Taimashin: The Red Spider Exorcist Volume 1

A young woman in Korea is pursued by monsters and protected by a handsome, mysterious magician. Is it a horror story? A fantasy? A supernatural romance? A psychological thriller where the line between dream and reality blurs? A T&A seinen manga where women’s shirts periodically explode off their bodies?

Taimashin is all these and more. Every page boasts something eye-popping, whether it's a rotting zombie, a super-powered dominatrix, a sexy man in Heian period costume, or cleavage. Maybe Taimashin needs focus, but at least it’s got something for everyone.

While reviewing an original English language (OEL) manga called Dark Hunters, I criticized the comic for front-loading the exposition. Instead of action, we got characters standing around trying to explain the convoluted dark-fantasy-romance plot. Taimashincircumvents this problem. Oh, it's got a convoluted dark-fantasy-romance plot. It just doesn't bother to explain it.

That's kind of refreshing. All through the first volume of Taimashin, heroine Megumi, a Japanese woman working an office job in Korea, flees from superhuman attackers who can assume monstrous animal forms, led by a sexy woman who transforms into a giant bat. Megumi is rescued by Gyouanja, an old woman who keeps coming back from the dead, and Fujiwara, a genteel Noh performer and exorcist with spider powers. Fujiwara promises to protect Megumi, and he's as good as his word, materializing by her side whether she's attacked at her office, on vacation, or in her dreams.

Whose are these supernatural warriors? Why are they fighting each other? Why is Megumi important to them? Where did Fujiwara come from and how did he get to be so awesome? What's up with Megumi's shifty boyfriend? Is there any reason for this story to be set in Korea? Don't expect answers in Volume One, or possibly in any volume to follow. Writer Hideyuki Kikuchi doesn't always bother to make it clear whether something is really happening - Megumi shuttles back and forth between reality and dreams - let alone what it means.

But you can't say the comic doesn't deliver. In the first volume alone you've got black magic, white magic, violent battles, transforming monsters, zombie hordes, naked boobs, women sexually assaulted by snakes, and major romantic tension between the handsome, stoic Fujiwara and the wide-eyed Megumi, who spends most of the manga just as confused as the reader. So what if it doesn't always make a lot of sense?

Shin Yong-Gwan's art has a nicely polished, photorealistic seinen manga look, although at times his faces are stiff and lack emotion; see, for example, almost any time Megumi is supposed to look frightened. Speaking of Megumi, any damsel in distress who has the line, "It takes more than a dozen cans of beer to get me drunk," can't be a total wash. Taimashin is one long string of disconnected nonsense, but it works damn hard to keep you reading.

Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.