D.Gray-man

D.Gray-man (ディー・グレイマン, Dī Gureiman) is an ongoing Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Katsura Hoshino. The series tells the story of a boy named Allen Walker, a member of an organization of Exorcists who makes use of an ancient substance called Innocence to combat theMillennium Earl and his demonic army of akuma. Many characters and their designs were adapted from some ofKatsura Hoshino's previous works and drafts, such as Zone, and Continue, and her assistants.

The manga began serialization in 2004 in the Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine, published by Shueisha under their Jump Comics imprint, and to date, 18 collected volumes have been released. It is currently slated to make the transition from weekly to monthly series in November 2009, when it begins serialization in Jump Square. There is also a spin-off novel series titled D.Gray-man Reverse, authored by Kaya Kizaki, that explores the history of various characters. As of August 4, 2009, Viz Media has released the first fourteen volumes in the United States. The manga has also been adapted into a 103 episode anime series that aired from October 3, 2006 to September 30, 2008 in Japan. Video games, a card game, and other assorted media have been released based on the series.

Plot
Set in England during the end of a fictional nineteenth century,D.Gray-man mostly centers around 15-year-old Allen Walker. In his childhood Allen was abandoned by his parents due to a 'deformed' left arm and was adopted by a traveling clown called Mana Walker. At some moment Mana died and Allen was approached by a person named Millennium Earl, who offered to revive Mana. The Earl revives him but Mana reappears as a machine called an akuma (アクマ, lit. demon?) that is ordered by the Millennium Earl to kill him and take on his skin, as akuma do. During that moment Allen is gifted with the ability to control his left hand and turn it into an anti-akuma weapon because of a substance called Innocence is embedded in it and against his will, kills Mana. Before Mana dies, he curses Allen's left eye, which later gives him the ability to see the souls of akuma. After that Allen discovers that the Millennium Earl tries to trick those who have lost loved ones to turn their dead souls into akuma and decides to train himself in order to stop him. Soon after this he becomes the apprentice of General Cross, an Exorcist of the Black Order, a secretive organization which aims to stop the plan set in motion by the Millennium Earl and to save the souls trapped as akuma. However, the Earl has raised an army of akuma, created by taking advantage of grief over one's misfortune, and summons the direct descendants of Noah himself, the Noah Clan, to aid him in his second attempt. Because of the akuma's ability to wear a human's skin, they are nearly undetectable by any human. Allen proves to be a powerful asset as his 'cursed' left eye is able to detect the trapped souls within an akuma. Other Exorcists frequently assisting him are Yu Kanda, Lenalee Lee, and Lavi.