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1997 Issue 36-37
Shogakukan
Update by Eri Izawa
What is SHONEN SUNDAY? SHONEN
SUNDAY is one of the largest weekly
manga magazines in Japan. Containing some of the latest and hottest
boys' manga series in Japan, Sunday has hosted such notables as
RANMA 1/2 and the currently popular
MEITANTEI CONAN.
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Selected News from this Issue

This week's magazine boasts a full-color section on singer and media
idol Nishida Hikaru, who has recorded, among other things, the ending
theme for the animated version of RECCA NO HONOO
(The Flame of Recca).
Hikaru fans can find a poster and several pages of her modeling
various sports uniforms, plus even a sweepstakes for winning various
pieces of sports apparel. |
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Selected Overview: KARAKURI CIRCUS
Author: Fujita Kazuhiro

KARAKURI CIRCUS is a series that has only recently begun in
SHONEN SUNDAY. Its author is Fujita Kazuhiro, better known for
his previous SHONEN SUNDAY series
USHIO TO TORA. Like USHIO TO TORA,
KARAKURI CIRCUS
promises to be a bizarre, action-packed, but fundamentally
good-natured manga. As a sign of this, the word "karakuri" implies
tricky mechanisms or gadgets.
This new manga focuses on three somewhat unusual people: Katou Narumi,
a skilled kempo fighter who has a strange illness that requires him to
make others laugh (or else he will asphyxiate); Masaru, a young boy who
is the heir to a lot of wealth, and whose lineage is somehow tied into
the making of complex karakuri puppets; and "Shirogane," a French
circus acrobat who has the ability to control a powerful puppet named
"Arurukan."
The characters, though already odd enough on their own, find
themselves pursued by a mysterious organization that uses lifelike
puppets to try to kill them. Between Katou's martial arts and
Shirogane's puppet, they have so far managed to escape. However, all
is not well with the trio. Shirogane, who is Masaru's appointed
protector, does not trust Katou while Katou cannot stand Shirogane's
arrogance. Masaru, meanwhile, wants to know why they cannot get
along together.
KARAKURI CIRCUS's episode 5 starts with Shirogane cooking dinner for
Masaru, and stubbornly refusing any help from Katou (even though
they are in Katou's house). Shirogane has frustrated Katou again (as
usual); this time he is angry that she has accused him of being a
busybody. But listening to Masaru's story sobers him. Even though
the boy is currently the heir to a fortune, he is actually an
illegitimate child, and had lived in poverty for a long time with his
mother. Only recently, after his mother's death, did he discover he
was the heir to his father's family holdings.
This week's story ends with a stereotypical manga scene in which Katou
accidentally walks in on a naked Shirogane as she helps an obviously
embarrassed Masaru with his bath. Meanwhile, though, a puppeteer has
arrived outside, complete with a sinister new puppet.
Despite the familiar elements of the bathroom gaffe, or even the usual
interpersonal friction (with occasional moments of mutual respect
thrown in), KARAKURI CIRCUS has a style all its own
or rather, all
Fujita's own. His art still has the "fresh" feeling so often
lacking with authors who have developed a set formula for their work.
This new series is also lighthearted in a way that the later
USHIO TO TORA episodes are not, or perhaps cannot be. All this makes
KARAKURI CIRCUS worth looking into.

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