Crescent Moon

by Haruko Iida | Graphic Novels |
ISBN: 1417683899 Global Overview for this book
Registered by Moonplanet of Middelburg, Zeeland Netherlands on 1/6/2023
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1 journaler for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by Moonplanet from Middelburg, Zeeland Netherlands on Friday, January 6, 2023
(I took care to give no obvious spoilers about the story)

Title: Crescent Moon vol. 1 (on Librarything, Goodreads)
Original title: 未完の月1
Author: Haruko Iida (飯田晴子)
Translator: Nan Rymer
Illustrator: Haruko Iida (飯田晴子)
Language: English, original Japanese
Series: Crescent Moon 1/6
Format of publication: paperback, right-to-left
Number of pages: 186
Publisher: Tokyopop
Year published: original Japanese 2000, my edition 2004 (first English edition)
ISBN number: 1591827922
Topics: moon-related powers, monsters, fantasy
Reason for reading: I found book 1 and 2 of this series in a Little Free Library.
Recommended: Not really.
Target age group: 13+
Buy / Borrow / Bypass: Bypass.

Short summary:
Mahiru brings good luck to someone else if she touches them, but she doesn't have much luck herself. She dreams an odd dream about a princess and a demon each month, which is soon explained when she encounters a group of demons. They ask her to help them steal back the "Teardrops of the Moon", because those belong to them.
Mahiru helps them, because she has started to sympathize with the demons.

Back cover text:
Mahiru Shiraishi has an uncanny ability to bring good luck to everyone she touches—except herself. She's constantly haunted by a recurring nightmare that ushers her to a dreamworld. There, she encounters a tribe of demons—a werewolf, vampire, fox and bat—called the Lunar Race. Destiny calls when they need her help to recover their source of power, the stolen "Teardrops of the Moon". In this fantasy adventure, Mahiru must battle the rage between the human race and the Lunar Race, whose powers are awakened by the dark side of the moon.

Comments on the back cover text:
She doesn't go to a dreamworld, the demons are in the real world.

First page:
A girl (Mahiru) is sitting against a wall. A man/boy is looking at her, saying: "It's not pain and suffering that I wish for you...
...it's death."

Comments on the first page:
It's a confusing page, as Mahiru is just swimming at school on the next page, and this scene doesn't seem to appear later in this volume either.

Review:
Story:
I liked the main character, Mahiru. She likes swimming, she gets nervous when she discovers all those demons following her in daily life (and has trouble accepting her new reality), but she also wants to help them because she's just so nice.

The demons can transform into humans (they live most of their life in human form), and for some of them it wasn't clear what kind of demon they were until it was literally mentioned. There was a big fight, but unfortunately the demons didn't really get a chance to show off their specific powers. Only for some of them, we saw things they can do, but it's not the clearest manga in that aspect.
Still, the demons don't seem trustworthy and may just use Mahiru for their own purposes, though of course she seems to think they're actually nice. And she just helps them steal something that was supposedly stolen from the demons... without asking why.

At the end, Mahiru is going to move in with the monsters and she accepts it way too easily - she doesn't even talk about it with her parents... This sounds more like an abduction!

Writing style:
I think the English translation unfortunately loses some things that were nice in the Japanese version, like the characters' names based on the kanji used in the words for phases of the moon. The author's explanation about this, doesn't make much sense in English if you don't know Japanese and/or the related kanji (as this English edition only shows the words in romaji).

This manga (as seems to be common in Tokyopop-published manga) also uses a very small font quite often. Some parts of the story, especially the old legends/stories/songs, are written in a font that is sometimes not very easy to read.
The most irritating thing, however, was that some text was printed too close to the middle of the book, so it couldn't really be read easily (and that text was also in a very small font).

Aside from those complaints, the story was easy to follow.

Spelling errors/typos:
- page 68:
...I recommend the three us stay close by her side to protect her. =
...I recommend the three of us stay close by her side to protect her.

Art:
I don't like the drawing style. The characters have very large, round eyes that take up a lot of space in the faces and the eyes often look quite empty as well (just black and white circles). For the demons it's okay, but it makes the humans look not-so-human either.
Colouring-wise, it's also a very dark manga. Mahiru's hair is white, but for the rest, a lot of (dark) greys are used.
The artist also uses a lot of movement lines. Most of the time it's clear what's happening, though there are some confusing images.

Cover:
The cover has a drawing of Mahiru (blonde hair) and one of the demons (not immediately recognizable) in a six-pointed star with some weird symbols around it. The drawing on the cover is actually prettier than the art inside the book.

Conclusion:
The premise of the story is interesting, but maybe this story would have worked better as a novel, so the author would've been able to dive deeper into each character's backstory and explain their demon powers better.

Rereadability:
No.


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