So, how does this refurbished classic hold up?

By Kia Asamiya
UDON Entertainment, 200 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)

Score: B

In the year 2026, humanity is threatened by Lucifer Hawks, a race of other-dimensional monsters that now inhabits Earth. To combat this menace, the Attacked Mystification Police Department (or AMP) was created and is staffed by a team of capable women with a variety of skills, including a priestess, a psychic, a mechanic, a witch, and a cyborg. Against a backdrop of a polluted and ravaged Tokyo, they respond to the scene of Lucifer Hawk attacks and have jurisdiction anywhere they please.

The first chapter in this volume is the longest, introducing the characters and their world. The hotshot of AMP is Katsumi Liqueur, the daughter of a renowned magician, and when she is targeted by a Lucifer Hawk to be its next host, the rest of the team comes to her rescue. It’s an effective introduction, and also sets up what I assume will be the central mystery of the series: exactly what kind of involvement did Katsumi’s father have with the Lucifer Hawks?

Each of the two subsequent chapters focuses on a different member of AMP. Chapter two features Nami, the priestess who must prove her worthiness as heir to a powerful spiritual family by single-handedly battling a bunch of monsters, and chapter three stars Kiddy, the extremely strong team member who has unfinished business with a serial killer who dismembers his victims with wire. I actually begrudge the opening chapter some of its length, because just when Kiddy’s story is getting really interesting, it’s “to be continued.”

So far, the plot is definitely intriguing; somehow the experience of reading the manga felt like I was watching a fansubbed OVA from the ’90s, which is actually a compliment. UDON’s new edition features a nice color illustration gallery in the front of the volume and the sound effects are translated, with the original katakana sometimes left intact, sometimes not. The translation reads smoothly, but one thing I did notice is the tendency of characters to say “grr” a lot. It doesn’t happen on every page or anything, but it’s often enough to be noticeable. Here are a few examples, presented in ascending order of intensity.

Kiddy: “Now beat it, and don’t ever show your face around here again!!”
Random Dude: “Grr”

A Lucifer Hawk: *is menacing*
Katsumi, injured: “Grrrrrr”

Chief: “No, Kiddy! Don’t use the graviton. You would be risking Katsumi’s life.”
Kiddy: “Grrr!!”

And my personal favorite:

A Lucifer Hawk: “That is why I have taken her… and her blood.”
Kiddy: “Grr!!”
Chief: “Grr!!”

Asamiya’s art boasts detailed backgrounds, something I’m always a big fan of, and effectively uses repeated panels of the endless acid rain falling upon Tokyo’s ruined skyscrapers to create atmosphere. I like the way Ken Haley phrased it in his Manga Recon review:

“Visually the book looks a bit dated but I didn’t find that to be a bad thing. The hair, costumes, and depiction of the city definitely hearken back to the cyberpunk cityscapes of ’80s and ’90s pop culture, with huge glistening towers of steel and glass and crumbling sections of the city that are all but abandoned and forgotten.”

Because AMP is an all-female team and this is a shounen manga, it’d be asking too much to expect that there be no fan service at all, but the depictions of characters in their underwear or undergoing nude cleansing rituals are few and far between and are in no way trashy or detrimental to the story as a whole.

Ultimately, I had a good time reading Silent Möbius. Its cliffhanger ending ensures that I will be reading volume two and probably more besides.

Volume one of Silent Möbius: Complete Edition is available now.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

13 Comments

• At November 13, 2009, Silent Möbius: Complete Edition 1 by Kia Asamiya: B | Soliloquy in Blue wrote:

  [...] You can find that review here. [...]

• At November 13, 2009, Danielle Leigh wrote:

  Not being familiar with this title at all, I was wondering if it qualifies as "cyberpunk" (someone asked me for ...

• At November 13, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  I don't really have a good understanding of what constitutes cyberpunk. Wikipedia tells me it's noted for its "high tech ...

• At November 13, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  That said, I think Akira would qualify. :) Maybe Akihabara@Deep, though I don't know much about that series, really.

  Actually, ...

• At November 13, 2009, Danielle Leigh wrote:

  yup, looking at that list I can definitely see that cyperpunk just isn't my bag. My sci-fi tastes are ...

• At November 13, 2009, Andrew Collins wrote:

  I always think of William Gibson's work when the term "cyberpunk" comes up. His works focused heavily on the role ...

• At November 13, 2009, Andrew Collins wrote:

  Thanks for the Wikipedia link, MIchelle! I never considered myself much of a "cyberpunk" fan, but looking over that list, ...

• At November 13, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  I too have had the experience of something beloved not being so great once you revisit it. Thankfully, I'd neither ...

• At November 13, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  Oh dear, look at my inability to type.

• At November 13, 2009, r.nav wrote:

  If I recall, there's a rather lengthy sex scene later in the series.

• At November 13, 2009, Andrew Collins wrote:

  There is indeed. Somewhere around volume 8 or 9, Kasumi and...Ralph? Was that his name?...engage in some fairly graphic lovemaking. ...

• At November 13, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  Katsumi's boyfriend in volume one is called Roy, though there is a Ralph. In fact, he's the "Random Dude" I ...

• At November 15, 2009, Andrew Collins wrote:

  That's right! I got them mixed up. You'll see more of Ralph in the series, but Roy was the one ...

Little Fluffy Gigolo PELU, Vol. 1
By Junko Mizuno
Last Gasp, 172 pp.
Rating: Adults Only

Score: B+

On a very improbably shaped planet near Earth, but somehow unseen by humans, dwells a race of pink-haired aliens. There are no males among their number except for Pelu, a little round and fluffy fellow who eventually realizes that he’s not like everybody else when his sister, Palu, spontaneously gives birth and Pelu is subsequently excluded from a school lesson about where babies come from. After learning the (very strange) truth about his origins, Pelu is distraught and begs his friend, the “calm but carnivorous giant space hippo,” to eat him. Instead, the hippo shows Pelu a mirror by which he can travel to Earth and Pelu impulsively decides to take the journey, hoping to find someone else like him with whom he, too, can create babies.

Alas, when Pelu gets to Earth he falls in love with all the wrong girls. First, there’s Asako, who wants to be a singer and kicks Pelu out for upstaging her at a concert. Next, there’s Michiru, who tells lies in order to attract attention. She and her mother move away after the visiting space hippo, who is trying to be good by eating plants rather than people, spews his acidic stomach fluids all over a neighboring poodle ranch, with hilarious and catastrophic results. An encounter with Aqua, a pretty girl met in the sewers, doesn’t go as planned, either. Eventually, Pelu decides that he ought to fall in love with a nice but unattractive girl, so sets his sights on Danko, an unhappy lass who is soon involved in a body swap with the most beautiful and popular girl in school. It doesn’t end well.

If you haven’t deduced it by now, Little Fluffy Gigolo PELU is very weird. Beyond that, though, it’s also sad—since cheerful Pelu (not really a gigolo at all) is simply looking for someone to love—and funny. I’m not one who enjoys weirdness for the sake of weirdness, but in Junko Mizuno’s hands, the absurdity of certain situations makes me laugh out loud, which is a pretty rare occurrence. In addition to the aforementioned poodle massacre, my favorite funny bit occurs at the end of the volume. Each chapter ends with a little song about Pelu, and this one, after the conclusion to the body swap episode, goes:

He’s not a cat,
And he’s not a dog.
Pelu doesn’t like scary ghost stories.
He’s not even sure if he got dumped again.
Pelu’s just running for his life.

That fourth line is still making me giggle even as I type this.

Mizuno’s art is also something special: landscapes are fanciful and imaginative, girls sport elaborate hair and clothes, and even Pelu’s homeless friend looks cute. There’s a lot of female nudity, but it’s almost never sexualized. On Pelu’s home planet, for instance, it simply seems that clothes have never been invented. The art also enhances some of the humorous moments and softens the more disturbing ones, allowing the darkness to come through without seeming to revel in it.

Perhaps the back cover says it best when it describes Pelu as “a tale that's frequently adorable, sometimes grotesque, and always fluffy.”

Volume one of Little Fluffy Gigolo PELU is available now.

Review copy provided by Last Gasp.

6 Comments

• At August 25, 2009, Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu 1 by Junko Mizuno: B+ | Soliloquy in Blue wrote:

  [...] You can find that review here. [...]

• At August 25, 2009, Melinda Beasi wrote:

  What does it say about me that my immediate reaction upon reading this review is MUST READ NOW?

  This sounds like ...

• At August 25, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  I wasn't too sure I was going to like it, since I took the gigolo term more seriously and expected ...

• At August 25, 2009, Salimbol wrote:

  I LOVED the line "he's not even sure if he got dumped again"! :-) And think of I've heard of ...

• At August 25, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  Yes, there are a few of those (I think one's called Cinderalla), but I've not read them. In fact, this ...

• At August 26, 2009, Danielle Leigh wrote:

  Seconding Melinda -- MUST. HAVE.

  God, I love manga.

Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee, Vol. 1 by Hiroyuki Asada

Grade: B-

Gauche Suede (yes, really) is employed as a Letter Bee in Amberground, a land of perpetual darkness. Letters are very important to the people of Amberground, who might be living far from their loved ones and unable to cross the dangerous wilderness between towns, and Gauche takes his job delivering them very seriously. When one of his letters turns out to be a young boy called Lag Seeing (yes, really), Gauche faithfully delivers the boy to his aunt, but on the way they battle a bevy of giant bugs and share some of each other's memories. The second chapter takes place five years later, with Lag on the way to becoming a Letter Bee himself.

Tegami Bachi is easily the most beautiful Shonen Jump manga I've ever seen. The cover is gorgeous and the artwork within is also very attractive, featuring a plethora of sparkly stars and a faithful canine companion who looks like she came straight out of xxxHOLiC. If this were merely the tale of Gauche and Lag traveling across a desolate, nocturnal landscape, pausing to admire the strange scenery while learning to trust each other—and there are moments like these—I'd probably love it quite a lot.

Unfortunately, each fellow is saddled with an angsty backstory of absurd proportions and the repeated emphasis on the importance of heart (some mix of sentiment and magical energy) gets old quickly. These flaws aren't enough to dissuade me from checking out volume two, but they do prohibit me from giving the series my unqualified endorsement.

Gin Tama 13 by Hideaki Sorachi

Grade: D

After aliens invade Edo and pass a law outlawing swords, former samurai Gin Sakata, as The Story Thus Far puts it, “sets up shop as a yorozuya—an expert at managing trouble and handling the oddest of jobs.” In volume thirteen, these odd jobs take the form of a mother who is searching for the son who left home years before, a wife who is convinced that her husband is cheating on her, and a shopkeeper who needs Gin's help in a contest against some alien competition. There are also a couple of chapters featuring the wacky adventures of side characters.

I don't wish to offend fans of Gin Tama, but I must ask... what exactly is it that you see in this series?! I'm honestly confused, for I find it to be extraordinarily crude, unfunny, and pointless, with characters so unlikable they border on despicable. It required an effort of will to finish it. The art isn't bad—if one can look beyond what's actually being drawn, like flatulent old ladies and guys crapping themselves—but egads! Pass the mental soap, please.

Waqwaq 1 by Ryu Fujisaki

Grade: C+

In a land known as Waqwaq, conflict between humans and machines has raged for centuries. Humans carve villages out of mountains and live in hiding while seven Guardians (humans who merge with friendly machines for the purpose of battle) take on the task of fighting the machines. Many pray for the return of the kami, a legendary being with red blood (the humans of Waqwaq have black blood) who is believed to have created humans and machines and who has the power to grant one person's wish. There are some who seek to manipulate this situation for their own good, like the shadowy figure who summons a teenage girl—evidently from our own world and time—and proclaims that she is the kami. He visits two of the Guardians and urges them to fight their brethren for the right to have their wish granted. And, apparently not suspicious of amorphous dudes who appear out of nowhere, they take the bait and try to claim the kami for themselves.

Standing in their way is the newest Guardian, Shio, who inherits his position when his father dies after defeating a particularly nasty conglomeration of machines. It's Shio who is tasked with protecting the kami and seeing her safely along her journey and Shio who begins to see the effect she has on the world—though she protests that she has no powers at all—when she is able to free a machine from its compulsion to attack humans.

If this plot sounds convoluted, that's because it is. There's a lot going on and Fujisaki's muddled art doesn't aid the reader's comprehension much; I still don't have a clear idea of what Shio's Guardian form looks like, for example. Even with its flaws, though, I found Waqwaq to be pretty interesting, especially the post-apocalyptic setting. I'll probably check out the second volume to see how the story develops.

Naruto 45 by Masashi Kishimoto

Grade: C

It's been a really long time since I've read any Naruto. In the meantime, everyone got older and Sasuke went rogue, vowing revenge on the village of Konoha because of something bad that happened to his brother in the past. As the volume starts, he and some other folks are trying to capture a guy called Killer Bee, whose possession by an Eight-Tailed Beast allows him to transform into a bull-headed octupus... thing. Meanwhile, Naruto is receiving lessons on a new source of chakra from little amphibious guy. The rest of the volume is mostly a lot of people I've never seen before talking about things I don't understand. Oh, and Konoha gets attacked.

The one thing I was reminded of most while reading this volume was a Saturday morning cartoon. And really, that's exactly what Naruto was intended to be: entertainment for young boys. For an adult like me, and a female one at that, it's kind of fun to pop in for a volume and see what's going on, but I can't imagine reading this series regularly. If you want to see ninja frogs or Sasuke's monumental levels of angst, this volume's worth checking out, but definitely don't go into it expecting much to make sense.

Review copies provided by VIZ.

20 Comments

• At August 18, 2009, Summer Fun with Shonen Jump | Soliloquy in Blue wrote:

  [...] the agenda are: Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee 1 by Hiroyuki Asada: B- It’s very pretty and atmospheric, but some ...

• At August 18, 2009, Nitz the Bloody wrote:

  In regards to Naruto ( my primary manga/anime obsession, which I love to pieces ), I think it has a ...

• At August 18, 2009, Okman wrote:

  I do really like the art for Tegami Bachi. And the story, while it does use some cliche themes like ...

• At August 18, 2009, Josh Hechinger wrote:

  Speaking as an unoffended Gin Tama reader, and at the risk of killing a joke by explaining it, I'd say ...

• At August 18, 2009, Travis wrote:

  Tegamibachi gets really awesome starting in vol. 2. Vol. 1 is mainly just backstory for the real plot.

• At August 19, 2009, Danielle Leigh wrote:

  re: Gintama....I haven't read volume 13 but I found I can both be highly amused by a single volume of ...

• At August 19, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  Tegami Bachi sounds like someone took the concept behind The Postman (post-apocalyptic mailman) and extended it. Many mangas/animes do things ...

• At August 19, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  @Nitz: Thanks for your thoughtful comment. Perhaps this was just a bad volume to sample, for, though I could tell ...

• At August 19, 2009, Josh Hechinger wrote:

  I can understand that; I have trouble watching The Office for that same reason.

• At August 19, 2009, Online manga news and reviews « MangaBlog wrote:

  [...] Michelle Smith takes a look at four recent Shonen Jump titles at Comics Should Be [...]

• At August 19, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  @Josh: Exactly! The Office was a prime example for me.

• At August 19, 2009, Nitz the Bloody wrote:

  As much of a prick as Sasuke is, keep in mind that he's a 15-year-old boy who saw his entire ...

• At August 19, 2009, Lynxara wrote:

  Sasuke's tragic backstory is pretty off-the-shelf for the genre Naruto works in (what I like to call the Shounen Punching ...

• At August 19, 2009, Nitz the Bloody wrote:

  I'm not denying Naruto has a lot of stock elements, but what makes me prefer it so much more than ...

• At August 19, 2009, Lynxara wrote:

  I find nothing especially complex about the setting for Naruto. it's very baroque, certainly, but that's an intrinsic trope of ...

• At August 20, 2009, Katherine Dacey wrote:

  Couldn't have agreed more with your assessment of Tegami Bachi, Michelle! I thought the art was gorgeous and moody (and ...

• At August 20, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  Thanks on both accounts! In the case of Waqwaq, I feel that it's proof of the old adage "forewarned ...

• At August 20, 2009, Nitz the Bloody wrote:

  Lynxara,

  Fair enough; I admit that my knowledge of shonen is limited to more recent stuff. Given what I've said I ...

• At August 20, 2009, Lynxara wrote:

  Well, it's hard to say. One of Naruto's virtues is that it has very clean, almost anime-like art that tends ...

• At August 20, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  I admit my own ignorance of earlier shounen works, but I second the recommendations of everything mentioned in Lynxara's final ...

Black Cat, Vols. 1-2
Kentaro Yabuki
Published by Viz
Rating: Older Teen

Score: B+

Black Cat is the story of Train Heartnet, who used to work as an assassin for a powerful organization called Chronos. After an encounter with a female bounty hunter (a.k.a. sweeper) named Saya (whom we only glimpse near the end of volume two), his outlook changed and he gave up that life. Now it’s two years later and Train has become a sweeper himself, collecting bounties on criminals with his partner, Sven. Train’s motto is “more money, more danger… more fun!” and his pursuit of the latter two usually means the duo doesn’t get much of the former.

Though the idea of the “protagonist who used to be a killer but has now become more kind” is not new to shounen manga, it’s employed a little differently in Black Cat. While many such heroes have made it their pledge never to kill again, Train has no problem with offing the criminal element, though he’s scrupulous about not harming innocents. This allows for the potential of a deadly showdown with his former partner, Creed, who was responsible for Saya’s death and upon whom Train has sworn to exact revenge.

After going after a few minor targets, Train and Sven are approached with a proposition by Rinslet, a notorious female thief. She’s been hired to steal some research data from a criminal bigwig, and wants Train and Sven to help make her job easier by capturing the bigwig first. They get the reward; she gets the loot; everybody’s happy. Of course, things don’t exactly go as planned, since the bigwig invokes Creed’s name and makes Train go rather nuts. Ultimately, Train and Creed confront each other, inflicting enough wounds to prove they are well matched as opponents but living to fight another day.

These first two volumes skillfully introduce Train’s past, his current circumstances, and the lingering threat of Creed and his band of revolutionaries (who seek to overthrow Chronos and want Train to join them) without inundating the reader with information. One of the best things about this series is the nebulous notion of “pacing,” which to me means that when I read it, it feels like I am watching a television show, with a variety of perspectives and camera angles and a natural flow to scenes and conversations. The story is also structured similarly, with the introduction of a villain who then retreats into the background for a bit while the protagonists get on with the daily grind of their occupation, calling, and/or duty.

