There were a couple scenes in this volume that surprised me as they felt darker than previous tales. Sure there’s been suicide and death explored a bit before but here it’s showcased in plot, and visually in the art, in a way that’s certainly much more sinister. I got that feeling from the first story inparticular.

Like many similar series, endings are never as happy as readers are led to believe, and while Nightmare Inspector has never really wowed me with much in the way of unpredictability, some of the stories still leave me with a bit of a chill. My favourite story here was one about an author who can no longer see the story in his dreams, because it’s ending actually caught me off-guard (though the first story had me on my toes for a moment as well).

Overall, however, volume three left me with many of the same feelings I had about volume one. The episodic storytelling seems a little too choppy, feeling repetitive before its time, and the recurring characters felt more like shadows in the background over fleshed out plot-elements. I really enjoyed the character development in volume two so I’m hoping that future volumes of Nightmare Inspector are able to balance the tales and characters more fluidly. In the meantime, volume three still made for a fairly entertaining read, and with a couple sharp surprises, so I still plan to continue with this gothic teahouse fantasy a while longer yet.

Review written August 21, 2008 by Lissa Pattillo.
Book purchased from independant hobby-store, The Batter’s Box

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About the Author: Lissa Pattillo

Lissa Pattillo is the owner and editor of Kuriousity.ca. Residing in Halifax, Nova Scotia she takes great joy in collecting all manners of manga genres, regretting that there's never enough time in the day to review or share them all. Along with reviews, Lissa is responsible for all the news postings to the website and works full time as a web and graphic designer.