Night Head Genesis by George Iida & You Higuri

Title: Night Head Genesis
Mangaka: George Iida (Story) & You Higuri (Art)
Age Group: Older Teens
Series is: Completed with 3 volumes
Volume(s) Reviewing: 1
My Rating: 3/5

Naoto and Naoya are brothers who can only depend on each other. Both with psychic abilities, they were abandoned by their parents and were tested on at a research facility. They broke free and escaped their twisted lives, living on their own for many years.

However, when Naoya sees the possible ending of the world, everything becomes much more dangerous for the brothers. Who do they trust? What should they believe? And will the world really come to an end? If so, why?

Night Head Genesis was created over a decade ago and was first adapted as a live drama before becoming an anime and manga series. You Higuri generally does the art for most stories in the mangas she has published so far. Except with her well-known yaoi style, in the manga, the brothers seemed more like lovers than siblings. You have Naoto who is short-tempered with the ability to cause havoc around him while Naoya is soft-spoken and can see into the future (they are like seme and uke respectively). I think that the mangaka is so used to drawing males that her female characters don't exactly appear as womanly. Nonetheless, Higuri's art style is concise and detailed nicely with lovely drawn leads.

I am not keen with how the manga is set up in terms of plot. It seems like everything will be revealed in the later volumes. Except it is missing that something that makes it desirable for the reader to continue. I don't like how some situations that cause confusions are left to be dealt with later. Night Head Genesis lacks the ability to be able to leave the loose threads because I was more disappointed rather than curious to go to the next volume. However, I do find that the basis of the plot is interesting. I am sure that the original story is much better than the adapted manga version. A lot of things can definitely build up within the storyline, but will it execute well in the manga is the question.

Night Head Genesis is not a bad read. I guess You Higuri's fans can check it out and see for themselves. It's not one I recommend for a manga reader to buy, but borrow it if curious and maybe you will like it more than I did.

Review copy provided by Del Rey.

Crown by Shinji Wada & You Higuri

Title: Crown
Mangaka: Shinji Wada (Story) & You Higuri (Art)
Age Group: Older Teens
Series is: Ongoing with 6 volumes
Volume(s) Reviewing: 1
My Rating: 3.5/5

Being an orphan is tough, but Mahiro doesn't let that get to her. She is working hard to make money and tries her best to ignore the cruel family that she is stuck with from her mother's side. But her life abruptly takes a 180 degree turn when her long-lost (and handsome!) older brother, Ren, comes back for her! Apparently, they are both royalty and now the evil queen who married their father is trying to get them killed!

Under the protection of her brother and his best friend, Jake, Mahiro is now living life under the covers as she must be careful with whatever she is doing. But, will the queen get her in the end?

This is honestly the first manga I bought based on a review from MangaBlog. In this series, you get the fine-line and dashing art of the popular mangaka, You Higuri, with a one-of-the-kind-story by Shinji Wada.

Mahiro is a girl who thinks the best of everyone, which was something that bothered me. If several people were hired to chase you down and kill you, you should be more careful. But Mahiro didn't seem to have that mentality, which the reader could be easily irked by. Ren is a cool brother, after all these years he came back to protect his little sister. For some reason though, it seems their relationship may go beyond sibling love. So far, nothing in the plot within volume one has indicated so but it does give off that vibe. Now I wonder if they may not be blood-related at all...

Higuri is notorious for her boys' love series and although I have never read any of them, I know because she's famous for it. So when it came to Ren's relationship with his foreign friend, Jake, it was a peculiar one. They are not on the romantic side of things but whenever Jake got mad, Ren would always seem like he was ready to pronounce his undying love for him. I was not too fond about this because Crown is definitely not a shonen-ai/yaoi manga, which makes all this extra stuff between Ren and Jake unnecessary.

I think the storyline is pretty awesome but for some reason, pairing up with Higuri did not work out so well. It is not terrible at all because her art style is lovely, but she doesn't know how to make the manga stand out because she is very used to her own area of expertise (boys' love). Although there is a lot of killing and blood, I find Crown to be on the lighter side of things. If a mangaka who is based on intense action (but comedy also) came into the project, Crown would have been much better.

Overall, Crown is a good series but something I would not run out to buy all the volumes of. But if you have it in your library, go borrow it.