Demographic: Seinen
Age: Older Teen+
Until Death Do Us Part by Hiroshi Takashige, was published in Japan in 2005, but is just now being published in English. The story follows a 12 year old orphaned girl, Haruka Toyama, who has just been kidnapped by hired agents from the company EX-SOLID. Why does a company want a little girl? Because she has precognition abilities. (Cha-Ching!) She senses that someone will be able to protect her, flies out of her kidnappers moving car and finds Mamoru Hijikata, who just so happens to be a blind assassin. Haruka begs Mamoru to protect her and he asks how long she needs protection for. “Until death do us part!” she exclaims, and so the story begins…
Mamoru has specially designed sunglasses that let him see the outlines of his surroundings, which I liked the idea of because it seemed more realistic than a blind man, kicking ass, only relying on the other 4 senses. He definitely goes out of his way to protect Haruka, and it almost seems like he’s taking some sort of past grudge or revenge on her attackers. We don’t find out anything about his past in this volume, but with his crazy sword fighting skills and quiet nature, I bet it would be pretty interesting.
There is not a short supply of action in this manga. I’d say about 75% of the volume is action, while the remaining 25% is science jabber and a teeeeny bit of story. The action shots are well drawn and I never found myself getting confused about what was going on. I did find myself glazing over the scientific explanation of things, but thankfully it doesn’t get in the way of the story. I can see this manga having a lot of potential, but the first volume left a lot to be desired, and not in the exciting way. I felt like something was missing, maybe more story? I will most likely be checking out the 2nd volume to see how things progress.
Until Death Do Us Part Volume 1 (English) was released May 29, 2012. You can purchase at it on amazon here: