Review : D.Gray-Man.

Born with a disfigured arm and cursed by his foster father, Allen Walker is not your average protagonist. In his curse, however, lies his power. The ability to perceive akuma, dangerous unholy monsters that disguise themselves as the humans they kill, who work for the Millennium Earl and the Noah family, those forsaken by God.

Fortunately for Allen, his disfigured arm is also an anti-akuma weapon, which are called innocence. Hundreds of innocence are scattered about the world and at the right time and place can come to synchronize with certain people. These people are known as exorcists, part of the black order, a branch of the church dedicated to destroying the akumas and stopping the Millennium Earl from destroying the world.

The object of the game lies in the innocence. One out of the thousands contains "the heart" the only way to stop the Earl. On the other hand, the Earl knows that getting his hand on the heart will mean mankind has no hope. Some of the un-synchronized innocence cause strange phenomena, like giving dolls life, vampires or even make a day repeat itself over and over. Leaving it a race between the Earl's akumas and the exorcists to investigate any strange activity and acquire, or destroy the innocence.

Allen's team consists of Lenalee, a girl with innocence impowered boots, allowing her to fly and kick akuma's pretty damn hard, Kanda, a young Japanese man whose innocence lies in his samurai sword and Lavi, the older of the four, who wields a hammer that can extends and grow to any size. They fight against the akuma of various shapes and sizes, they also evolve and become much more dangerous, the Noah family, super strong human beings who are marked by stigmata on their forehead and last of all the Millenium Earl, a strange, plump, mysterious being with one purpose, to destroy the world.

The art is of a higher quality than the normal shonen battle manga, the style doesn't really stand out, but it's extremely consistant and sharp. Character designs are rather good as well, except for a few strange ones, for some reason the Earl looks like Penguin from batman. There's only really fantasy violence, the weapons used would never be mistaken for anything real and the akuma are machines, rather than creatures of fleash.

D.Gray-Man is a great fantasy battle manga with a fresh story and goth overtones. Whilst sometimes it does seem to drag out a little, like most battle manga do, it keeps the story vivid and interesting enough to read on.