My favorite aspect of the series, however, is the strength of the partnership between Train and Sven. It’s clear that these two trust each other professionally, but it goes deeper than that, as exemplified by Train’s reaction when Sven gets wounded during an attempt to apprehend a target. Their relationship actually reminds me some of Ban and Ginji in GetBackers, with the energetic but extremely powerful guy using the nickname –chan to refer to his more cerebral partner who possesses some sort of eye-related power (though this is only a hint so far in Sven’s case). That’s a pretty superficial comparison, but the overall affectionate feel is pretty similar.

Thankfully, the similarities between Black Cat and GetBackers do not extend to the art. Yabuki’s illustrations are clean and easy on the eyes, with a minimum of screentone and quite a lot of speed lines. Even without looking at the cover, one could probably tell that this series ran in Shonen Jump. Speaking of the cover, that’s the one area where Yabuki’s art becomes unattractive. Rinslet in particular looks much, much better in the interior art. One artistic element that does puzzle me is Train’s coat. What exactly are those brown things?! They look like miniature life boats but I have a sneaking suspicion they’re meant to be cat nipples.

Bizarre sartorial choices aside, what it all boils down to is that Black Cat is a lot of fun. The well structured story and the camaraderie between the leads elevates it beyond typical shounen fare and I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how the rest of it plays out.

Volumes one and two of Black Cat are available now.

9 Comments

• At June 17, 2009, Black Cat 1-2 by Kentaro Yabuki: B+ | Soliloquy in Blue wrote:

  [...] and intend to read the rest of the series. You can find my review of volumes one and two ...

• At June 17, 2009, Melinda Beasi wrote:

  I'm so glad you enjoyed this! Despite the fact that neither its setting nor its surface plot elements are ...

• At June 17, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  Yeah, I'm less interested in the plot itself than I just think it'll be cool to watch our heroes fight ...

• At June 17, 2009, Danielle Leigh wrote:

  ohhhh...I think I would also like the relationship between Train and Sven. Thanks for the great review! Luckily, ...

• At June 17, 2009, Joe wrote:

  I've read a few volumes, and while it's a good series, it's not something I'd spend money on. I'm not ...

• At June 17, 2009, Melinda Beasi wrote:

  Yeah, Michelle, one of the things that kept me hooked to the series, actually, is that the fights remained interesting ...

• At June 17, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  Joe: To be honest, my local library carries Black Cat and I intend to read the rest through them ...

• At June 17, 2009, Okman wrote:

  Ehhh, Black Cat is alright. It starts off pretty promising but I think it devolves rather quickly into a bunch ...

• At June 18, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  Yeah, I suppose it is a bit generic. That's pretty much what I meant when I said you could just ...

Kaze Hikaru, Vols. 1-2
By Taeko Watanabe
Published by Viz
Rating: Older Teen

Score: B+

Kaze Hikaru is set around the same historical period as Rurouni Kenshin, but during a time when the worst of the struggle between factions loyal to the bakufu (shogunate government) and those loyal to the emperor is yet to come. It’s the story of a 15-year-old girl named Tominaga Sei who has sworn to avenge the deaths of her father and brother who were killed for their support of the bakufu. With nowhere else to go, she decides to disguise herself as a boy and follow her brother’s dream of enlisting with the Mibu-Roshi, a group of samurai based in Kyoto that would eventually go down in history as the infamous Shinsengumi.

Many historical figures abound, and it can be kind of difficult to keep track of them (and the relationships between them) at first, since Viz doesn’t provide much by way of notes. One character, Saito Hajime, will be familiar to Kenshin fans, though he’s awesome here in an entirely different way than his shounen manga counterpart. The person with whom Sei (or Kamiya Seizaburo, as her male persona is known) spends the most time is Okita Soji, who learns her secret quickly, but who feels responsible for the deaths of her family and wants to help her achieve her revenge.

This being shojo, there is at least romance, as Sei eventually falls in love with Okita, but that is not the chief focus. Moreso, the story is about the difference between Sei’s idealistic vision of what a bushi (samurai) is and the reality. She had been envisioning all of these honorable men, but instead she finds a lot of “dirty, nasty, stinky” degenerates who love nothing more than getting drunk, visiting brothels, and teasing “Kamiya” about his girlish looks and trying to put the moves on him.

Okita’s slightly better than the rest, at least as far as crude behavior goes, but even he brings forth a troubling realization to Sei: being a bushi means killing people with whom one might be able to empathize. She finds the fact that he’s able to kill and still keep his cheerful demeanor to be very frightening, and it’s not until a conversation with Saito at the end of the second volume that she realizes that a true bushi is not fighting for himself, but to protect something else. And to protect that precious thing, they are willing to do the unthinkable. After several annoying episodes of running off and reconsidering her commitment to the Mibu-Roshi, Sei finally realizes that it’s Okita that she wants to protect, and seems resolved to stick around for good.

This brings up a point about Sei: while she’s undeniably possessed of many admirable qualities, she sometimes takes her desire to be brave and honorable to the extent that she flies off the handle at insults and even involves someone else in a foolhardy mission that ends up getting him killed. Also, though she had blithely claimed early on that she’d be able to kill, no problem, it’s clear she hadn’t really considered what that would require of her. Initially, I found these deficits to be irritating, but the more I think about it, a heroine flawed in this way is infinitely more interesting than a perfect one.

On the whole, I enjoyed these two volumes, even though there’s not really much of a cohesive story yet. Sei deals with some of her family issues, like encountering the courtesan with whom her brother was in love and confronting one of the men responsible for her family’s deaths, but there really isn’t much sense of the overall purpose of the Mibu-Roshi yet. They fight some bad guys, they patrol the town, they earn a bad reputation, but are they actually planning anything big or will the story mostly be small episodes like rousting out a band of imposters or dealing with the new recruit who tries to have his way with “Kamiya”?

Despite my few complaints about it, I like both the art and the story well enough to continue. To anyone mourning the end of Rurouni Kenshin who’s interested in reading about the conflict from the opposing perspective: give Kaze Hikaru a try. I promise it’s not so very shojo-y as to tarnish anyone’s manly pride.

Volumes one and two of Kaze Hikaru are available now.

