Nightmare Inspector: Yumekui Kenbun, Vol. 1
Grade 7 Up–This book draws on the Japanese folkloric figure, the baku, or nightmare eater. Hiruko, a feminine-looking man in a black cape, headquarters himself at the Silver Star Tea House. He consumes no human food, living instead on the dreams he takes from his visitors. His clients include a servant boy who has nightly visions of his dead mistress, a young woman who dreams of losing a body part and a bit of her memory, and an obsessed fan who wants to save a beloved movie star from suicide. These people, and others, come to Hiruko with the hope that he will enter their subconscious thoughts and take away these bad images. He professes an interest only in the tastiness and nutritional value of the dream–as with chocolate, the darker the better–he even encourages one client to commit suicide in a dream, because death has a particularly satisfying flavor. At the end of each dream, he explains its meaning to the loyal waitress at the tea house, leaving readers to wonder if the baku has some emotion after all. Mature and detailed, the graphics resemble those of both Hajime Sawada's Orphen (ADV Manga) and Mark Crilley's Miki Falls series (HarperTeen). The folkloric elements would fit in well with a curriculum unit, while the dreams themselves, sometimes bloody and always dark, would prove interesting to graphic novel fans.–Sarah Krygier, Solano County Library, Fairfield, CACopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.