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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 the kind and gentle female ex-ghost O-kinu.
  This issue: Mikami and company are on a plane with movie star Kinki Gouichi: an old schoolmate, friend and rival of Yokoshima's. Unfortunately, star "Gin-chan" (as Yokoshima calls him) has a crazed fan... a female demonic stalker who is now trying to crash the plane. Mikami is accidentally swept off the plane, leaving Yokoshima to save it. Using Gin-chan as a lure, he successfully bags the demon (shouting in forceful Osaka-ben just to make his point). Later it turns out Yokoshima and Gin-chan's old rivalry over a girl had been won by Yokoshima... but Gin-chan doesn't tell Yokoshima this, so, for now, their rivalry will continue.


MAJOR
by Mitsuda Takuya

Overview: Honda Goro, from his early years in grade school, has been striving to become a professional baseball player like his deceased father. Now, in high school, he is facing new challenges.
  This issue: Honda and Satou are surviving at the Kaidou High training camp. Back home, Satou's adoptive grandparents receive a letter from Satou reassuring them he is all right and getting stronger. Honda's adoptive mother, meanwhile, runs into Shimizu, who is now at Seishuu high school and doing softball again. Meanwhile, the coach at Mifune High is facing another bleak, hopeless year... until he sees the new students Yamane, Ohbayashi, and Komori (Honda's old teammates from junior high) in action. Watching them and hearing their enthusiasm, he suddenly has high hopes for his team.


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. Far away, their friend Narumi is becoming embroiled in an ancient battle against evil living puppets.
  This issue: Narumi, Guy, and Lucille have left the battle scene. They pass over a town that had recently been brought to ruin by the midnight circus, Le Cirque de Minuit. They continue on, and the old woman Lucille brings them to an empty well that had once contained "aqua vitae." Narumi asks about the evil puppets, the Zonopha disease they cause and the life-saving "aqua vitae" that is in his own body; even Guy wants to know more. So Lucille begins to tell them about the town that had been near the well which, 200 years before, became the very first town to ever be destroyed by the midnight circus. Meanwhile, the puppets hear about their defeat and have become interested in Narumi...


SALAD DAYS
by Inokuma Shinobu

Overview: This is a series of short stories about romance.
  This issue: Fukawa is introduced as a high school boy who usually acts as the go-between for other boys who want him to pass their love-letters on to the girls. This time, his best friend Hitoshi asks him to deliver a letter to a girl named Satou Mao. But Satou Mao turns out to have a crush on Fukawa. Fukawa finds himself liking her too, and is now in the difficult position: should he deliver Hitoshi's love letter and hurt Satou Mao's feelings, or should he just go out with Satou Mao and hurt his friend Hitoshi's feelings?


MEITANTEI CONAN
by Aoyama Goushou

Overview: Grade-school boy Conan is secretly high school detective Kudou Shinichi, made younger against his will by a strange Organization (which thinks he is dead). Now, he and his girlfriend Ran help solve murder incidents.
  This issue: Haibara Ai (Sherry), the ex-Organization chemist and now a fellow small child, has been dragged into an Organization-related murder by Conan. Unfortunately, she was kidnapped, and now, while temporarily in adult Sherry form, she has been found and shot by Jin. Conan races against time, in the process unmasking the murderer and saving Haibara. Luckily, neither Haibara's nor Conan's true identities are discovered—the only person who notices Haibara is Sherry is conveniently eliminated by Jin. Now, more than ever before, Conan wants to destroy the Organization.


TOKYO DEKA (COP IN TOKYO)
by Suzuki Kei-ichi

Overview: Kagami Kazuya is a 20-year-old rookie cop and former gang leader, bringing his own form of justice to the stuffy ranks of the police.
  This issue: (This is a relatively new series by the author of TOKYO BANCHOU.) Last issue, Kagami caught a girl stealing a computer, who gave him a sob story about wanting to play networked shougi against her brother who lives far away due to a divorce. When she offered to have sex with him in exchange for freedom, Kagami ditched his partner and went driving off into the night. Now, in this issue, his partner is unable to report him because of the embarrassing way in which he'd been ditched. Meanwhile, instead of going to a "love hotel," Kagami has taken the girl to the giant garbage dump Yume No Shima. There, he announces he will build a computer. After ignoring him awhile, the girl finally gets interested and they toil together all night to build a working computer, and she finally gets to play shougi with her brother. She even privately wishes her brother would grow up to become a man like Kagami. Later, Kagami has trouble kicking the girl out of the police station, which she has decided to hang around because "it's a warm place."


Shonen Sunday Copyright © 1999 Shogakugan
¥220


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