Among all of the genres of manga, action is indeed my number one choice... I've been looking for good battle mangas by browsing through some of the most famous ones like Katekyo Hitman Reborn, History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi and High School of Dead and this one caught my attention...

D. Gray-Man

Story

The story revolved around the battle on Earth between the Black Order and the Millennium Earl which took place at the end of a fictional nineteenth century... The Millennium Earl desired to destroy mankind using his army of Akuma, weapons created from the despair of the people who lost their loved ones... Whereas, The Black Order is an organization created to destroy the Akuma... The organization was under the order of the Vatican and they were composed by Exorcists, people who were able to fight and obliterate the Akuma... Among them was fifteen year old Allen Walker... See how Allen fight not only for survival but also to protect everything and everyone including the cruel horrifying Akuma...

Actually, the story is very complicated as it deals with many flashbacks and there are many shocking twists and turns in the plot... You really need to indulge yourselves into the story if you really want to understand what's really going on...

Drawing Style

For me, the artwork of this manga is truly an eye candy... I love it... It's clean, it's poignant and it's BEAUTIFUL... Even when the action scenes are chaotic, the beauty of the artwork still manage to impress... It's really hard to believe that the mangaka (artist), Hoshino Katsura, is actually a woman because the battle scenes were drawn with so much details... It's rare to see female mangakas drawing such high quality action manga... 

As the theme of the manga is goth, most of the scenes took place during night time... Therefore, dark themes and settings are emphasized...

What's great is, over the years, Hoshino sensei managed to improve her drawing skills to GOD level... All hail Hoshino sensei... You'll notice the improvement if you read the manga from the starting chapter until the most recent ones...

Hoshino Katsura hurt her hand twice... I'm not quite sure why and how... Because of that, her manga was on hiatus for a long time... That kinda effected the manga's popularity... 

Characters

I personally think that this manga has the best character developments I've ever seen in a long time... Most of the characters do not just receive "power ups" like most mangas... Instead, they also mature in thinking and making resolutions due to the events they had gone through... Even the antagonists are quite lovable...

Timcanpy is extremely cute... 

Adaptation of Religious Elements

Religious Christians might not be too happy reading this manga as there are so many adaptations of the religion such as the use of the cross, the names of organizations, and characters (Vatican, Noah, Innocence)...

However, those are just adaptations, not MANIPULATION... Only the names and symbols are used... Religious concepts and beliefs are not being manipulated whatsoever... I guess that's why the manga was given a green light to be published in shonen JUMP, a famous manga compilation magazine for teenagers in Japan...

Anime

I havent got the chance to watch the anime but from the good reviews it receives, I think that it must be great... Though anime lovers do admit that the anime is not as good as the manga... 

Here's a sneak peak of the anime... CROWN CLOWN!! My favorite weapon of this manga...

Weapons

Speaking of Crown Clown, I really love the weapons utilized by the characters in this manga... The Black Order (Exorcists) uses anti-Akuma weapons called Innocence... They could take forms of different kinds of weapons and some could even fuse with the user's body...