11 Comments

• At May 31, 2009, Kaze Hikaru 1-2 by Taeko Watanabe: B+ | Soliloquy in Blue wrote:

  [...] After seeing Kaze Hikaru praised by multiple people whose opinions I respect, I finally got my hands on the ...

• At May 31, 2009, Danielle Leigh wrote:

  This is a very thoughtful review that convinced me to pick up the first few volumes....this and Tail of the ...

• At May 31, 2009, Michelle wrote:

  I'm glad I helped convince you. That's interesting that you mention Tail of the Moon, because that's another one ...

• At May 31, 2009, Sara K. wrote:

  I read the first two volumes a while ago, and I was rather unimpressed. And then there was the ...

• At May 31, 2009, lys wrote:

  Aww, Sara K, have a sense of humour! The series is so amazing once you get into it! ...

• At May 31, 2009, Anna wrote:

  I read and enjoyed the first 4 volumes when I got them from the library a long time ago, and ...

• At June 1, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  Sara K. - I noticed that comment, too. Possibly more so 'cos I was reading a copy from the ...

• At June 1, 2009, Sara K. wrote:

  Well, if I published a book and I asked in the book that people buy it rather than borrow it, ...

• At June 1, 2009, lys wrote:

  Heh. I really do think she was saying it with a sense of humour (though it is quite a ...

• At June 1, 2009, Michelle wrote:

  I love getting comments, so there's no need to apologize! I'm glad to hear it gets better in the ...

• At September 29, 2009, Anna Maria wrote:

  Kaze Hikaru has become my favourite series right after Kenshin! I was like you at first, doubting wether I should ...

A.I. Revolution, Vol. 1
By Yuu Asami
Go! Comi , 216 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

Score: B

By the year 2020, the incorporation of helper robots as household aides has become a commonplace thing. Most of these still bear a machine-like appearance, however, so when Sui Makihara’s dad, head of a robot manufacturing company, creates an incredibly human-like model, it’s quite an achievement. He entrusts the raising of this robot to his daughter, who dubs the robot Vermillion and exposes him to various life experiences, like rescuing kittens and skiing. Though he seems content to be with Sui and make her cutesy bento lunches, Vermillion actually possesses some special skills, like the ability to interface with computers, which makes him the target of a scientist with dreams of ruling the world.

The five chapters included in the first volume are episodic, the events spanning a year of Vermillion and Sui’s time together. Some are more successful than others—the best is probably the chapter that introduces Kira, another human-like robot with a bodyguard specialty and eye-catching good looks, and the worst the story about the girl who hates robots because her father sacrificed his life to protect one—but overall they’re pretty enjoyable. They do get a little repetitive in one respect, though: in nearly every chapter, a building is in jeopardy of collapsing, providing ample opportunities for Vermillion to protect Sui from falling debris.

The story does have some problems. It’s got some internal inconsistencies—how could Kira have been built before Vermillion, as he claims, when the scientist responsible for his production is the same one who fled Sui’s dad’s company after he was caught trying to steal Vermillion?—and the characters are kind of bland, with the exception of Kira. Vermillion and Sui are pleasant, but that’s about it. Also, though they’re fond of talking about how important the other one is to them, they don’t really show it much.

Likewise, it’s got good points. One thing I thought was interesting is that the robots seem to have factual knowledge about things without understanding what they mean to humans. For example, Vermillion recognizes some tremors as heralding an earthquake but it doesn’t register with him that this qualifies as an emergency situation to humans. I also love the interaction between Vermillion and Kira and the conversations they have together, like this one:

Vermillion: Good morning, Kira. How’s your artificial skin feeling this morning?
Kira: Oh, it’s great. How about you? Any abnormalities with your integrated circuits?
Vermillion: They are doing fine. Thanks for asking.

Also, there is a Voltron joke.

The material in this volume was originally published in the early '90s, meaning the art looks a little dated to modern eyes. It’s not a hindrance to enjoying the story, but it does mean that one’s in for a lot of cinch-waisted jeans and other kooky fashion choices.

A.I. Revolution has a lot of potential. I confess a preference for a more serialized storyline, but perhaps it’ll go that route once it finishes introducing the world and its characters.

Volume one of A.I. Revolution is available now.

4 Comments

• At May 2, 2009, swanjun // soliloquy in blue » Blog Archive » A.I. Revolution 1 by Yuu Asami: B wrote:

  [...] I reviewed the first volume of this Go! Comi series—about a girl tasked with teaching a robot prototype all ...

• At May 3, 2009, Melinda Beasi wrote:

  Awwwwww, this looks kind of sweet and fun. Plus: Also, there is a Voltron joke.

  I'll be interested to ...

• At May 3, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  Thanks! I think "sweet and fun" describes it well. Hopefully it'll eventually add "awesome" to that list. :)

• At May 3, 2009, Danielle Leigh wrote:

  this title didn't really "catch" with me, which is a shame. On the other hand, I like so much ...

Goong: The Royal Palace, Vol. 1
By Park SoHee
Ice Kunion, 200 pp.
Rating: 13+

Score: B+

Goong: The Royal Palace begins by asking a question of its readers. “Let’s turn back the clock, shall we? Imagine if Korea was still ruled by royalty. Imagine Korean palaces hustling and bustling with royal servants and politicians instead of tourists. Yes, let’s imagine, instead of an empty, cold palace, one that is made vibrant by the lives of the royal family.”

What emerges is the story of Chae-Kyung Shin, a relatively normal high school girl who makes bad grades and enjoys fangirling over the royal family with her friends. The crown prince, Shin Lee, attends their school but is seldom seen, since school officials erected a swanky new building to house the classrooms he uses. After finally encountering him and finding him to be rather rude, Chae-Kyung is surprised soon thereafter when she overhears him proposing marriage to a classmate. It turns out that his mother has informed him that it is time for him to marry. If he doesn’t have someone particular in mind, then he’ll have to marry someone of his father’s choosing. And, because this wouldn’t be much of a story otherwise, his father ends up choosing Chae-Kyung to be that bride because of a promise between the old king and his best friend, Chae-Kyung’s grandfather.

