Savanna Welles Tells Secrets

Oh, WEE. Let’s talk about Savanna Welles’s (aka Valerie Wilson Wesley) latest paranormal romance not-so thriller, The Moon Tells Secrets.

The premise is extra simple–though suggests something yards more exhilarating than the actual events. A woman named Raine has been on the run with her eleven-year-old half African- half Native-American son, Davey. The two are fleeing Davey’s marred legacy, one that not even Davey’s Navajo grandmother could protect them from with her traditions and wisdom. However, before death takes her, she leaves the two plenty to run with. And run they do, because the thing that murdered Davey’s father remains relentless in its pursuit for Davey's blood.

But why you may wonder?

Well, Davey acquired his father’s gift, which is the ability to shift into any animal or person. According to Native American legend, these individuals are known as skinwalkers. And the creature that hunts him is one as well.  To preserve itself, it must kill Davey. Now considering his age, this, essentially, nullifies Davey’s potential to kill it in the future.  Seeing that her son is vulnerable to this creature, it's up to Raine to protect him until she can find a solution.  Thus, Raine provides us with the first-person narrative of her struggle to do so. 

Nevertheless, there is a deuteragonist present by the name of Cade. Cade’s third-person narrative interchanges with Raine’s first-person (odd but not something I found disruptive to the overall narrative). Cade is a man struggling with the loss of his wife, a year after she was found murdered in her home office.  According to the cops, her murder was, theoretically, done with an animal-like ferocity. Nursing the bottle since, Cade slowly finds comfort in the company of Raine and Davey instead. A relationship begins to bloom, despite much of Raine's secretive and closed off behavior.  But as the details of Cade's wife’s death come to light, Raine suddenly begins to pull away from him.  Cade can only wonder if Raine’s sudden apprehension is connected to the mystery of his wife’s murder.  Determined to hold on to Raine and Davey, he begins his search to find out.  

And there, ladies and gentlemen, is where the paranormal romance steps in and out goes any sporting thrills.  Which, at the end of it all, I found beautifully satisfying anyway.  But let's still talk about the book.

Naked Romance

Let’s get to the first thing I appreciated about this particular Welles book. I thought The Moon Tells Secrets was better than Welles’ last Gothic romance thriller, When the Night Whispers; let’s just put that out there. Part of my pleasure with Moon arrives from how Welles–to me–did a better job showing instead of telling. Very little of the storytelling and character fleshing was glossed over with narrative cramped with off-stage scene recaps and exposition.  Not allowing the reader to live the events with the characters breeds disconnect.  So Moon had its moments, but it wasn't as "outsider looking in" as Whispers. 

This made it superior to Whispers, because it allowed the romance between Raine and Cade to unfold before your eyes. Their first “date” was on paper. Their trips to Starbucks (apparently they had waitresses there) was on paper. Going to the fair as a doubting couple? Well, that was on paper as well. Chilling at the house with popcorn and a movie? On paper as well.

You get where I’m going? To be clear, this may be a testament to The Moon Tells Secrets being a paranormal romance, whereas When the Night Whispers was about the deconstruction of a woman because of a toxic romance. So some developments may have been required. Regardless, the difference between the two was too notable. Additionally, this budding romance also filled the pace of the book. It wasn’t until partway through when I realized I had to take the book as a romance and not a paranormal thriller. Once that became clear, I let the romantic incense burn. Though still a little disappointed in the lack of fast-paced chills I came to anticipate.

Bros Over Chills

Navojo skinwalker

This, in turn, points me toward another little letdown I had with The Moon Tells Secrets. Outside of the touches of paranormal, there’s also a mystery. Raine, Cade, and Davey have to find out exactly who is the skinwalker plotting against them. The dribble towards this revelation was mostly weak. They spent more time thinking and feeling and allowing odd moments for the skinwalker to approach them. And its approach seemed mostly ineffectual because–if it was so dangerous and awful–why did Raine and Davey still linger in its radar? Raine encountered the skinwalker a number of times, and yet she'll leave Davey in their new home while she company Cade. Which is odd, now that her cover is blown. The trio even went to a carnival and allowed Davey to prance off on his own–after Raine encountered the skinwalker once more.

So the stakes just didn’t seem to apply. There were talks about the skinwalker waiting until the moon was full, but why show its cards beforehand after it has chased its meal across America? Why ruin the element of surprise? So no. There was little deducing and reasoning Raine and Cade’s way toward who the skinwalker was. They mostly just… well… fell into it all.

