by Cypher-Khan on April 17th, 2005, 7:12am

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User rating of this review - 4.83 out of 5
Story/Plot - 3 out of 5
Characters - 4 out of 5
Drawing Style - 5 out of 5
Enjoyment - 4 out of 5
Overall - 4 out of 5

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Mangaka; Kotegawa Yua

Plot/Story

Years earlier an extremist cult called the Kakusei group was split internally. The reason why isn’t really known; however, during this time a few of the children were spirited away by other members.

These three children, Anna, Yuri and Mitsuba are the three children and they are now between 16 and 17 years of age. While trying to bury the body of his mother Yuri is approached by a strange girl who offers to help him.

That is… if he helps promises to be her "parent killing assistant"

Characters

Anna; Anna is one crazy bitch. There are no two ways around it. She kills without hesitation or remorse and she has intimate knowledge of how to dispose of a corpse. "I smashed out all her teeth, rasped off all her fingertips and crushed her face too..." I think it’s fairly safe to say that she’s a little less than sane.

Yuri; Yuri is actually a nice guy. Unfortunately for him he falls for the wrong girl. Forced by his mother to take all kinds of classes and lessons he had led a restricted life... that is, until his mother died and he met Anna. Then the restrictions were gone and Yuri entered a life of murder.

Mitsuba; He's stronger and meaner than Yuri... but he ends up being a horribly minor character. He’s not a bad guy; he cares for his family and friends. He joins up with Anna after being attacked by the Kakusei group.

Moe; A doctor who used to be a member of the Kakusei group. He escaped with Anna. His first scene in the manga is a little disturbing.

The Pastor; Like Moe, he was a member of the Kakusei; like Moe, he left. Despite being a churchman he has a gun collection to put an army to shame. He claims that criminals that have seen the light leave the weapons... he's lying.

Drawing Style

As I mentioned in the Arcana review; Kotegawa Yua has an odd kind of style. One minute heads are exploding, necks are being slit, scissors are being used to do things that look *very* uncomfortable and the next minute faces go all chibi-like and the dialogue is supposed to be amusing (half the time it actually is).

But; despite the odd contrast the art is beautiful. Character designs are appealing and the hair and eyes especially are finely detailed.

Enjoyment

If extreme violence and super-deformed chibi-ness all in the one manga is your thing then read Anne Freaks.

If you are after a dark manga about killing then I still recommend reading this one. The chibi scenes don’t really detract from the violence.

But it’s an enjoyable manga... just... violent.

Overall

Anne Freaks doesn’t really have the greatest story, and they only have four volumes to get through it. But it ends up without too many issues. I’m sure that if the mangaka had had even just an extra two volumes it would have been fleshed out a little better. Mitsuba, while he pledges his support to Anna ends up doing almost nothing. It was a misuse of his character because he had the potential to do things.

Still; both Moe and The Pastor are given back-story and these two characters occasionally steal the spotlight.

Anna and Yuri are developed the most of all and I like the way their relationship changed through the manga. Yuri has no spine... this is clear throughout the manga, he's nothing without Anna; but she doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave him.

His choice at the end amused me... because despite his body count; he's still a really nice guy.

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