Plot/Story

Darren Shan is a manga adaptation of twelve books that belong to the famous Darren Shan Saga. In the books and in its manga version, we learn the story of the young boy Darren Shan, who gets transformed into a half vampire after attending to a Freak Show. Not only having to deal with his transformation, his new powers, and the fact that he can't even live with his family anymore, he gets to fight the vampaneze, face deadly trials, and confront his mortal enemy - Steve, an old friend who felt betrayed when Darren left him.

With an epic battle, amazing plot twists and a huge cast of characters, no wonder why the story was turned into a manga.

Characters

Darren Shan counts with a giant cast of unique characters - and when I say unique, I mean it. Seeing that we have a freak show, you can be sure to find bearded women, snake boys, vampires, werewolves, spiders, Tiny People, Destiny himself, and even, god forbid, humans!

All characters have their own flaws, nobody is perfect, and even the characters considered 'evil' are shown to be someone else with different views, people (or vampires, or vampaneze, or....) who can suffer too and who fight for what they believe in. No way they're bidimensional. Even being weird, or different, or belonging to another race or species, they are, well, humanized. Even the 'good' ones make mistakes, and it's impossible not to love every single one of them.

Drawing Style

Ahh, the drawing style. Many fans were disappointed with it, and I confess I was, too, at first. No way the characters were how we imagined, I'm pretty sure everyone, when reading a book, tends to picture the characters to be beautiful or cute. In japanese fanarts made before the manga was published, you can see dozens of bishounen and bishoujo.

Darren Shan, being a shounen manga, was drawn quite, uh, roughly. There's not many details, the art is simple, quite childish. I see how people got unhappy. Fact is, they forget Darren Shan, the book, was aimed at children and teenagers. They also forgot how the characters are supposed to be weird and scary, not beautiful.

The art compliments the mood of the story perfectly. Mr. Tall, Mr. Tiny, Mr. Crepsley - they're all funny looking. Even Darren and Steve aren't, well, pretty. Darren is quite normal looking (He shouldn't be cute - he is a normal kid, who suddenly got special. Making him all adorable would be missing the point) and Steve is often making scary faces, which is totally reasonable, seeing how he's the main antagonist. The only character truly handsome is the one whose beauty was mentioned in the book: Kurda, who became quite a bishounen.

But I'm amazed at how the art turned out to be later. Steve became quite, uh, dangerously hot. And Darren finally begun to look cute.

Still, giving a three because the art could really improve. It tends to look sort of a, how I say that, 'default' art for shounen manga, resembling a lot of other artists. I don't exactely find it unique like it should be for a manga like Darren Shan. It was going it the right way, and I agree with the interpretation of the characters and events. It's scary, cute, simple, but somehow... It lacks a 'something more'.

Enjoyment

I can't wait for more on this. As a fan of the original books, seeing it rendered in manga made me super happy. Of course, if you read the books, you maybe won't enjoy as much, since everyone has its own interpretations on the events and characters, and a manga version can't make them exactely how you imagine them to be.

Overall

Darren Shan is one (or better, twelve) books that always got me under the impression that it was published in the wrong media: vampires, vampaneze, epic battles, lots of characters, thousands of plot twists, misteries, action&adventures non-stop, a straight forward style of writing that priorized the action and the happenings and that begged for something visual to accompany it - it all resembled more a comic to me than a book. When it was turned into a manga, I could see that my mind wasn't kidding me when I read the books and imagined the characters in anime style, with lots of SFX flowing around and weird japanese accents.

Every fan should give it a try, even if the art bothers you at first. I assure you - it gets better. And the hotness that is Kurda makes it up hehe, erm, just kidding. Nobody should be afraid of how the art turned out to be, or if the plot is going to suffer alterations and such. How much books created outside japan were turned into manga? I assure you everyone involved into the creation of a Darren Shan manga was competent.

People who don't know the book should try too, and pick up the books to read later. Anyone who loves a good story with solid plot should read it, be it manga or book.