Mangakissa – TOKYOPOP

Many of us are in the midst of mourning/celebrating TOKYOPOP, which closed up shop in the United States last month.  The fate of many ongoing series is undetermined (and Amazon is unable to fulfill orders for them), but as we wait and wonder at their fate, we can go back and catch up on or look anew at over 300 titles offered through their house around the world.  The most popular titles over the years have been my personal favorite, Fruits Basket, along with Mobile Suit Gundam, Paradise Kiss, Sailor Moon, Saiyuki, PhD: Phantasy Degree, Suikoden, Angelic Layer, Devil May Cry, Cowboy Bebop, Magic Knight Rayearth, .hack, Jing: King of Bandits, Dramacon, Bizenghast, Anima, Pet Shop of Horrors, Kingdom Hearts, and the more recent and bestselling additions to their list, Priest, Gakuen Alice, Alice in the Country of Hearts, Butterfly, and Pavane for the Dead.  Here is a look at four memorable series from the publisher.

Momogumi Plus Senki by Eri Sakondou

Yuuki has disaster attraction disorder, which doesn’t just mean bad luck for himself but for anyone who is unfortunate enough to be around him.  When he attends a new school, a girl called Kijinogi saves him from a window crashing in and refers to him as “my lord,” and a trio of boys tell him they are there to protect him.  Apparently he is the reincarnation of a famous demon slayer and the three are descendants of his original servants; they wear animal masks to channel animal skills and strength.  There’s a  problem:  Yuuki wants friends, not protectors and servants.  The adolescent supernatural drama is broken up by the song Yuuki’s minions use to lure the demons out in order to fight them – “The Demon’s Underwear.”  Nothing like teasing and infuriating – or humiliating – a demon before attempting to break a curse it has cast.  Rated T, four volumes

Wish by CLAMP

Milk-drinking angel Kohaku is the victim of a crow attack when Shuichiro rescues her, and she is determined to reward him by granting him a wish.  A demon magician, Koryu, is after her, as are his servants, who take cat form and develop a rather vocal physical appreciation of the attractive Shuichiro.  These demons eat humans, body and soul, so Kohaku becomes protective of him and fears for his life.  Ruri and Hari, Koryu’s kitten servants, tease Kohaku and call her Kocrapu while mocking her purpose for visiting Earth – she seeks heaven’s most beautiful and important angel, Madam Hisui, the angel of the wind, who has recently disappeared.  Things get creepy when God’s messenger, Usyagi, appears, and readers familiar with Donnie Darko may be moderately disturbed, although this rabbit does not look at all like Frank; there is just something about him, however . . . Rated T, four volumes

My Cat Loki by Bettina M. Kurkoski

Some of us love our pets like they are part of our family; Ameya is no exception.  As an only child, he adores his childhood companion, his cat Luka, like a brother, and is upset when Luka dies while he is away at college.  He mourns Luka and is so devastated that he puts his artistic career on hold, which annoys his agent, Ms. Chacha.  During his depression, he finds a cat in the rain and takes him in, talking to him as he used to talk to Luka, as if he were a person rather than a cat, and believes that Loki talks back to him.  Loki has a mind of his own and decides that he does not like Ms. Chacha, who has a secret crush on her client.  Ameya’s focus is entirely on his art, which consists mainly of paintings of cat boys, until he meets Luci and her cat Calli at a café.  This flipped title is a sweet drama that doesn’t go overboard, balancing the emotional aspects with humor, and deals with death and loss in a realistic manner.  The author’s official My Cat Loki page not only features her own artwork but that of fans around the world, along with a detailed description of her manga creation process. Rated T, two volumes (a third volume was cancelled by TOKYOPOP)

Sgt. Frog by Mine Yoshizaki

When aliens invade Earth in 1999, Natsumi Hinata and her little brother Fuyuki discover a frog hiding in their house – Sgt. Keroro, who is no frog but an alien on a quest to capture Pokoperians, or Earthlings.  Fuyuki has dreamed of aliens and is thrilled to have an encounter with one, but his sister is appalled and wants to kill Keroro, who is the commanding officer of the space invasion force.  Sgt. Frog is torn between Fuyuki’s friendly advances and his mission, along with Natsumi’s hatred of him.  When Keroro is abandoned by his superiors because he has been found by Pokoperians and compromised the mission, he is stuck.  Natsumi makes him do housework and insults him by comparing him to Slimer on Ghostbusters, and Fuyuki  meddles with his kero ball, which can electrically shock as well as operate as an anti-gravity device, for starters.  Their mangaka mother forbids pets, so when she comes home after her usual absence of several days absorbed in her work, she surprises her children by finding Sgt. Frog a thrilling addition to their home.  He would be a great inspiration for a manga character, she exclaims.  The Hinata family doesn’t know that Sgt. Frog is not the only alien left behind – Fuyuki’s weird and skittish classmate Momoka, who has a secret crush on him, has a frog of her own, Private Tamama.  This is a hilarious and quite rabid tale that is so popular it even has its own wiki.  Rated T, 21 volumes and continuing.