Godchild

Manga readers with a taste for stylish, delirious melodrama will enjoy this addition to the long-running "The Cain Saga" which also includes the manga series Angel Sanctuary. Late 19th-century London society women swoon at the sight of slender, sloe-eyed young Lord Cain, Earl of Hargreaves. They don't recognize his hereditary burden of melancholy, from which he distracts himself by tracking down dangerous maniacs. He is accompanied and sometimes aided by Riff, his manservant and extremely close companion, and by his doll-like, 10-year-old half-sister, Marie, who serves as an unwitting lure for serial killers. Cain is menaced by his mad-scientist half-brother Dr. Jizabel Disraeli, assassin for a secret criminal organization founded by Cain's monstrously abusive father. The four stories in this volume are thankfully self-contained, each developing from an initially baffling mystery into a frenzy of dark revelations and derring-do, after which Cain is left cuddling Marie or gazing soulfully at Riff. Yuki's stories revel in hints of spiritual angst and kinky tendencies, reinforcing the hero's romantic alienation. Her art is lovingly detailed but dramatically cut, with startlingly odd angles and abrupt jumps from closeups to distant shots; managing to create and sustain a giddy mood in which the absurd action can be convincing and even moving. (Mar.)