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MANGA REVIEWS

Shonen Sunday Briefs (continued)

GHOST SWEEPER MIKAMI GOKURAKU DAISAKUSEN!!
by Shiina Takashi

Overview: Mikami Reiko is a money-hungry, gorgeous female ghost buster, aided by her sex-starved and underpaid male assistant Yokoshima Tadao, as well as kind and gentle female ex-ghost O-kinu.
  This issue: Another Yokoshima-finds-a-beautiful-monster episode. This time, Mikami takes up a task even her mother has refused: to capture a magical nine-tailed fox, of the type that once devastated China and India before coming to Japan. Yokoshima and O-kinu take pity on the young fox, however, and secretly bring it home. O-kinu fails to live up to the image of a Miyazaki heroine by failing to tame the fox. The fox, however, does have a stereotypical fondness for fried tofu, and (not surprisingly for this series) turns into a cute, foxy young girl....


MAJOR
by Mitsuda Takuya

Overview: Honda Goro, from his early years in grade school, has been striving to become a profession baseball player like his father. Now, in high school, he is facing new challenges.
  This issue: Still at the punishing, isolated training ground for Kaidou High's baseball team, the young recruits are suffering mightily. They are sent up a steep hill, forbidden from letting their hands or knees touch the ground. No freshman has ever been able to conquer this hill, but Honda does. The trainer carries this news back to the school's baseball overlord, who tells him to crush Honda and says, "I will create the geniuses." In other words, geniuses are supposed to be created by him; all others are not allowed. Honda, as a "nail that sticks out," must be hammered down....


KARAKURI CIRCUS
by Fujita Kazuhiro

Overview: Masaru is a grade school boy who is the heir to a vast fortune. Shirogane, a French woman who controls a powerful puppet, is his bodyguard.
  This issue: Narumi is in search of the murderous automata that have kidnapped a group of children in France. As he makes his way into an old mansion, he recalls his earlier days, when he trained in China. His teacher taught him not only how to fight, but to identify the "wind that blows inside the heart," the unrest and unease of powerful people who don't know what to do: an unrest that only Narumi can find the cure for. As he fights, Narumi remembers that it was only Masaru's smile that stopped the wind of unease. But Narumi, as an amnesiac, also thinks he failed to protect Masaru somehow. This time, facing the automaton Flavio, who has chained to himself the kidnapped children, Narumi resolves to successfully protect the innocent. However, he winds up getting saved by the elderly women puppeteers of the Shirogane....


DANDOH!!
by Sakata Nobuhiro and Banjou Daichi

Overview: Dandoh is an earnest young boy who has found a calling in golf. With his friend Yuka and Kouhei, he uses sincerity and determination as his guides for becoming a pro-golfer.
  This issue: Dandoh has been struggling at the Asian Match Play in Thailand, especially since his caddy seems to know absolutely nothing about golf. But the young caddy seems to have come around, and gives Dandoh a vital suggestion for using a hard-packed path behind the trees. With this information, Dandoh wins the next hole and starts to make up for lost points. The caddy, seeing Dandoh's happy smile, begins to warm to the job.


KAGEGUMI
by Akashi Kazutaka

Overview: The Kagegumi is nominally an evil-fighting junior high group, largely comprised of somewhat strange and perverted kids. Comedy series.
  This issue: Muttsuri finds a note that the others have been kidnapped, and is instructed to bring furikake (rice topping), an Othello board, a carrot, and ketchup to free them. Along the way, he winds up somehow losing or giving away all but the ketchup (the carrot, for example, goes to a random rampaging horse). He finds out, though, that all had been a test of his personal growth. The other 3 members are transferring out of their junior high.

Shonen Sunday ©1999 Shogakugan
¥220


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