In our final column of the year, Erin and I revisit two series, with reviews of the third volume of B.O.D.Y. and the second and final volume of Blank Slate. Erin also takes a look at the thirteenth volume of Skip Beat!, the first Manga Recon appearance for that series, while I check out supernatural one-shot Gaba Kawa.

Blank Slate, Vol. 2

By Aya Kanno
Viz, 208 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

If there’s one thing notorious criminal Zen can’t stand, it’s being controlled. At the end of the first volume, while he and his doctor companion, Hyakka, were liberating Amatan prisoners from a Galay Army facility, he fell into an involuntary trance after which he awoke with no memory of his violent actions. Now, he resolves to find the person responsible, which means finally getting some answers about his forgotten past.

Said answers are gradually revealed throughout the volume, and manage to be interesting but more or less what I had expected. Perhaps that’s why this volume, like its predecessor, was a little difficult to get into at first. Also, one major revelation that I hadn’t seen coming was telegraphed in advance. Alert readers get suspicious when you only show us parts of someone’s face, you know!

That said, I have to admire the economy of the storytelling—no extraneous information is offered nor is any essential detail lacking—as well as the way the series ends. Aspects of the climactic conclusion are melodramatic, but I like that we actually end up rooting for Zen, even after witnessing the evil of which he is capable.

Blank Slate presents an entertaining and thought-provoking story, even if the execution stumbles here and there. And at two volumes, it’s short and affordable. An afternoon spent on this series would not be wasted.

Volume two of Blank Slate is available now.

–Reviewed by Michelle Smith

B.O.D.Y., Vol. 3

By Ao Mimori
Viz, 192 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

Volume one of the nonsensically-titled- by-a-drunken-editor B.O.D.Y. read like a fierce manual of shojo clichés, but there was still something about it that was compelling, so much so that I named B.O.D.Y. “Best Guilty Pleasure of 2008″.

In volume three, our protagonist Ryoko has apparently started working as a hostess to get her would-be boyfriend Ryunosuke out of debt and/or to allow him to quit his club (I skipped volume 2). I find manga-ka Minori’s overall story of teenagers in hosts clubs to be unrealistic, but what’s frightening about this volume is the inspired-by-real-life lectures the kids are given by the manager when they try to quit. “You’ll have to pay me while I find a replacement,” he tells them (paraphrased here). This makes the righteous American in me scream: “That isn’t at-will employment! They should sue!… But aren’t those poor teens already working illegally?”

Meanwhile, Ryoko makes a series of life-threateningly poor decisions, lead by her shojo-heart-of-gold, which had me screaming, “No, Ryoko! Don’t find his ex who ran out on him, leaving him with a pile of debt! She’ll never apologize! That’s crazy!”

Perhaps the same elements that make B.O.D.Y. unbearable and frustrating to read also make it a page-turner.

Volume three of B.O.D.Y. is available now.

–Reviewed by Erin Finnegan

Gaba Kawa

By Rie Takada
Viz, 192 pp.
Rating: Teen

Rara is a demon who has come to the mortal world for the first time. She’d told everyone back home that her goal was to drag human souls into darkness, but really she just wants to meet the celebrity demon du jour, Hiroshi Akusawa, and become his girlfriend. When a dashing boy called Aku saves her from falling off a building, she’s convinced she’s met Akusawa. That is, until she meets the real Akusawa, who is not at all dreamy, and realizes that the other boy is a mere human.

It’d be easy for Rara to claim Aku’s heart using magic, but she wants him to fall in love with her for real. Some of her female classmates (yes, the younger demons all attend high school) advise against pursuing him, claiming that he is weird (on account of having been abducted by aliens) and gay (on account of having been spotted hugging his best friend). Rara, undaunted and clueless, decides that donning a boy’s uniform is the way to win his love, leading to my favorite line of the volume:

I don’t care if he is a gay alien. Once he gets a look at me in this, his heart will be mine.

Rara is warned several times not to use her magic to benefit a human, but as she gets closer to Aku, she can’t help lending him a hand when he could use it, like when his ability to see spirits results in him being pestered by wayward souls. As a result, she begins to lose her demon powers, which include things like invisibility and flight, and faces punishment for her actions from her demon brethren.

The concept is fairly unique, but Rara is still more or less your traditional clumsy, not-too-bright shojo heroine who somehow manages to make the hottest guy in school fall for her. Add to that the clichés of the boy who can see spirits and the old “trip and smooch” maneuver, and it winds up being pretty well-trod territory after all.

Still, while Gaba Kawa may be fluffy and familiar, it’s also pretty fun. I’m inspired to check out more by its creator.

Gaba Kawa is available now.

–Reviewed by Michelle Smith

Skip Beat!, Vol. 13

By Yoshiki Nakamura
Viz, 200 pp.
Rating: Teen

In Yoshiki Nakamura’s inventive revenge-comedy, Kyoko quits school to work in Tokyo to support her childhood friend Sho in becoming a rock star. Sho wrongs Kyoko, and even though they were never exactly dating, Kyoko becomes a scorned woman. She remakes herself and gets a job at a talent agency in attempt to outshine Sho by becoming famous herself. Unfortunately, Kyoko needs to need the audience’s love before she can make her big break.

Nakamura’s plots are often surprising and funny, but sometimes, as in volume four, they can fall flat when they fall off-topic. I gave up on the series, even though I enjoyed Nakamura’s strange long, skinny, vertical panels and Kyoko’s multiple ghostly arms reaching out for revenge.

Picking up volume thirteen after skipping five through twelve was jarring—I couldn’t tell the difference between Kyoko and another actress named Itsumi. The book begins in media res; Ren (Sho’s biggest rival, and one assumes Kyoko’s romantic interest) is in the middle of an acting test with Itsumi. Had I read volume twelve, I’m sure the dramatic tension would follow a nice arc through Ren’s performance. Being thrown into the middle of the action, it was difficult to tell what was happening and why I should care. Nakamura mentions in her notes that the acting test should have concluded in one volume, and I agree. I ended up wishing I was reading ’70s shojo hardcore acting manga classic Glass Mask instead.

The volume wraps with a cliché: “I met you when I was a kid and you made me stop crying.” It’s a stock manga storyline revolving around Kyoko. This kind of nonsense is carried off successfully in Kitchen Princess, but I’ve been sick of it since Love Hina and can only seem to let it pass as parody, like in Sumomomo. Skip Beat! has its good moments, but in this competitive manga market, I can’t drop $110+ to keep up with the ongoing series, which is currently up to volume twenty in Japan.

Compared to shonen manga, very little shojo gets adapted into anime, so the 2008 anime series of Skip Beat! is a testament to the series’ popularity. I was curious how Nakamura’s visual gags would make the transition to television. Often Kyoko is surrounded by angels and demons and murky hellish tones when she thinks of Sho. These visuals have been adequately animated, but sadly, these elements I so enjoy are lacking from this particular volume of the manga.

Volume thirteen of Skip Beat! is available now.

–Reviewed by Erin Finnegan