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D.Gray-Man volume 23
Publisher: Viz Media (Shonen Jump Advanced Line)
Story and Art: Katsura Hoshino
[Previous D.Gray-Man reviews.]
Viz continues the excitement of the demon-battling tale D.Gray-Man with volume 23, as our heroes continue to pursue their search of the substance called Innocence.
The latest volume starts off a little slow with heavy dialog as multiple characters talk about the disappearance of Allen, each having their own feelings and wishes for what the outcome will be. Quickly after a lot of the chatter, it becomes clear that Johnny Gill is leaving to go look for him. As Johnny gets to the train station, things look grim as two members show up wanting to erase his memory, since it would endanger the Order to have folks leaving them while knowing all their secrets. When things look glum, suddenly Kanda crashes through the window and saves the day. With that out of the way, Kanda and Johnny Gill find themselves unlikely teamed-up with one another to search for Allen. Finally, they find Allen disguising himself as a street performing clown just in time for some great action to hit the fan.
Volume 23 is a more point A to B volume, serving as a chunk of chapters that need to exist to propel the manga from volume 22 into 24. Very dialog heavy and with a lot of character development, the action all comes at the end of the volume. That said, those action scenes are a lot of fun and provide a nice pay off for sticking through the first part of the volume. Hoshino draws a ton of nice looking art in this volume, from people talking to mentioned action scenes to even the covers, and what the book lacks in excitement is made up for by at least appealing to the eye. Being this is very much a bridge volume of sorts, if new to the series I would recommend jumping on with a previous volume and not diving in right here.
Volume 23 of D.Gray-Man is out now from Viz.
Drew McCabe
drew@comicattack.net
Review copy provided by Viz Media.