I think this is what killed the use of the skinwalker villain. I’m almost tempted to say I wished it got in on the story as the tritagonist of sorts. We hear Raine’s side. We see Cade’s side. What about the quiet, ineffective and less than ruthlessly brutal, skinwalker villain? Who, by the way, turns out to be someone closer to Raine and Davey than they think? And is acknowledged with little emotion–which I found increases how the mystery aspect didn't exactly add up.

If you want to know more about the Native American legend of the skinwalker, click HERE.

Smooth Skinny

However, I reiterate: Paranormal Romance. If you read The Moon Tells Secrets expecting anything else, remind yourself of what it really is. Good paranormal romance? I’d say yes. Though it felt dull and unexciting in the beginning, it became a smooth read when I settled with its romance.

Now what I won't be able to get into is the book's allegory of a mother's love and protection. That'll be up to you to interpret.

A Reunion with Robb

I've decided that I'm going to cheat here.  See, for me to lay down exactly what this series is about (the series is almost 50 books deep) would cause me to burst into tears in an attempt to pull off a summary in one, clip paragraph.  With that said, I've got a link HERE that summarizes the story so far–from the author's own website.  If you're curious, click there.  Other than that, here's my last thoughts on this particularly entry in J. D. Robb's In Death series.

So it’s been exactly two years since J. D. Robb’s Delusion in Death (book 35 in her Eve Dallas series) was released, and two years since I got 20 pages in and decided to put it down. That’s where I stopped reading the series, having decided that after the disappointment of book 33, New York to Dallas, that I had my fill of Eve’s resurging past drama.  Nonetheless, I won't spoil anything.  Truly, it is a great and addictive series if all else fails. Recently, I've been thinking about the series–despite my previous complaints at its lack of character momentum and resolution–before I followed the urge to pull myself back into its world. It all just kept calling me back.

So what have I missed in two years? Well, Delusion in Death takes place in the year 2060. It opens inside of a crowded bar called On the Rocks (Robb was always, always kind of corny with names) in Manhattan’s Lower West Side. The bar is crowded during happy-hour, with business professionals searching for unwinding conversations and equally effective drinks. Everything seems sunny and cheerful until the headaches start. Like an invisible wave, those headaches quickly entice a blind rage that sweeps the brains of the bar’s patrons.  Suddenly, On the Rocks becomes a bloodbath where the once docile and tipsy patrons start a full-out assault against what appears to be their worst nightmares. The murderous frenzy leaves eighty dead. Only a few survive to tell their story.


Naturally, homicide lieutenant Eve Dallas reports to the scene, stepping her way over the bodies as she gathers evidence. Furthermore, considering her husband Roarke owns the bar, Eve has her hands full keeping his stake in the matter at bay. Nonetheless, through witness accounts and a set of interviews, Eve eventually uncovers the connection between an aerial hallucinogenic that swept the bar, and a buried apocalyptic cult called Red Horse. The question then becomes who is responsible for reviving the cult’s method of mass murder? Will he or she strike again? And how can Eve and her team stop the murderer and put the formula behind the airborne hallucinogen where no one else can ever have access to it?

So after a two-year hiatus from the series, I have to say that I did enjoy stepping back into Eve Dallas’s world. All the joshing between Eve and Roarke and Eve and her partner Peabody were present still.  I'm grateful for that, because the dialogue between characters are probably this series' strongest element. So I did miss the characters, and it felt great to be back alongside the cast during one of their investigations. Nonetheless, like usually, there are a number of other cast members who make up Eve’s team (and support) that continue to show and crowd up the pages. Having started the series in 2008, I'm very familiar with the cast, but after my little two-year break, I actually started to grow weary of some of them. There are just too many with minor purposes and even lesser development. Trueheart is still Trueheart, the green-around-the-ears cop. Baxter is still Baxter, Trueheart's mentor. Morris is still Morris, the cool medical examiner. (And you probably have absolutely no idea who these characters are!)  Like the series itself, character development often appears stagnant.  Now that's notwithstanding how each book/investigation covers approximately a weekend’s worth of time–give or take.  But regardless, a shake up in the cast is long past due.


As for the actual detection and police procedural portion, nothing much as change. On occasion does Robb write some solid action mixed with some even better avenues of investigation. And I mention that in regard to some of the other books in the series. Delusion, however, was mostly tepid in this area. Almost all opportunities to showcase Eve’s detection skills were unimaginative. To me, someone else is doing all the cooler stuff off-stage before handing Eve the information necessary to build her case.  To my chagrin, this is very contrary to her “digging up the dirt“ and "getting dirty" herself. In turn, this leaves Eve capable of only doing two things: processing interviews and staring at her murder board until an idea strikes. The former she pulls off excellently; it’s always a joy to watch Eve interview witnesses and suspects. The latter she more or less dispatches another cast member to act on her idea. I suppose she can do that as the lieutenant, and even in the very end she played a more active role in the story's conclusion. 

