One day you find yourself finding a book called Noss and Zakuro Vol. 1 by Rariatto. It is just a few words on the screen but you find yourself interested. Until you are not. Then later it comes up again. But again, only a brief interest happened. This repeated itself several times before you found yourself interlibrary loan requesting it. Only to learn that your local library had it most of that time to begin with.
So you request it and a few days later you find yourself reading it. As it looks like it will be a light, fun read and that is what you need after the heavy stuff you read/are also reading. And it turns out to be a fun dark comedy that has its moments, but sometimes feels disjointed. With that said, I am looking forward to volume two, as I became attached to these characters. Noss is a vampire who fits the typical model: slim, sexy, slinky, a real Morticia Addams with fangs and does not like the taste of human blood. So, instead she drinks some other kinds in a juice box format. She has become the adopted mother to a super cute, young-looking vampire girl (who we learn is a teen, but mentally is anywhere between kindergarten to middle school). This young lady, also a vampire, has a trick of being able to go outside in the sun without issues. There are several other characters (some good, some bad, some I am not sure of but one of which I think might have the answer to why Zakuro can go out into the sun) and we just have several stories that link together but are also oddly separate. It looks as if the “chapters” were first printed as solo comics and now collected.
There are manga illustrations that are mostly black and white that really set the mood. The first chapter has colored illustrations, which I would have preferred throughout the collection, but I understand why they were not. We see our characters who, though they act “human” are vampires, so there is talk of blood but not anything drastic is shown. One of the characters we see is a Living Doll that is “spooky” (sharp teeth!) and a human that has “Frankenstein monster” bolts on top of her head. It is only when Noss does go full on vampire that anything is really creepy. I was shocked as up to that point it was mostly sweet.
It is not for everyone, but if you like comedy with a little edge it works well.