I'm not a fan of horror manga that's for sure. mostly because of the violence. although my problem is not with the violence in them. it's actually with the fact that most horror manga artists mistake horror with slasher! they think so much about the details in drawing gory scenes that they kind of forget there is a story to tell; that the dialogues are so weak and the characters are not deep at all. and more importantly, there's no mystery. i mean, how could you have horror and not mystery?!!
well, guess what. "Magical girl" got as far away as possible from that. it's got all the human butchering and detailed gory scenes; yet also some huge mysteries, character depth and good (good, not great. it's a manga after all) dialogues.
it's obvious that every character has a background and i'm looking forward to read about them in vol.2.
There were only two things i felt kinda let down by.
i so Loved the fact that the first "magical" girl was cute. i was reading it at midnight and i remember there was a moment after that class massacre i flipped the page and it showed the girl, i felt the smell of blood! mesmerized i was!
but then the other creatures became less and less cute and more and more like your usual random monsters. some of them were still kinda adorable, but i wanted all of them, much more doll-like pretty. it'd make the whole thing a lot creepier. if you're going to go against a common manga logic (cute and fluffy things are lovely, hence safe), do it properly. hugely.
sadly, "Magical girl of the end" also follows the common rule of sudden deaths which most horror mangas follow. another thing i hate about horror manga. it's totally distracting that every moment you expect someone to die. not every minute or chapter: every second! which completely ruins the change of pace in manga. i mean, they've fought and now they're resting and even some romance is happening, yet you, as a reader can't enjoy it 'cause your mind doesn't want to be tricked into it. it's like not trusting the mangaka.
it also destroys the impact of death scenes. like "well, i was expecting it, so..." if you want to have a death to happen, give hints; change the atmosphere to someone's-gonna-die one; kill some mood before it happens!
but all done and said, this is the first time i'm looking forward to a horror manga's second volume. well done Kentaro Sato san... it's magical ^___^