the Comic Book Bin
On the surface, Dark Metro seems to be stuck in a formula familiar to horror fiction, in particular EC Comics and "The Twilight Zone." However, the twist ending isn’t a bad thing or seem old hat when done well, and Dark Metro keeps doing it and doing it and doing it well. Dark, dank, and extra creepy, Dark Metro has enough walking and slithering dead to give even George Romero and John Russo bad dreams. TOKYOPOP has published some twisted goth-inspired horror, but Dark Metro digs a weird grave all its own. I couldn’t put this terrifying treat down until I finished the last story, and I eagerly await Vol. 2

~Leroy Douresseaux, the Comic Book Bin
http://www.comicbookbin.com/darkmetro001.html

ComicCritique.com
I have been a fan of Asian horror films for some time now. Not just the well-known Japanese ones imported to the States like The Grudge and The Ring, but also those films being produced in Korea, Thailand, and Singapore. Their films have a level of suspense and pure chills that are often lacking in American horror films which tend to rely more on gore. However, I have rarely found this level of suspense and fright in horror Manga titles. Dark Horse’s Museum of Terror has always had a high degree of chills and there’ve been a few others. We can now add Tokyopop’s Dark Metro to the list.

Dark Metro is an anthology series that you don’t see enough in Manga but you are starting to see more and more. This debut volume presents five stories in its 200 pages and while the stories are separate, they all take place in the Tokyo underground subway stations. Underneath the city lies a dark world inhabited by malicious spirits, just waiting for an unsuspecting victim to stray too close. The stories are tied together by a mysterious young man named Seiya who tries to help those who have unwittingly entered this terrifying underworld.

The five chapters are each named after a different subway station. The opening tale, “Ginza”, is the best in the first volume. A dancer named Anna is heading home but misses the last train. Making matters even worse is that someone has locked her in the station and she’s virtually trapped. Soon Anna is on the run from a terrifying spirit who wants her soul.

In “Shibuya” an attractive woman invites a group of high school pimps to a rave party in the train station. She promises lots of her friends will be there as well. One of the boys begins receiving text messages on his cell phone, warning him to leave before it’s too late. Will he leave or will he suffer the same grisly fate that awaits his friends?

“Ikebukuro” finds Aoshima-Kun on his first day of work as a new train operator. The other operators tell him about the ghosts that haunt the subway but he thinks they are just trying to scare him… until he encounters something that causes him to doubt his own sanity.

Tokyo Calen has managed to grasp on to the feel of Asian horror films with his stories. There is some gore but largely the stories work on the strength of the setting, the suspense, and the brisk pace. He serves up five ghastly tales in the best tradition of gothic ghost stories with a modern slant. Yoshiken’s art is the perfect complement. His style is less cartoony than most Manga art and has a stronger look of realism. This book came as a pleasant surprise. If you’re looking for a solid Manga horror title, then look no further than Dark Metro!

~Tim Janson, ComicCritique.com
http://www.comiccritique.com/st/grevSt579.html

IGN
Dark Metro follows a very simple short-story mechanism, but does it so well and with such stunning artwork, it's almost infectious. The subways of Japan are actually portals to the netherworld, and if you're not careful you might find yourself swept into them, particularly if a vengeful spirit has it in for you. Fortunately there's a young man, Seiya, who knows the pitfalls of these otherworldly portals and works diligently to prevent the innocent from falling victim to them.

A good short story is difficult to craft. You're not given the multi-volume sprawl of an epic where you can pace things out at your leisure. No, in a short story you're given a set number of pages to develop character, plot, and resolution, and some writers make it look like child's play. It helps that Tokyo Calen has a really good structure built in to the stories contained in the first volume of Dark Metro, but following this structure repeatedly would have resulted in a series of progressively boring tales that simply echoed the first one. Calen gets around this by twisting the nature of each tale, sometimes giving us an evil spirit whose trying to claim the soul of someone who didn't actually wrong her, while other times telling that same story, but this time the victim truly deserves it. The end results are different each time as well. The mathematician in me wonders how many different combinations Dark Metro can provide, but the horror fan in me is hoping they can continue indefinitely if they're going to be this good.

The five stories contained in the first volume set the stage for what's sure to be a fun series for horror fans. A dancer gains the lead role when the current star mysteriously disappears (of course, the current star isn't really happy to give up the limelight). Some young gigolos find out that the nightlife may not be everything they'd hoped for. A conductor on the subway has a close encounter with a spirit that has a nasty habit of throwing himself in front of trains. A playboy discovers that killing an ex-girlfriend isn't necessarily the end of the relationship. Finally, we're treated to the origins of Seiya himself, and how he came to patrol the subways saving the innocent.

A huge part of what sold me on Dark Metro is Yoshiken's artwork. After Death Note ended, I feared I wouldn't see another book that featured someone of Obata's caliber until of course Obata put another book out (I get Hikaru No Go through Shonen Jump). While it's completely unfair to say that Yoshiken is another Obata, their styles are very similar, and it's just what I needed to fill the void in my life for crisp linework and solid detail.

There's a preview in the back of this book for Doors of Chaos and while I'm normally okay with previews, this time I found myself wishing these pages could have been devoted to another story. This first volume of Dark Metro has given the series a lot of momentum right out of the gate, and I was sorry to see it end when it might have continued a bit further. Five stories are not enough! I want more…now. This could be a sleeper hit if enough people discover it.

~A.E. Sparrow, IGN
http://comics.ign.com/articles/863/863578p1.html