Alive v.1

Another comic I pretty much just selected at random, because the artwork (by Adachitoka) on its surface, looked sort of interesting - but unfortunately when I actually sat down to read the thing and look at it more closely, the art's overall generic quality became much more apparent. Functional doesn't mean bad, just the studied competence on display here (and honestly in LOTS of the manga appearing lately in English that I've come across) can seem uninspired and too by the numbers to really keep somebody looking at it interested.

What does actually make this first volume of Alive kind of interesting, is the mystery of the story (by Tadashi Kawashima). A wave of 100,000 suicides sweeps the globe in the course of one week. We are introduced to at least several characters who seem to have some sort of paranormal powers that may or not be related to the suicidal outbreaks. The bulk of the tale is shown through the eyes of a small group of teenagers, with lots of playful weird humorous asides and over the top emoting. Since in this first volume all the plot provides are hints at the truth about what is going on (similar to the way the TV show Lost parcels out "the truth" in small bits, for instance), I did find that mystery aspect sort of drawing me in, but not quite enough to convince me to pick up volume two, I don't think.