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By various (TokyoPop)
ISBN 1-59816-493-7
Here’s a particularly Japanese aspect of comics publishing that’s just making its way into Western Culture. Many Manga properties have vociferous and energetic fan-groups and unlike the American system of suing anybody who produces art and/or stories of their favourite strips, the Japanese print the best of them in Official Fan Books (the phrase to Google is ‘Manga-Ka’ if you need more information).
This volume contains strips from fans of the series DearS as well as material from its creator, Peach-Pit, and examines, with varying degrees of discretion and decorum, some of the odder aspects of the property. The original is a boy-meets-alien-girl tale of the sort much loved in Japan. Takeya, a high school boy, does an alien girl a favour, only to have her publicly declare herself his slave, with the usual embarrassingly slapstick consequences.
The work here ranges from the very good to excellent, although the fascination with bedroom secrets, whilst expected, gets a little tiresome. Still if you like looking at semi-clad women drawn in the oddly innocent soft-core Manga manner, it is quite engaging, but strangers to the parent series might be a little confused at times.
This book is printed in the ‘read-from-back-to-front’ manga format.
© 2005 PEACH-PIT. All Rights Reserved. English text © 2006 TOKYOPOP Inc.