While the premise initially seems far-fetched, the story is anchored by small moments of emotional sincerity. Chae-Kyung, as one might expect, is not thrilled with the idea of marrying a virtual stranger, let alone one who isn’t very friendly. She accuses her hardworking mother of selling her in exchange for a more comfortable existence, and is poised to refuse the engagement until she notices the worn state of her mother’s clothes as she urges her daughter to honestly tell the queen her true desires. She decides then to marry the prince for her family’s sake.

It soon becomes evident, though, that she hasn’t really thought through what becoming the wife of the crown prince will do to her existing relationships with family and friends. I love that Goong deals with this issue instead of treating the arrangement like some completely romantic experience. Chae-Kyung must confront the fact that her relationships will never be the same again, and Prince Shin’s well-intentioned suggestion that she can invite her family to the royal country house does nothing to dispel her sadness. My favorite scene is a quiet moment between Chae-Kyung and her mother, who has been trying not to let her sorrow show. She has the best line in the entire volume when she says, “I didn’t want you to see me sad. I wanted to be a cool mom. But who do I have “spa day” with now?”

Prince Shin gets less attention in this volume than Chae-Kyung does, but as his cousin puts it, he’s the one who gets to stay in the same place and eat the same food with the same people. He does, at least, show a nicer side by trying to cheer up Chae-Kyung once she moves into the palace to begin studying royal etiquette and ceremonial duties.

The art is nice to look at, though I prefer the prettier style of the more serious moments, as Chae-Kyung can look exceedingly unattractive in the comedic parts (which are, wonder of wonders, actually amusing). The palaces are drawn beautifully, but my favorite is seeing the queen and Chae-Kyung in their hanbok, the traditional formal dress of Korea. Since the action seems poised to shift to palace life on a more full-time basis soon, I expect I shall get to see even more loveliness in that regard.

To sum up, Goong is good. The premise and characters click for me in such a way that a high potential for addictiveness is achieved, not unlike the abiding love I have for Boys Over Flowers. In other words… more, please!

Volume one of Goong: The Royal Palace is available now.

4 Comments

• At April 5, 2009, swanjun // soliloquy in blue » Blog Archive » Goong: The Royal Palace 1 by Park SoHee: B+ wrote:

  [...] I reviewed the first volume of this long-running manhwa for Comics Should Be Good. Check it out! [...]

• At April 6, 2009, Danielle Leigh wrote:

  Beautiful overview of the title -- I enjoy Goong quite a bit and I hope you will attract a few ...

• At April 6, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  Thank you. :) And yes, I have become a big fan of Yen Press. They rescue good stuff, their ...

• At April 6, 2009, Melinda Beasi wrote:

  Ohhhh I can't wait to read this. It sounds like so much fun. Yay, you!

Score: B-

The Devil’s Trill collects two supernatural stories by Sooyeon Won, creator of the more well-known manhwa, Let Dai. In the title story, we follow a vampire named Eichner over several hundred years as he encounters various reincarnations of his true love. In the second story, “Magic Box,” a man devotes decades to creating the perfect diamond but is offered another chance to recapture his youth, with one very important condition. “The Devil’s Trill” is perhaps the most melodramatic story I’ve ever read and takes up the bulk of the volume. We begin in Germany somewhere in the 1800s. Eichner—or should I say Count Wittgenstein?—fully looks the part of a stereotypical vampire, with the frilly shirt, high-collared cape, manservant, and castle. We soon learn that he’s a pretty good guy, as his manservant presents his master with dossiers of villains who might make good meals. He’s lonely, though, and is prone to saying incomprehensible things like, “The ones who have seen beauty are already handed over to death, and unbecoming of the life of this world. They no longer are the objects of this sweet blood.”

One day, he encounters a human girl named Elizabeth and becomes enchanted by her. They spend a lot of time together, but eventually Elizabeth must leave to attend a conservatory. When she returns, all kinds of rather silly things occur, culminating in a fight between Eichner and Elizabeth’s new husband and her eventual death from some undefined illness. Eichner resolves to wait for her soul to be reincarnated.

The pattern repeats, with some variations, in 1990. Finally, in 2150, Eichner has been captured and is being experimented on by a cruel scientist. There, he meets an incarnation of Elizabeth, hired to be his bodyguard/warden, who looks capable of living for more than a couple chapters. She hates weak things and proves to be resourceful, saying, “The me of my past lives were quite frustrating, I see” and “I won’t die as easily as the Elizabeth of those previous lives.”

As mentioned, the story is incredibly melodramatic and moves too quickly to really be emotionally satisfying. Too, as the final Elizabeth points out, the first two incarnations of Eicher’s love are quite frustrating, weeping continually and prone to sudden death. Eichner himself doesn’t do much except mope and/or be inexplicably in love with this irksome girl.

The saving grace of the story, then, is its art, which is sometimes astoundingly pretty. Eichner is very attractively drawn and so are the buildings, a personal fancy of mine. For the most part the layouts are pretty straightforward, but there was one page that reminded me very much of one of the images from Melinda Beasi’s review of They Were Eleven.

Check it out:

There’s the black background of space, a skinny vertical column on the left, and some stacked columns on the right. Methinks Won is a Hagio fan!

Because “The Devil’s Trill” dominates the volume with its epic sprawl, “The Magic Box” feels like an afterthought. In it, a jeweler is so focused on creating the perfect cut of a diamond that he doesn’t realize that life is passing him by. When he finally completes his masterpiece, he looks in the mirror to find that he has grown old. I liked the story okay until this point, but the random appearance of a fairy was a little too much for me. At least the ending was somewhat interesting.

All in all, the stories collected in The Devil’s Trill are not excellent. They are, however, enjoyable all the same.

The Devil’s Trill is available now.

6 Comments

• At March 23, 2009, swanjun // soliloquy in blue » Blog Archive » The Devil’s Trill by Sooyeon Won: B- wrote:

  [...] is by Sooyeon Won, creator of Let Dai. Melodramatic in the extreme but entertaining nonetheless, I reviewed it for ...

• At March 23, 2009, Melinda Beasi wrote:

  You know, the art in Let Dai is a highlight too, but I'm sorry to hear that the story here ...

• At March 23, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  I only wish I knew!

• At March 24, 2009, Danielle Leigh wrote:

  hmmmm......I think I'll save my money for Let Dai if I'm doing to go with a title by Won. ...

• At March 24, 2009, Connie wrote:

  Aww, I'm a little sad you didn't like this one, I was absolutely in love with it when I read ...

