Violinist of Hameln
Violinist of Hameln (ハーメルンのバイオリン弾き) - not, as it is sometimes mistranslated, “Hameln the Violinist” - is an manga created by Watanabe Michiaki. It was published in the magazine “GanGan Comics” and went up to 37 volumes, after running for about 10 years. An anime was also made; 25 episodes long and differing in a few major ways from the manga. There was also a Super Famicom game created by Enix, and a short movie based on the manga.
Violinist of Hameln, or VoH, is an adventure fantasy story with a few twists. The basic story goes as follows: a group of adventurers are traveling North to ‘The Northern Capital’ (a.k.a Hameln) to prevent a catastrophe. The catastrophe being, more or less, the domination of the world by demons. The catch - they’re trying to do this by using music. Magical music.
The manga and the anime are radically different. The manga blends comedy and the serious story deftly, and the characters are at turns pathetic and heroic. The humour is a bit odd, and takes awhile to get used to, but as the series goes on, it tends to grow on one. The story is surprisingly original and refreshing, combining all the favoured motifs and cliches of fantasy with original twists.
Though the manga has never been translated into English, and is rather hard to find, there are a few scanlating groups on the Internet, most famously ‘Arr! Here There Be Manga” , and the active Scythe GP.
Souce: Wikipedia
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