Manga: Fairy Tale Battle Royale

Fairy Tale Battle Royale Vol 1
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

Kuninaka Aoba, a mercilessly bullied ninth grader, receives a magical contract that grants her greatest wish, but at what cost? Suddenly, Aoba is thrust down a rabbit hole into a strangely familiar world from children's stories?only this version comes with a dark and gruesome twist. In this Wonderland, it's kill or be killed, in a dark fairy tale fight for survival! 

I've actually been super excited for this manga because it sounded like it was going to be epic, and I can't say I'm disappointed with it! I do love fairy tales and retellings and this is going to be a brilliant twist on them! 

The opening colour page got me all excited for getting to the fairy tales and the murder and so on, then we went to Aoba's normal school life and the anticipation was real. It doesn't hit all the gruesomeness right away although the beginning did give me a slightly creepy/uh oh kind of vibe. 

This volume is quite nicely paced in my opinion, we see Aoba's every day life, and the bullying that makes her sign the contract, and then she's in Wonderland and we get to see a bit of that and what's going down there before we're back to the real world for her to start to puzzle everything out. 

I liked the art, the character designs are nice if not a style I'd usually like, but man...the art for the gruesome and creepy old Alice and the card soldiers and the settings...they're all brilliantly drawn and the character designs and art style really fits that aspect. 

I had so much intrigue with this volume, I had creepy vibes from that book as well as intrigue because what is the deal with it? Why are all the pages blank except for one or two? How do you complete the book? We get a few hints both from the volume and the synopsis but....we don't really see that element start in this volume. We do find out that Aoba and Noah are "protagonists" and it seems they may have to kill the main cast to return the story world to normal....I'm so ready for it. 

I did find the choice of characters interesting, obviously we have Alice and we do have Little Red Riding Hood but Noah's fairy tale is one of Aesops Fables that I haven't actually heard of and I was quite pleased we didn't go in with all the famous ones straight from the start. 

Aoba was a relatable character on the book nerd front, her love for Alice in Wonderland was cute and you know...we all have that one favourite book that we re-read aaaall the time! She did make me chuckle as well with the "Don't you find it odd that Red Riding Hood was packing heat?!". I don't know why, but Noah really creeped me out at the start...I think I was waiting for him to go evil and stab her in the back, but I didn't fully trust him until near to the end of the volume. He seems oddly cute but largely okay. 

Red Riding Hood presents us with another mystery towards the end of the volume and an ominous ending along with all the tweets about #DarkFairyTale....meaning all the other protagonists out there that we might meet throughout the story. 

Honestly, I really enjoyed this and I got so engrossed in it trying to figure out which setting belonged to which story and how it all worked. This volume sets everything up, shows us the characters and their situations, and shows us how Aoba at least, came to be involved in this. I'm excited for this series to continue and to get more action, meet more protagonists and fairy tale worlds and see Aoba and Noah meet in real life! This first volume does an excellent job at catching your attention and setting the stage.