• At March 25, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  I wouldn't say I disliked it. A B- is a pretty good grade—it just means to me that I ...

Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys, Vol. 1

By Naoki Urasawa
Viz, 216 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

Score: A

You know it’s a good sign when a manga begins by featuring one of your favorite songs. In this case, it’s “20th Century Boy” by British glam rocker T. Rex. The story begins in 1973 with Kenji, a rock-obsessed teen, trying to stir up the lunchtime crowd at his school by blasting them with jangling guitar chords rather than the easy listening stuff the audio-visual club normally broadcasts.

Revolution, alas, does not ensue.

This incident sets the tone for Kenji’s life. Ever since he was a child, the expectation has been that he would one day take over the family liquor store. Despite his big dreams of saving the world or becoming a guitar legend, nothing actually happens to derail his established path. 1997 (present day in the context of the story) finds Kenji pushing forty, unmarried, running the family business (now a convenience store), taking care of the infant daughter his sister abandoned, and bickering with his crabby mother about her habit of eating the merchandise. His childhood friends haven’t fared much better and though Kenji tries to convince himself that his life is okay as it is, his dissatisfaction can’t be quelled.

One day, two detectives arrive to question Kenji about some regular customers of his liquor delivery service who’ve gone missing. When Kenji goes to pick up the empty bottles they’ve left behind, he spots a familiar symbol—invented by one of his pals back in 1969—on the wall of their house. From this point on, the story alternates between memories of incidents in Kenji’s childhood and his efforts in the present day to figure out why he keeps seeing that same symbol everywhere, including on t-shirts worn by university students and in a letter sent to him by a friend who later dies in an alleged suicide.

Readers are afforded some tantalizing glimpses at what Kenji will eventually discover—a cult-like religious group led by a man known only as “our friend.” This man claims to offer his followers true tranquility, but also uses them to carry out assassinations (so-called “rejections”) of rival religious figures. His use of the symbol—formerly an emblem for Kenji’s gang of friends—and some of his comments suggest that “our friend” is most likely someone that Kenji grew up with. Kenji’s sense of responsibility to find out who’s using the symbol and for what purpose is similar to Dr. Tenma’s motivation in Urasawa’s other successful suspense manga, Monster, in which Tenma was trying to stop a psychopathic murderer whose life he had saved in the operating room.

But that isn’t all! In fact, so many plot threads and questions are advanced that one almost needs a scorecard to keep track of them. Did Kenji’s friend really kill himself? What’s up with the missing family? Is it connected to the death of a university student? Who was that mystery girl in chapter one? Was that a mecha that she saw? I actually wrote down the lingering questions I had after reading this volume and there are literally ten of them. Thankfully, I trust Urasawa enough to have faith that they’ll be satisfactorily answered at some point down the line.

If you’re thinking that this review is largely concentrated on plot, you’re correct, because the same can be said for 20th Century Boys itself. Still, there are some deeper themes in play, too. As Kenji and his friends begin to remember more details from their childhood together, one senses that they’re somewhat in awe of their past selves. In one scene, after discovering a time capsule of sorts buried by the boys many years before, Kenji muses:

Are we, today, the kind of adults we dreamed of becoming back then? Or would our childhood selves just look at us now and laugh?”

It seems that his character arc will be finding, through the pursuit of “our friend,” the kind of exciting life he’d always wanted for himself.

I’m a big fan of Urasawa’s art, especially the knack he has of imbuing scenes with an almost cinematic quality. That skill is definitely in evidence here, and I’m honestly not sure how he does it. All throughout the scene where Kenji speaks with the detectives, for example, the sense of the conversation taking place outside on a sidewalk is almost palpable. Reading 20th Century Boys reminds me of watching a movie—Stand By Me in particular. I’m now keen to see the live-action films inspired by the series.

At this point, 20th Century Boys is justifiably keeping most of its secrets close to its chest. It may well be years before all the answers are known, but I’ll be among those avidly awaiting each new installment of this ambitious tale.

Volume one of Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys is available now.

14 Comments

• At February 25, 2009, Melinda Beasi wrote:

  Michelle, this is a wonderful review! I really can't wait to get my hands on this book!

• At February 25, 2009, swanjun // soliloquy in blue » Blog Archive » 20th Century Boys 1 by Naoki Urasawa: A wrote:

  [...] I reviewed the first volume of this well-regarded series for Comics Should be Good. Check it out! [...]

• At February 25, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  Thanks. :) Of the two Urasawa works published in February, I must admit that I love Pluto the best, ...

• At February 25, 2009, Dan Felty wrote:

  Sounds very neat. I will be on the lookout for this!

• At February 25, 2009, Danielle Leigh wrote:

  Excellent review, as always! I struggle with this book because I certainly liked it but it just had so ...

• At February 25, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  Hee hee hee. That's a very good description of it. I am going to try reading it as ...

• At February 26, 2009, Journalista - the news weblog of The Comics Journal » Blog Archive » Feb. 26, 2009: Rivalries and relationships wrote:

  [...] [Review] 20th Century Boys Vol. 1 Link: Michelle Smith [...]

• At February 26, 2009, MangaBlog » Blog Archive » Crunchyroll, nerd power, and new yaoi wrote:

  [...] Smith on vol. 1 of 20th Century Boys (Comics Should Be Good) A Library Girl on vol. 2 of ...

• At February 26, 2009, Okman wrote:

  I love Pluto. Frankly, It's one of the top five manga I've ever read. If 20th century boys is as ...

• At February 26, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  I would say it's nearly as good. I'd give Pluto an A+. By comparison, 20th Century Boys is a little ...

• At February 27, 2009, Crunchyroll, nerd power, and new yaoi · Manga News wrote:

  [...] Smith on vol. 1 of 20th Century Boys (Comics Should Be Good) A Library Girl on vol. 2 of ...

• At March 20, 2009, Graf wrote:

  Excellent review.

  I've read the Japanese version and I think it's a really amazing work of art. Or at the ...

• At March 23, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  Thank you!

• At June 16, 2009, Comics Should Be Good! @ Comic Book Resources » Danielle Leigh’s Reading Diary — 20th Century Boys vol 2 and 3 wrote:

  [...] did a fabulous review of the first volume of Naoki Urasawa’s intricately plotted mystery tale earlier this year.  While ...

