Madness Volume 2 cover image

Romance/Action; Rated “M” for “Mature”

Set in the year 3000 A.D, Madness follows a group of people known as “the artisans of murder” and the young priest, Irishew Luke Izaya, who loves their leader, Kyo.  In this distant future, violence rules over a wild wasteland, and the most ruthless practitioners of violence are Madness.

As Madness, Vol. 2 opens, Izaya, Kyo, Oboro (Kyo’s brother), and an injured Miyabi (Kyo’s former lover) return to their former base where an old acquaintance, Kai, is a doctor.  With assassins led by Kyo’s longtime enemy, Sae, on their trail, Kyo learns the truth about Madness and their purpose in the world.  This truth will strike at the core of Izaya’s cherished religious beliefs.

THE LOWDOWN:  With its bloody violence, Madness is more seinen manga (comics for adult men) than yaoi manga.  Some of this action violence, the amount of which exceeds the romance, is nicely done.  The big reveal is both surprising and surprisingly well done.

The passionate lovemaking makes a brief but fiery appearance in this volume’s closing pages.  The grabbing, moaning and panting, sweating, and general screams of passion are a welcomed after-dinner mint to neutralize the taste of violence and mayhem.  Readers who want a romance will find it here, but not in the usual way.  Madness is a love story the way James Cameron’s Avatar is a love story; amidst all the violence, there is indeed a story of two people falling in love.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  Fans of yaoi manga with unusual sci-fi/fantasy settings will like Madness.

B+

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