Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Gaba Kawa

Story and Art by Rie Takada
Released in the US by Viz


Slugline: How did this happen? A manga with a good ending?

Rara is a demon that has come to the mortal world to cause evil in her guise as a mortal high school student so that her powers will increase. Conversely, if she does good to humans she loses her powers. At first that is not her major concern, Rara went to the mortal world to find the demon of her dreams. One relatively simple misunderstanding later she thinks that a human is her dream demon, and lets herself feel for him. When the dream demon finally shows, she is no longer interested in him. As Rara falls further in love with Retsu, her own existence becomes ever more endangered as her powers start disappearing.

First of all, this manga actually had a decent ending. Most manga (and anime for that matter) seem to me to have weak or inconsistent endings. Maybe because this was just a one volume story, it didn't have a chance to sprawl out of control, but the final chapter I think could have worked no matter how long the series ran, as long as the story kept to the same concept. Now I don't want to oversell this, the ending was good but not so good that I giving up manga now that I have read the 'perfect' ending. But considering how often manga fails at endings, this was a welcome change of pace. The relatively concise and effective writing and the okay art rounds out the package.



Gaba Kawa is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga

-Ferdinand

No comments: