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Volume 1
Story and Art by Tamegai Tohru and Sagara Naoya
Copyright © 1999 Tamegai Tohru / Sagara Naoya / RUNNINGFREE




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by Eric "Scanner" Luce
"Atashi wa ningen jyanai.""I am not human." With a subtitle
like that and the cover art, this manga almost telegraphs itself
to the reader. Yet another story about some young female demon,
devil, monster who has relationships with humans during what may
be termed "interesting times." And indeed, this is such a story.
It promises the usual bits of angst about a girl trapped between
several worldsnot being a human, but having half-human blood,
having a friend who is human and dealing with a secret council of
human agents who have a dark agenda. What is there that would make
someone want to read this particular story over countless other
similar ones?
Luckily, as it turned out, a fair amount. KANA's formula is a popular one and successful
since it has such appeal. The art is quite fine and makes the
manga pleasant to simply look at. The reader also gets the
impression that there is more depth to the main characters than
is typical for this setting.
Where does it all start? Abe Yuuji-kun is a middle school
student. Rushing to catch a late subway train after school, he just
misses it and has to wait on the platform for the next one. He
notices a girl staring at him from the other end of the platform.
At first Yuuji-kun wonders if she is staring at someone else, but
there is no one else on the platform this late at night. Perhaps
there is something funny about him that she is staring at, so
Yuuji-kun checks but nothing seems out of place on his person. He
walks up to her and asks if there is something she wants. She gives
no reaction. Yuuji-kun begins to feel even more unsure of what to
do and resorts to telling her his name. She finally reacts and says
that her name is Kana. Before Yuuji-kun is able to ask anything else,
the next train arrives at the platform and he gets on. When he turns
around, there is Kana on the platform, still staring at him. When he
asks if she is not going to get on, Kana nods. As the door closes
Yuuji-kun hurriedly asks if they will meet again. The door closes
before he can get an answer, but on the other side of the glass Kana
is smiling.
It is a fairly simple start to the story. We start with
the mystery of just who is Kana and how will her relationship with
Yuuji-kun develop. By placing it at the opening, that theme becomes
the focus for our interest in the story. As we meet Yuuji-kun's
elder sister (and his only family since their parents have died) we
get a sense of his past and the sadness that lies there. When we
further encounter Rou, the Oo-kami guardian of Kana, we find out
that she is also without family, making the possible relationship
even more poignant.
Into this is thrown the troubling nature of Kana's heritage
and a secret council trying to control various spirits for some
grand-sweeping nefarious purpose, setting the stage for several
opposing forces that will seek to either tear Kana and Yuuji-kun
apart or bring them inextricably closer together.
A nice feature of this story is that even though Yuuji-kun
is only human, he provides valuable assistance and major plot points
along the way. Even with the pacing of some events seeming extremely
forced, you do not get the feeling of an overall destiny that is
impelling the non-human character and dragging the human counterpart
willy-nilly. That both characters are naive to their destinies and
simultaneously learn about each other and their worlds adds to the
charm.
The art for this story is on a whole other dimension. With
story by Tamegai Tohru and art by Sagara Naoya, this manga is
extremely well refined. The lines are extremely fine yet solid. There
are no rough edges here. The backgrounds themselves are sparse and
not very frequent. A large amount of zip tone is used to give a good
sense of depth as well. The real gift for me was in the expressions
of the characters. They are almost never drawn with great
exaggeration and yet they convey an extremely strong sense of the
character's emotions. A small smile, a nod, a tear from an eyeit
is all in there. To add a little contrast, there are a few places
where a caricature is used to increase the humor of a passage. These
give some levity to a story that otherwise would suffer from being
too serious.
There are occasional furigana in this story which make
reading for the kanji-impaired a bit more of a challenge. However,
there are no complex interpretations so it should not scare away
beginning readers. KANA is a story that
promises an interesting relationship and I'm looking forward to volume
2 to see if the promise holds true. 
Published by GUM Comics
1 volume, ongoing
194 pages, b/w with color intro pages
ISBN4-8470-3286-1
¥950
Available now in Japan
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