Guardian Hearts, Vol. 1

By Sae Amatsu
Tokyopop, 192 pp.
Rating: Older Teen Age 16+

Secret identities and super-suits abound in Guardian Hearts, but don’t be fooled into thinking it’s about superheroes; actually, it’s a romantic-comedy harem series. Nevertheless, there are some clever touches that seemingly make fun of superhero books, such as the fact most of the harem girls have alter-egos, yet they all manage to live together in the same place without ever finding one another out. There’s also a character who taps into whatever uniforms she steals for her powers: unfortunately, she tries engaging in a super battle using the raw energy unleashed from school swimsuits – much to her chagrin.

In Guardian Hearts, the home of a teenage boy and his mother, for some mysterious reason, is repeatedly visited by cute alien girls with superpowers. The first newcomer is Hina, a super-heroine assigned to Earth by the Guardian Hearts – or GAARTS for short – which appears to be some kind of military outfit. Subsequent visitors include the aforementioned girl whose power comes from stealing other people’s clothes, a space ninja, a princess, a priestess’ assistant, and some kind of cat/human hybrid. Several of them are in love with Kazuya, the young man of the house, which leads to much of volume one’s tension and light-hearted conflict.

I liked how the series doesn’t take itself too seriously, which is appropriate given the ridiculousness of the premise; it is rather odd that this seemingly-normal house in the suburbs becomes the nexus for so many close encounters of the third kind. Much of the humor comes from these visits becoming so commonplace that Kazuya starts reacting nonchalantly to them.

Indeed, when one alien makes her dramatic disclosure and tells Kazuya, “I know this is totally incomprehensible to you…,” he quickly interjects, “No… I believe you.”

“You… believe me?” she says.

“Yep,” Kazuya responds, while thinking, “Nothing surprises me now that I know a superhero!”

For the most part, writer and artist Sae Amatsu does a good job making a large number of female characters different from one another, and some of the characterizations are actually quite funny, particularly Daisy, the super-deformed cat-human creature who looks like a little girl, but talks like a grizzled old coot. She has an especially distinctive voice, and is probably the only character in the whole series who would say something like, “the wall behind this one is a cold and murky one!” to describe something potentially ominous.

On the minus side, there are a lot of characters introduced in volume one, and even if Amatsu manages to differentiate between them on the writing side, the art is less successful at it. Perhaps this would not have been a problem if the series were in full-color, if certain characters did not have superhero alter-egos that looked different from their civilian selves, or if some protagonists weren’t introduced, forgotten about for a lengthy period of the book, then brought back from out of nowhere. The bottom line is I found myself studying characters’ hair more in Guardian Hearts than quite possibly any series I previously read, which isn’t enough to keep me from coming back for more, provided Amatsu places a temporary moratorium on introducing new cast members.

Volume one of Guardian Hearts is available now.