I read Sanctify!!!
Summary:
Lance Hunter is a disgruntled exorcist working undercover in the city of London. While he is looking for a career change, the police comes knocking with a new case: a series of gruesome supernatural murders. He meets a cop named William Gilbert at the crime scene. He is usually helpful and shows a common interest in looking after Lance. But William Gilbert, seems to be hiding something. He approaches Lance with clear intent, and harbors twisted determination and desire towards him.
Well, where to start? I had been eyeing this title for a long time, trying to find info online or a sample longer than one chapter but I found nothing. Every once in a while, the temptation would come back and I repeated the same process just to stop before buying anything because it was too expensive. Well, this time, I bought it!
The edition was very pretty, here are some pictures.
I give it a 6.5 out of 10, I did like it, specially the last volume, but I had some little issues here and there that didn't make it my favorite book ever, but most of it can be explained by this being the first published book of the creator team.
It's a nice story but it's not hard to know where it's going or the kind of plot twists it'll have, it also gives you many clues so it's more like you read it to confirm your suspicions than to be surprised by it. That said, it's not necesarily bad that it gives you clues, it's terrible when a story has a random unexpected and disconected end because it never gave you clues that lead to it *cough*kado:therightanswer*cough*.
Related to this, it reads more like a movie storyboard than a normal manga, more than focusing on the text, it focuses on the scenes; big panels, some that could take a full page (or 2!), some detailed sequences, some (great!) jumpscare moments that cleverly used the book format on their favor... and the last book is pretty much a movie sequence that you can't stop reading until it ends! it really absorbs you and won't let you go (reason I went to sleep at 2am! LOL I started reading volume 3 as I did with the other two, expecting to read 1 or 2 chapters and leave the rest for next day... but when I noticed that that would just ruin it, I had to keep reading! XD)
Being about an exorcist of course it includes monsters, gore, violence and religious symbolisms!
I wish it was a bit longer, maybe just 10 more pages per volume to give more time to develope the characters, but even in the short time we have to meet them, you fully get their "vibe", their motivations and their way of seeing life. Did I say that I have a crush on Lance, the protagonist? well, yes, I have! XD his kissable pouty lips and very tired eyes made me fell hard! XD you know I like tired boys like Naofumi (from Shield Hero)! XD Even though he has an unhealthy life-style, he still has an innocent aura, I don't know if that was on purpose but that's what I felt, just look at him...
*ejem* *cough cough*
The art is pretty, with gorgeous ikemen, kinda leaning on the semi-realistic style (but just a bit!). Detailed for monsters and action scenes and not so much for everyday backgrounds (personally, I don't really care about backgrounds, I always focus on the characters and story, the lamp behind them it's not important :P). But I do have one complaint: the overuse of "eraser/white airbrush", at some points, the drawings were so faded that I had to check if it was a misprint fault, comparing other nearby lines to the faded ones and nope, it was something from the original drawing... I understand the artist did it to show "light" but that kind of trick works for colored drawings, not for B&W ones and that really distracted me and affected my enjoyment of the first two books... this doesn't happen in book 3 though. (For what I've read, you can show an area is receiving light just by making the lines thiner, not by airbrushing thick lines). Here are some examples of what I mean...
Now let's get to the romance... or not! :P is there a love story? yes! is there romance? I'd say no. If you expect holding hands, kisses, blushes and flirting... those are not here! BUT we do get very spicy and very uncensored scenes as bonus gift stories, those can be considered fiction inside fiction, so they don't affect the main story in any way (though they are good to get to know one of the characters a bit better). Some people will get upset with those, you can imagine why, but seriously, you can skip them! fiction inside fiction can't get any more fictional!!! LOL XD
Do I think they were a good addition to the story? after reading the whole story, yes! they do make sense.
Do I think they were a good addition to the story, big spoliers version? yes, because...[Spoiler (click to open)]it shows you the influence of darkness in Gil. Gil's love for Lucian was pure, they never slept together, they only kissed because they were still young and influenced by their religious education that told them this was a sin. Darkness influence in Gil transformed that love into lust, a lust that was driving him crazy, it's on brand that a demonic version of Gil would want to get his way with Lucian in an unholy way, since god didn't help them. Lucian and Gil didn't even have the time to take their relationship to the next level, they were robbed of that chance. This is not the way young and happy Gil would have wanted to do it, this is the way a frustrated, angry and revenge seeker Gil would want to do it T-T
Oh! by the way, it reads from left to right!!! little detail I forgot to tell ^^U
So, will I resell it as I said I would if I didn't like it? no way! it's a keeper! and it's also a refreshing adition to my collection, it feels different than normal manga so it's a nice palate cleanser. It's also a quick read, as I said before, it doesn't have a lot of text and relies mostly in the art and flowing of scenes, it's like a movie, so it will be nice to reread later.
Will I buy future works by this manga team? probably yes, this was a good start, experience will make them better, if this manga was a 6.5, next one can only be higher.
Do I still think this was expensive? considering the actual prices of Bookdepository for my country, no. I paid $20 for each volume (locally) of Sanctify, the same I'll have to pay for the manga Only the Flower knows 2 on BD, but there's a hug difference in quality: This edition is larger than a normal manga, uses white paper, has dustcover with the title in gold finish and includes 6-8 color pages per volume while Juné's Only the Flower Knows is your regular U.S. edition, normal sized, grey newspaper-like pages, only one color page, no dust cover... for the same price, I got a lot more with Sanctify. I guess nobody in the U.S. would buy your regular Viz/June/Sublime manga for $20, I wouldn't either if I could, but that's the only option I have.
Well, here are some more pictures showing this edition's pretty details~
