Rating: WARTY!
This graphic novel made little sense. It looked interesting in the library from a quick flick through, but when I got it home and sat down to read it, it didn't hold up well, and was not very entertaining, although the artwork by Jim Fern and coloring by José Villarrubia were not bad. It's the tired trope of split twins, with nothing really new or original added.
It's supposedly set in Japan, but the characters nearly all look curiously western. It begins when someone makes a wish to the house spirits for a healthy child without knowing that the mom was bearing twins. The spirit who took the wish returns later after the children have grown some, to claim the daughter for his own. This spirit has power over knives, which makes for some excessive gore here and there. This is one story in which the pet dog doesn't make a miraculous escape.
From that point on, the story is a mess. There are claims not only on the daughter, but also on the son, from another quarter. There is a bizarre incident at the Nagasaki shrine which is also a portal to the other world. I managed to finish this volume and since I had taken two other volumes from the library (The Sword in the Soul and A Map of Midnight), I began on the next one, but I found I could not continue reading it very far. The story seemed to dwell on gore and obscurity and appeared to be going nowhere, so I gave up. I can't recommend this based on what I read.
