▪	RELEASED BY:		VIZ MEDIA
		▪	AUTHOR / ART:		YASUHIRO KANO
		▪	FORMAT:		JAPANESE/ BW
		▪	PAGES:		201
		▪	RATING:		OT
		▪	RELEASE DATE:		08/07/2007
		▪	REVIEW DATE:		09/17/2007
		▪	REVIEWED BY:		SCOTT CAMPBELL

It would be a total crime not to write the catch phrase on the back of this first volume of Pretty Face: “He wanted to be her boyfriend... He’ll settle for being her twin sister!” With an introduction to the premise like that, who could say no?! This book is too funny – the concept is just too strange/too wrong to pass up. The Japanese are well known for the humour they are able to find in gender bending antics, but Pretty Face really consumes the cake when it comes to doing a double take over a manga’s “situational” comedy.

When his school bus crashes, teenage karate star Rando is sent into a coma. A year later he wakes up to find that his disfigured face has been reconstructed in the image of the girl in school that he has a crush on! Not knowing what Rando originally looked like, the mad scientist/plastic surgeon Dr. Manabe used a photo in Rando’s pocket as the model for his reconstructive surgery. Abandoned by his friends and parents, the all-new Rando is mistaken for his would-be girlfriend’s long-lost twin sister (wait a second... didn’t I see this on Jerry Springer last week?) and adopted into her family. See, her sister ran away from home a year ago, and never returned, so the whole family believes that this new reincarnation of Rando is actually the sister/daughter they’ve lost. The question now is: Can he put aside his feelings for Rina (the would be girlfriend) and be a good “big sister” when he is still a teenage boy from the waist down? And we mean literally.

The art is really quite good – well-drawn, good shading and textures, and not too busy. The facial expressions really make it jump to that higher level of comedy – especially Rando’s. You’ll likely never see another manga/anime character have as many nosebleeds and bulging eyes as Rando does during his misadventures with the opposite sex (since he is a guy… sort of). The art is also quite dynamic, which is pretty cool for a comedy/slice of (weird) life manga. Lots of movement and speed lines are present within each page, really adding to the book’s ability to come alive and jump off the page. The details are impressive – a fine balance is present, as the art is great, but never overwhelming. That’s something that isn’t always easy to accomplish! As for reading the words and the flow of the story, it’s all very manageable. Some “side thoughts” of the character’s can be a bit hard to see as that kind of text is always made purposely smaller – but we won’t likely have too many senior citizens reading Pretty Face.

It’s certainly an interesting and welcome addition to the Shonen Jump line-up. Most SJ titles are a bit more on the action/comedy side, so it’s nice to see them doing something a bit more “risque”, if you will. There’s slight nudity smattered here and there, but nothing to get all “up in arms” about really. A lot of the humour revolves around the crazy situations Rando gets into in his new female form, especially those situations where he might be “found out” due to someone seeing him without his drawers! It sounds a bit strange… and maybe it is – but it is fun, and goofy, and won’t break the bank either. The concept behind the “conflict” is just too funny – It will be interesting to see where this goes with future volumes.

IN SUMMARY: 
Pretty Face has such a strange concept; it’s just too hard to pass up. It’s a goofy romp that serves up some much-needed light entertainment with plenty of laughs. So much can go wrong for the main character – and that may be exactly what makes the situational comedy so entertaining!