Nevertheless, it would be nice to see Eve untangling a little more than the files on her PPC (Personal Portable Computer). Even so, the series isn't so bad if you like Eve–which I do.  Not only do I find her charming, but she's also one of those characters that ask for your loyalty just as she displays it to her cast of supporters.  You learn to trust her as a reader.  She's the good guy. This is why I'm kind of glad I'm enthused about the series again. For me to detail what I love and what I dislike about the series would take an eternity, so from this point on, I’m just going to enjoy the ride and complain and marvel my way through to its end.

Super side note: thank goodness Robb chilled out on the comma splices this time around.   And what about those rumors that the series is now ghostwritten?  Anyone have a clue?

Manga Realness: "Ultra Maniac" by Wataru Yoshizumi

The last series in my favorite completed manga set is Ultra Maniac, by Wataru Yoshizumi.  This is quite possibly my favorite between the four I've recently written about, and for serveral reason.  Besides the franatic storyline underneath a schoolhouse backdrop, the artwork (or line work) is clean beyond belief.  Taken with an artistic eye (not that I'm a professional of any sort), the drawings are very clear.  Even clearer and cleaner than Naoko Takeuchi's work.  Maybe it has a lot to do with the different time periods the two series were released, but I noticed Ultra Maniac was very much on par with Absolute Boyfriend's line work.  Perhaps, a smidget cleaner and more meticulous.  Never mind, they both are nicely done.  I just notice it much more in Ultra Maniac.

Yet another manga series I followed through each English adaptation's release, Ultra Maniac also brought me comfort during some frustratingly lonely times.  Also as a note, this one of the few manga series where I own the anime version also--which is just as clean and wonderfully put together.

Ayu Tateishi.  Rei Hino, anyone?

Rei with her secret crush, Tetsushi

So those who are unfamiliar with the short series, Ultra Maniac, let me first summarize what it’s about before why I like it.  For starters, the series combines comedy, romance, and fantasy.  It’s magical, with extended emphasis on celebrating our uniqueness and the friends we gather from doing so.  The story revolves around Ayu Tateishi (who I’ve attributed has an attitude and likeness similar to Rei Hino in Sailor Moon).  As a middle-school girl, Ayu is somewhat of an inspiration to her classmates.  She has a maturity about her that many of her peers admire.  She isn’t one to let loose her emotions or super-express her feelings in concerns to school crushes and chasing idols.  Also, she firmly states that she isn’t one to believe in magic and fantasies.  Ayu has a smooth and practical personality, which I identified with from the jump on some levels.  Nevertheless, Ayu hides a lot of her feelings behind this demeanor--through a personification built mostly because of her interest in a certain student named, Tetsushi Kaji.  Much of her development comes from accepting and projecting her inner desires, trusting that she can believe in the impossible becoming possible.  And this is where Nina Sakura--the teen witch--comes in.  

Nina Sakura and her little spell-tool box

Tetsushi Kaji, the popular boy

From the beginning, Nina comes across as somewhat of a scatterbrain.  Yet, that's a part of her cute, spunky, and likeable charm.  She is like the antithetic to Ayu, or the Pippi Longstockings to Ayu's calm personality.  Nina has just about the same level of energy and gusto as Pippi Longstockings, as well as the unwavering passion for believing in the unbelievable.  However, just like Ayu, Nina hides many of her insecurities behind her jubilant personality.  Somehow attracted to Ayu’s resonablities, Nina is in distress after losing a personal item related to her witching.  It’s a big issue because Nina is in this “world” to prove she is capable of becoming an outstanding witch, considering the people from her world don’t seem to trust that aspect of her.  Once Ayu finds and returns Nina’s magic tool, Nina sees Ayu as the perfect individual to divulge her secrets to.  This includes confessing her desires to be an outstanding witch.  I suppose Nina felt she could share this with Ayu because of Ayu's smooth personality, but now thoroughly attached, Nina does anything she can to make Ayu happy.  To her, they are friends now.  However, Nina's magical antics doesn’t always turn out in Ayu’s favor.  And this is where the adventures begin.

Opposites attract, leading the girls down exciting paths encouraged by one another’s differences and inner similarities as they develop a close friendship filled with trust and adventure.  Between the two secondary male roles expanding onto the friendship, and friends from Nina’s witch world entering many chapters, Ultra Maniac makes for a comedic five-volume series. 

