Young Miss Holmes

Have you seen the links I've added along the side? As my number of reviews increases I figured I should make it easier to navigate around. Please do have a click around and tell me if you found them helpful! Anyway, it's been a while, but I'm reviewing a manga today!

I'm sure you've already worked out that the manga is connected to Sherlock Holmes, famous Consulting Detective of 221B. The manga is from the point of view of Crystal "Christie" Hope, 10 year old prodigy from a privileged family and Sherlock Holmes' niece. Having being left in the care of her maids while her parents are in India, Christie's curiosity leads her from one dangerous adventure to another. She has deduction skills greater than Watson but diminutive next Sherlock's. So Christie tries to increase her knowledge by trying to solve her Uncles cases and assist him in catching the criminal. It takes much of it's story from the original Doyle books just with added characters and some plot twists. The book starts with Sherlock solving the case of a stolen diamond when Christie comes by for a visit. This gives her a chance to show the readers her deductive powers, courageous personality and kick-ass maids. It was a perfect introduction to the story! But unfortunately  it didn't really go anywhere from there. The addition of new characters has to actually add something positive to the overall book for it to be worthwhile but Christie is just another person with skills in deduction. There is also no added plot, underlying or side! Or, at least for now, no character development. The characters introduced do not really add anything to the original book. So, yes the plot is brilliant, it's essentially Doyle, so I can't give author Kaoru Shintani any credit for it really.

I feel I can't applaud Shintani on her art either! Although Christie is dressed magnificently in every panel, her eyes are really out of proportion. Also everyone has oddly shaped heads! But she does make the manga flow nicely, so I mostly don't notice the odd heads!
Now, characters. The only thing that separates this from Doyle's book. There are three main characters added in this story. First is Christie the protagonist, or Crystal (horrible choice of name for an English lady). She has a lot of habits mimicking Sherlock but being a lady of grace she's much more graceful about it and very justice driven. But she's also extremely stubborn. She refuses to attend lessons and can't stand it when Sherlock knows something she does not. Next is her two maids: Ann-Marie and Nora. Ann-Marie is a very tight-laced and tries her best to keep Christie in check, she's your typical head maid. But she does later show that there's more to her when she has to protect Christie from a murderer. She's nimble and accurate with her twin pistols she just gets a bit carried away! Then there's Nora, complete opposite of Ann-Marie. She never got an education so she can't speak all formally like the other maids do, she also has no manners and is much too chummy with Christie. Nora is a fighter too! She always carries her Snake Tongue with her, which is a whip that is split in two at the end and Nora can control it masterfully. But that's it really, the characters are pretty much laid out for you in the first few chapters and the don't look like they'll be changing either.
But it'd be a lie if I said I don't enjoy it, it's a Doyle manga, that's pretty awesome. But that's all it is and I feel Kaoru Shintani can't take credit for that. So, as a Sherlock fan, this is a super awesome manga! But as a critic looking for talented writer/artists, there's not enough individuality in it to rate it very highly.

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