This is going to mirror the review I left for volume one, since I read both in one sitting, and it is a cohesive story arc:I was a slacker fan and didn’t pick up the first volume, which came out last year, until I saw volume two, which released this March, on the shelf. Fortunate me! I got the whole of this story arc in one sitting. The first two manga books cover the story of Kyrian of Thrace, whose story Sherrilyn initially told in Night Pleasures. Now I’m going to share why this series is a guilty pleasure of mine: the Dark-Hunter series is paranormal romance, and as such there are some lovely, juicy sex scenes in the novels. I was very curious to see how that translated into manga. I was pleasantly surprised by that aspect of the original stories being glossed over. Intimate acts are implied, Nick comments on Kyrian getting laid, but it’s nice and safe for the Teen/13+ crowd this is rated for, and only risqué when we get to see a fair bit—but obviously not too much—of the Dark Hunter Talon (whose story will be told in the next two volumes of the manga series).Joshua Hale Fialkov’s adaptation of Sherrilyn’s story works beautifully with Claudia Campos’ art, and once I remembered the right-to-left reading style of Japanese manga—it’s been a while, alright?—reading and seeing the story unfold was a pleasure. My fear of this style of art making these dreamy beefcake male characters too effeminate was unrealized; though Kyrian is very, very pretty he’s still the manly man, and seeing him as an ancient Greek general is no stretch. Acheron is the perfectly mysterious bad boy, and seeing him drawn reminded me how young he was when he stopped aging.Thank you, Sherrilyn Kenyon and Claudia Campos. I didn’t know it was possible to drool over manga-style men. Bravo! This volume of the Dark-Hunter manga, while vastly improved over the first, could still use improvement. The artwork has improved (the depiction of Artemis is quite good). The characters are more expressive. The backgrounds are less sparse and more detailed (though still overly simplistic many times). However, overall, while it is improving ... the artwork is still very novice. Hopefully, though, the upward trend will continue with future volumes.The story, while sticking quite faithfully to the original, is also still quite watered down. As I said in my review of the first volume, I do so wish they would just go for it, put in the graphic content, and slap a graphic content sticker and a celophane wrapper on it. Either that, or at least change the story a tad so that it flows better and makes more sense. This keeping the story the same while glossing over the graphic stuff (which, in some cases, is integral to the story) is annoying at best and downright confusing a worst. I mean, for example, how exactly did Kyrian's powers get drained when neither one of them ever lost any clothes? It's time they either changed the story to be more PG-13, or changed the content to be less so ... because straddling the line between the two just isn't working very well.So, once again, I have to give this 3 stars. It's better than the first ... but still a long way from good.
What do You think about The Dark-Hunters, Vol. 2 (2010)?
Another good one! I think it would be awesome if these were made into an anime. Loved it.
—addy
Love this!!! Dying to read the third and fourth volume!!!!
—Dessa7595
Continued the first Dark-Hunter story. Also fun!
—dbaume
another really good edition of the manga series
—Kball00
