From the Back Cover:When darkness falls on the foggy streets of London, demons and monsters emerge to prey on human life. But demons aren’t the only ones prowling the streets. Two women have picked up the fight as humanity’s front line defense against the darkness--a young gun-toting nun named Sister Meg and her mysterious, eternally youthful partner Angela. Together, they have made it their life’s work to spend their nights hunting the vile demons that stalk mankind.
Introduction
I am not going to lie here, I have a soft spot for occult/religious Manga, especially when it involves cute girls with guns, and even more so when they are nuns. So it should come as no shock that when I first saw Tetragrammaton Labyrinth that I immediately picked up a copy. The cover art alone had me giddy with anticipation, as did the description on the back of the book, if only the rest of it lived up to these expectations.
Story - 4/10
Tetragrammaton Labyrinth is the story of sister Meg, a nun, and her supernatural partner Angela. The story is based is London England during the first part of the 20th Century, where apparently demons are running rampant and the Catholic church is obviously needing to train their clergy in the use of high powered weapons.
During the first volume we see them take on a pair of cases relating to the underworld and what looks like it may be the beginning of a larger overriding story arc, that's about it, and therein lies the problem.
The story, is at the same time interesting and frustrating. There is no back story given until near the end of the first volume, and even then you are left with far more questions than answers, which wouldn't be a problem if the characters were more interesting, or more well fleshed out, but sadly they aren't. Meg is the Anime stereotype nun-with-guns nothing new here it seems in the first volume, Angela on the other hand, looks like she belongs at a Goth Lolita convention and runs around cutting demons to bit with a giant scythe, sadly they just aren't that interesting.
Another point of distaste is that to this point a lot of the story [and in one glaring case character design] seems to have been lifted directly from Chrono Crusade, I would like to see something a little more original and not so overtly plagiarized.
Story takes a bigger role near the end, where we get a hint that somehow the two protagonists are linked in some way, with Angela kept alive by Meg's need for her, and I can only hope that the slow and somewhat boring pace of this first volume, along with the main story arc pick up in volume 2.
Art - 7/10
The Art in the first volume fairs better than the story, with the characters being drawn very well. I have to say its nice to see a nun who is actually dressed like a nun for the most part, rather than with cleavage exposing clothing no clergy member would be caught wearing. I found Angela a bit oddly clothed in that she would stick out like a sore thumb in any society, let alone London of the early 20th century, but these are minor nit pickings on the character designs as a whole.
I do have an issue with some of the action scenes which are framed a bit oddly at times which can lead to a "what the heck is...Oh! Its a dismembered arm!" moments. Also I found that some of the backgrounds could have been better detailed, but these are minor nitpicks overall.
Parental warning, there is a substantial amount of blood and gore in this series so far, its definitely not one for the kiddies.
There isn't an exceptional level of innovation with the art in the series, its nice to look at, but nothing ground breaking either.
Final Conclusions overall - 6/10 [Not an average]
I want to like this series, it has a lot going for it in terms of setting and possible storyline, but as of volume one its hard to recommend it as anything above an average Manga release.
+ some nice artwork, interesting setting, and
- Story is more than a little flat, some of the artwork is oddly framed, story seems to have been lifted directly from Chrono Crusade
Publisher: Seven Seas/gomanga.com
Cost USD: $11.99
Rating: 16+
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