I really enjoyed the first series. I've always loved the darker side of fairy tales and legends, and Munakata really strikes a good balance between intellectual and horrific. (Of course, I don't think that most of Munakata's interpretations are really the best interpretations of legends, but they are really interesting.) This second series is much like the first, but the stories are a bit more interconnected. The side characters, particularly the female side characters, like Imibe (the sister, not the brother), Isabella (the English witch), and Taki (Munakata's niece), are given more development and appear more in multiple stories. It's also a nice break from Munakata saving the day every time to have other characters help him. There's also more of a focus on Munakata's past (I hope we'll eventually see more about his family's past as well in the remaining volumes) and on his research focus of legends relating to iron metalworking in ancient times. The legends in this one are just as interesting, which is surprising because I had almost felt as though Hoshino had exhausted every legend that could possibly relate to Japan. I'm glad that this isn't the case. I'd gladly read a third or fourth Munakata series.

My jaw just dropped so hard it BOUNCED. O, happy day! This stuff is GREAT if you like mysteries, or mythology being re-worked juuuuust enough to tie it lightly to a real-world feel. The characters, plots and background set-ups are wonderful. The art well executed with a sort of standard feel, but the manga-level realism helps link the fantastic to the allllmost probable.

If you know someone who says they don't like manga but they do like Poirot, they might like this—if they can remember which direction to read!