Magical Girl Dandelion, Vol. 1

Gr 8 Up–Magical girls fight dark forces in this action-filled, sometimes bloody manga. ­Tanpopo’s first memory is of her parents ­being killed by the monsters, called fiends, who inhabit her world. Shade, a fiend with a soft side, rescues her and remains by ­Tanpopo’s side as she grows up, keeping her free from harm. But when Tanpopo becomes a magical girl, their relationship shifts, as they are now on opposite sides. It’s never that simple, though, as Tanpopo discovers when she sees her grandfather turning into a tree—actually, a fiend—and learns that fiends were once human. She rescues him, but there’s still a lot going on under the surface, most of which she doesn’t understand. The art in this manga is dark and crowded, filled with shadows, sound effects, and supernatural phenomena. Among several violent scenes is Shade’s decapitation, although since it’s him, he just puts his head right back on. On the flip side, there are many moments of ­tenderness between characters, such as when Shade returns a lost teddy bear to a little girl.