 | | ▪ | RELEASED BY: | | VIZ MEDIA | | | ▪ | AUTHOR / ART: | | YASUHIRO KANO | | | ▪ | FORMAT: | | JAPANESE / B&W | | | ▪ | PAGES: | | 196 | | | ▪ | RATING: | | OT | | | ▪ | RELEASE DATE: | | 06/03/2008 | | | ▪ | REVIEW DATE: | | 08/11/2008 | | | ▪ | REVIEWED BY: | | SCOTT CAMPBELL |
After he is disfigured in a school bus crash, teenage karate star Rando is saved by plastic surgery. Unfortunately, due to a horrible mix-up, he is given the face of Rina, the girl he has a crush on! Abandoned by his friends and parents, Rando is mistaken for Rina’s twin sister and adopted into her family. What’s a half-girl, half-crossdressing-guy to do? In volume six, the war is on for Rando's affections when Natsuo and Nozomi finally meet! Which of the class's toughest girls will have their way with our not-quite-male, not-quite-shemale hero? Then, Rando finally meets the person whose face he's been wearing all this time: Rina's real twin sister! Will the return of Yuna spell the end of Rando's womanhood... and when the bandages come off, will his chances with Rina be over? In volume six, things are going to really hit the fan… but what else would you expect from the exciting final volume of Pretty Face? The odd situations reach ridiculous levels in each new volume, but that’s exactly what we want to see. This series has always been very funny, and it’s great to see it continue to take it father and crazier within the final volume. 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), and volume six is the very climax of such things! Yes – volume six just barely (“barely”… haha) squeaks by with an Older Teen rating and manages to fend off the mature rating it might otherwise have. There is however a “Parental Advisory Mature Content” badge on the front, so who knows what message is trying to be put forward here? Either way, volume six has more nudity then all the other volumes put together, just so you know what you’re getting into. Anyhow, the art is 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. Yasuhiro Kano (the very talented man behind this work and others) made his manga debut in 1992 with Black City, which won Weekly Shonen Jump's Hop Step Award for new artists. From 1993 to 2001, a novel series called MIDNIGHT MAGIC, written by Mugen and illustrated by Kano, was serialized in Japan's Jump Novel magazine. Kano also created a MIDNIGHT MAGIC manga based on the novel. Two collections of manga short stories by Kano have been released: BLACK CITY in 1996 and TOKYO ANTS in 2003. Kano's six-volume series PRETTY FACE appeared in Weekly Shonen Jump from 2002 to 2003, and his newest series, M X 0, began running in WSJ in 2006. He’s quite a busy guy, and no wonder – he’s obviously got a talent for creating some very entertaining manga!
IN SUMMARY:
The final volume of Pretty face is anything but normal – and what else would you expect! Crazy gets crazier as the series comes to a ridiculously climactic ending, with a hint of a future second installment to come! Hmmm, could be fun? More likely than not! |
