Spiral: ~Suiri no Kizuna~

Spiral: ~Suiri no Kizuna~ is an anime and manga series that follows high school student Ayumu Narumi. A boy genius who is trying to solve the mystery of his brother, Kiyotaka Narumi's, disappearance only to discover a much larger conspiracy along the way. Ayumu learns his brother was pursuing the Mystery of the Blade Children.

The Blade Children are a group of children from all over the world born from one man who fashioned himself to be a modern day devil. The children all bare similarities, eyes with pupils that are slits like a cat, and a missing rib. The children are hunted because they are considered to be time bombs who will one day turn against those they care for a give into their natural instinct to kill those around them.

Ayumu learns that these children expect him to save them. To prove that he can he is forced to face a series of deadly challenges and learn the secrets of his own past along the way.

Spiral: Elaiv

Spiral Elaiv (pronounced Alive) was written as a prequel to Spiral: ~Suiri no Kizuna~. It takes place before Kiyotaka Narumi's disappearance. The series follows a young girl by the name of Imari and her crush, Shirou Sawamura as she tries to discover the reason why those around them are being killed.

Like Suiri no Kizuna, Elaiv delves into the mystery of the blade children and what happens when one of the blade children have their killer instinct is triggered. It features a number of characters from the original series including all of the major blade children and the Narumi family.

Spiral: Elaiv is missing one thing, Hizumi. As Hizumi is the subject of this shrine we won't be covering Elaiv outside of how it relates to the events of Suiri no Kizuna.

The Creators

Spiral is written by Kyo Shirodaira, a vetran who previously wrote Vampire Juujikai (The Record of a Fallen Vampire) which was released alongside illustrator Yuki Kimura and followed his run of Spiral with a series called Zetsuen no Tenpestuto (Blast of Tempest) which was illustrated by Arihide Sano and Ren Saizaki. Spiral is his most successful work and has earned him international recognition as a manga-ka.

Eita Mizuno his behind the art of Spiral. He released several artbooks about Spiral and its characters as well as a large amount of merchandise. His designs bring life to the unique characteristics of the Blade Children to life.

Publication

Spiral began its run in Monthly Shonen GanGan, a magazine known for popular series such as Soul Eater and Full Metal Alchemist. It ran from 2001-2005 and was compiled into a 15 volume manga which was published in the United States by Yen Press.

It also was the subject of an anime spinoff that was brought to the U.S. by Funimation in 2003. The anime ran for only 25 episodes (though there are rumors it was cut short from 50) and concludes abruptly with several lose ends.