So here's her review of The Quest for the Missing Girl!

By Jiro Taniguchi
Fanfare/Ponent Mon, 333 pp.

Score: A-

Takeshi Shiga is a mountaineer. Twelve years ago, when his best friend, Sakamoto, invited Shiga to participate in a climbing trip to the Himalayas, he turned it down. Sakamoto ended up dying on that trip, and Shiga has felt guilty ever since, and has faithfully kept a promise to his friend to look after his wife and daughter. When, in the present day, he receives a phone call from Sakamoto’s widow that her daughter Megumi has gone missing, he comes down from his mountain refuge to Tokyo to look for her.

A tip from one of Megumi’s friends leads him into Shibuya, an area filled with bars, clubs, restless adolescents, and adults willing to pay a schoolgirl for her company. Shiga is completely foreign to this world, but nonetheless plows on, defying the police and refusing to be thwarted by any obstacle, no matter how impossible surmounting it may seem.

Taniguchi doesn’t tell the story in a completely chronological way. Rather, in response to events, the characters lapse into flashbacks that fill in essential backstory. These transitions are seamless, and slight tweaks of character designs make it easy to tell whether one is reading about the past or the present. Aside from this, the plot unfolds in a fashion reminiscent of hard-boiled detective fiction. Shiga uncovers tips that lead elsewhere and follows each with dogged perseverance, narrating along the way. The tale is fast-paced and engrossing, though a little too straightforward to succeed as a truly compelling mystery.

There are also many parallels between mountains and Shiga’s personal life. It is implied that Shiga has feelings for Sakamoto’s widow, but keeps his distance despite some possible interest on her end. The distance is even more literal when Shiga absconds to the mountain “refuge” where he lives and works. Likewise, his relentless search for Megumi, culminating in an impressive physical feat, is atonement for the difficult climb on which he failed to accompany his friend all those years ago.

Taniguchi’s art is truly outstanding. Like another of his works, The Walking Man, The Quest for the Missing Girl features many panoramic panels of scenery, cloud-strewn mountain vistas giving way to garish and crowded city streets as the backdrop of the story shifts to an urban landscape. I also enjoy his realistic style: no enormous eyes or improbable hair here. Less successful is Taniguchi’s depiction of emotion in the faces of his characters. Perhaps some of this can be attributed to Japanese restraint, but the reaction of Sakamoto’s widow to his death seems to lack true raw grief. The presence of dialogue bubbles saying, “Sob!” only reinforces the oddness of the response.

On the whole, reading The Quest for the Missing Girl is a unique manga experience. It’s very different from most of what is currently available, both in its subject matter as well as its artistic prowess. As a mystery, however, it lacks the complexity that I’ve come to expect from that genre.

The Quest for the Missing Girl is available now.

23 Comments

• At February 2, 2009, Johnathan Ender wrote:

  The manga reviews are some of the best pieces published on Comic Book Resources, and this one only cements that ...

• At February 2, 2009, Greg Burgas wrote:

  I would rate this a little bit lower than you do, perhaps a solid B. I thought it was ...

• At February 2, 2009, jun wrote:

  Thanks, Johnathan! I'm happy to be here.

  Greg, I confess that part of my score is that I really, really like ...

• At February 2, 2009, swanjun // soliloquy in blue » Blog Archive » The Quest for the Missing Girl by Jiro Taniguchi: A- wrote:

  [...] When asked whether I’d like to contribute a guest post to Comics Should Be Good, I said, “I’d be ...

• At February 2, 2009, Danielle Leigh wrote:

  Welcome, Welcome, Welcome! :-)

  Lovely review to introduce the blog to you and of course I want to track down ...

• At February 2, 2009, jun wrote:

  Thanks! You know what I love about this site? People comment! Comments rock! :)

  The only other Taniguchi ...

• At February 2, 2009, Mer wrote:

  Welcome jun! I've only dipped my toes into the world of manga - my first and only manga was ...

• At February 2, 2009, danielle leigh wrote:

  Comments totally rock! I'm a total comment slut ....except I like to avoid controversy. I'm strange that ...

• At February 2, 2009, jun wrote:

  Thanks, Mer! I have Town of Evening Calm, but haven't read it yet. It and The Quest for the Missing ...

• At February 2, 2009, jun wrote:

  You and me both, Danielle.

• At February 2, 2009, Dan Felty wrote:

  Welcome, Michelle! Are you "jun"?

  This sounds like a neat book. A problem with convincingly portraying emotion is a ...

• At February 2, 2009, Brian Cronin wrote:

  Comments rock! :) Mostly, yes. ;)

• At February 2, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  Yes, Michelle=jun. The jun thing's more of a remnant of my anonymous days before I started writing under my own ...

• At February 2, 2009, Melinda Beasi wrote:

  Michelle, this is a pretty spectacular review, not that I'd expect anything less. I'm glad all these people are ...

• At February 2, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  Aw, shucks!

• At February 3, 2009, Journalista - the news weblog of The Comics Journal » Blog Archive » Feb. 3, 2009: We’re not dying, we swear wrote:

  [...] [Review] The Quest for the Missing Girl Link: Michelle Smith [...]

• At February 3, 2009, Katherine Dacey wrote:

  Michelle:

  Nice to see you getting a more visible gig to complement the work you do at PCS! This is by ...

• At February 3, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  Wow, thanks, Kate! Praise will always mean a lot to me coming from you. :)

• At February 4, 2009, Katherine Dacey wrote:

  Glad to see you doing so well--looks like things are going gangbusters at PCS as well. I'll definitely be adding ...

• At February 4, 2009, Stephen Robson wrote:

  Michelle, welcome and thanks for the lovely review. Look out for a link on the "Quest" page of our site ...

• At February 4, 2009, Michelle Smith wrote:

  Thanks for the information and compliment, Stephen! I shall definitely be looking forward to A Distant Neighborhood when it's released.

• At February 6, 2009, Reading Over Shoulders wrote:

  [...] Smith, for Comics Should be Good, reviews Quest for the Missing Girl. Categorized under: reading ...

• At April 6, 2009, Blue Moon Reviews — The Quest for the Missing Girl « pressing digressions wrote:

  [...] Blue Moon Reviews — The Quest for the Missing Girl Jump to Comments Check out this great review ...