Venus Versus Virus manga review

Venus Versus Virus Volume 1

By David Rasmussen
14th Sep 07
David Rasmussen avatar

Not since that weird (bleep) kid who did that movie with Bruce Willis where he said “I see dead people.” (which inspired the oh god it’ll never end endless car ad series where the even creepier kid whispers “Zoom Zoom”) has seeing dead people been as creepy as when Sumire Takahana saw dead people… I mean “Viruses”. Not the same “Viruses” as the one in that manga with the alien virus that became… wasn’t it a movie with Jamie Lee Curtis or something?

Well, forget that (I wish I could). This virus is ghosts.
However a chance discovery of a locket (which turns out to be the property of the gothic gal coming up in the next sentence) that cuts Sumire suddenly gives her the ability to see hostile (yet strangely stereotypical in appearance) ghosts (Viruses). This leads to her being saved by a rather flamboyant (and money grubbing) “Gothic Lolita-clad” (which means it’s kinda sorta maybe kinky but only after the costume has been modified… yeah, that way) monster hunting gal named Lucia Nahashia.
She saves Sumire, then promptly bills her and threatens to curse her is she doesn’t show up and pay the bill.
Sounds like a good relationship is about to begin… right?

Now that Sumire can see these hostile “viruses” she’s going to be asked to join forces with Lucia to help with the quest to stop evil viruses… and threatening her with a over half million yen bill kinda serves as good “incentive” to get Sumire to jump onto the monster hunting bandwagon.

Doesn’t help any that the first job (which puts Sumire’s friends in danger) nearly gets Sumire “killed” (as she is shot by Lucia’s normally harmless against normal humans “toy” gun) only for that shot to bring about a “change” in Sumire which sparks an “changed” personality in her which “helps” her get rid of the Virus rather easily (bloodily). Looks like the job of “virus” hunting, like the mafia, is one that (once it got it’s grip on Sumire) grabs tight and refuses to let go. Maybe the next mission will get her swinging on the whole virus hunting thing full throttle… but only you can find that out yourself.

Strangely satisfactory (despite the fact it is abit formulatic in the set up and follow through to keep Sumire in the mix), with a nice artistic style and I liked the overall feel (even if it’s yet another monster hunter slam bang title). The writing, character development (Sumire and Lucia especially as an “Odd Couple“ team), and the second mission really pull this one through for me and makes me like it more than worry about my few dislikes about the read. It is abit offkilter for being abit formulatic, and I think we’ve seen this before but it still reads nicely overall (and I hope next volume continues to be as well received as this one).
Venus Versus Virus struggles against the encroaching darkness, and gets 4 “Zoom Zoom”s out of 5.

-- David Rasmussen 14th Sep 07

source : animeboredom

clip :