penciller(s): Touya Tobina
Letterer(s): James Gaubatz
ISBN: 978-1-4215-4279-9
$9.99 U.S., $12.99 CAN, £6.99 UK, 192pp, B&W, paperback


jiujiu03.jpg
Jiu Jiu Volume 3 cover image is courtesy of barnesandnoble.com

Rated “T+” for “Older Teen”

Dark Hunters” are people who hunt and slay the demons that lurk in the shadows.  Takamichi Hachioji is a teen girl born into a family of hunters, The Hachioji Clan, the largest clan of Dark Hunters.  Her family gave her a pair of half-animal/half-human wolf-pups, named Snow and Night, which she must train to be her “Jiu Jiu,” a Dark Hunter’s familiar and hunting partner.  Can she keep them on the leash?

Jiu Jiu, Vol. 3 opens on the day of the “Family Head Meeting.”  This is a meeting and social gathering of the heads of the Hunter clans and branch families.  Now, Night and Snow will meet Mika Nekozane, head of the Nekozane Clan and Takamichi’s ex-fiancé.  When Seijuro Shiratori, Takamichi’s supposed current fiancé and his partner, Ripple, a Crow Tengu, arrive old jealousies and feuds return with a fury.  As various factions question the choice of Takamichi as heir of the Hachioji Clan, ugly secrets spill out.

THE LOWDOWN:  The third volume of the Jiu Jiu manga is a return of the first volume’s edginess.  Creator Touya Tobina offers conflict and rivalries filled with bitterness and jealousy.  The “Family Head Meeting” is a gathering of back-stabbing and some face-front stabbing, as violence erupts, which makes for several juicy scenes.  Jiu Jiu is a Shojo Beat title like few others.  It is dark and a bit nasty (in terms of the innuendo and violence).  This dark treat has bite.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  Readers looking for the offbeat in Shojo Beat will find a beastly treat in Jiu Jiu.

 



© Copyright 2002-2019 by Toon Doctor Inc. - All rights Reserved. All other texts, images, characters and trademarks are copyright their respective owners. Use of material in this document (including reproduction, modification, distribution, electronic transmission or republication) without prior written permission is strictly prohibited.