Manga: Gleipnir

Gleipnir Vol 1 
Rating: 3/5
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review! 

Shuichi Kagaya an ordinary high school kid in a boring little town. But when a beautiful classmate is caught in a warehouse fire, he discovers a mysterious power: He can transform into a furry dog with an oversized revolver and a zipper down his back. He saves the girl's life, sharing his secret with her. But she's searching for the sister who killed her family, and she doesn't care how degrading it gets: She will use Shuichi to accomplish her mission... 

The opening for this is a total "WTF" moment but it uh...definitely catches your attention. Kagaya's initial narrative is certainly foreboding and intriguing. It's all quite dark and serious actually...aside from the "monster" he actually is. It's kind of hard to take that part seriously, but he's actually quite sweet and quiet though. He's obviously scared and he doesn't understand why he's like this. 

Claire is...well. He saved her life, she's blackmailing him to help her find her sister who killed her parents and she's not...the nicest. Shall we say. Which is kind of a change from the usual female MC's I suppose. She's twisted in a big way and she manages to control his monster form. Although the two of them combined together are pretty unstoppable and they do form some kind of twisted bond. 

There's a lot of action and mystery, the mystery of Claire's sister, the mystery of the girl we meet in this volume. He's not the only monster you see, and there's a bit of a showdown with her. Her backstory does provide some intrigue with the coin Claire has as well as the monster powers in general. It's a lot darker, a lot grittier and a lot more twisted and violent than I was expecting, but there's plenty of points of intrigue and while I'm not sold on the art style it does fit the story. There's also a lot of fan service, that I'm not sure I'm entirely down with to be honest. 

The end of the volume has a nice twist to it to have you anticipating the next volume because of all the questions you need answered now!