Tetsushi's best friend, Hiroki

As I outline Ayu and Nina’s characteristics and differences, I want to make it known that those elements are what made me love the series.  Particular because I spent my middle school years in somewhat of the same circumstances where I had to cover up myself just to survive the experience.  The funny thing is that in middle school I was more like Ayu, calm and collected.  It wasn't until the second year of high school that I became out going like Nina.  It balanced out eventually.   And necessarily so. 

Nevertheless, that's only half of my identification with the manga series.  While I wasn’t the most popular in middle school I had enough “credence” to associate myself with a few of the more popular students.  I suppose in many respects I was that in-between kid.  Nevertheless, my best friend was one of the students who was forever looked over and bullied by others.  He was the kid I would have to defend from ignorant tormentors.  It had a lot to do with him coming from a family in economic straits (like who wasn't?).  Straits that showed in his tattered shoes and daily repeating outfits.  On top of this, his family weren't that nice to him.  I remember a time when I had extra money and got us both Snicker bars out of the school vending machine.  He took his home.  The next day I asked did he enjoy it.  Sadly, his dad took it away from him and told him that he didn't deserve it.  What kid doesn't deserve candy?  I was angered of course.  Months later I bought two copies of a collection of ghost stories.  Nobody took that from him.  

Nina flagging down Ayu

Maybe because I've always tried to remain receptive to people, but I see no other way to find acceptance in yourself but through the accepting of others.  Nothing is more bonding than being genuinely emphatic and sympathetic to another.  What he and I shared was a love of Stephen King (which may say a lot) and the imagination.  Not Air Jordans or Mustangs.  Just books and some creative thinking.  We could be ourselves while everyone else was shooting to be relevant to others.  Therefore, I enjoyed his company and considered him a friend.  I needed one just as he did.  

Now, while there is much, much else to speak about in Ultra Maniac, the story of two girls who seem to support and compliment each other inspires me to remain open to people.  Have you been open to people lately?

Manga Realness: "Eerie Queerie!" by Shuri Shiozu

Hi, everyone.  For those who are new to my blog, welcome.  For those returning, welcome back and thanks.  Should I tone down all the colors? (^_^)  

I made the--now titled--Comic Towel to create a space where I can promote my Zazzle store/drawings and my interest in literature, manga, and philosophies (some personal).  Sounds like a lot, but as I find myself delving into the materials that I love in each category, I can’t help but want to share and create conversations about them and how they relate to my life.  A side objective to that is to help motivate and inspire others by finding inspiration in all mediums.

With that said, I would like to find some of that inspiration in

Awkwardness of Mitsuo Shiozu

Manga Realness Number 3: Shuri Shiozu’s Eerie Queerie (the original Japanese title is Gosuto!, or Ghost!).  The English adaptation title of Eerie Queerie is more or less a play on the fact that this manga series is within the shonen-ai genre, or "Boy’s Love".  That’s Boy’s Love in the sense that it features gay characters/themes.  See, the story is about a cumbersome high school teen name Mitsuo Shiozu [uke].  His cumbersomeness isn’t pressed upon him simply because of the awkward stage we all face in high school.  No, Mitsuo just happens to be a spirit medium, meaning he communicates with the dead.  Therefore, he has every reason to be weird, soft, and many times over dramatic   He has a lot to deal with besides crushing over boys--or hiding it, rather.  Undoubtedly, the paranormal aspect drew me into the four-volume series as it appease to my love of Japanese kwaidan stories.  Of course in a severely cutesy, melodramatic manga-style fashion.  Naturally, there are better manga featuring stories of the occult and paranormal, but Eerie Queerie! ranks a little differently with its shonen-ai elements.

The Handsomely Dedicated, Hasunuma

The problem Mitsuo finds himself in lies in his ability to become possessed by the ghost that he runs across.  Usually, they are female.  And usually, they uphold a somewhat unrequited love of a certain male classmate.  Tucked within Mitsuo’s body, these ghost seek the returning affection of those who’ve obtained their attention in life.  This leads to further awkwardness and a pattern of misunderstandings that creates a love triangle between Mitsuo and the popular boy in school, Hasunuma [seme].  The third piece of the triangle belongs to the neatly handsome, Ichi.  With the romantic stage set, the battle for Mitsuo’s affections commences through this winding series of miscommunication, bad intentions, hidden secrets, and desperate apparitions.  The crux of much of Hasunuma and Ichi’s intent is to both love and protect Mitsuo.  Which also fuels Mitsuo’s desire to strengthen himself from the weedy boy he started as?  

So will Mitsuo allow one of the boys in?  Will he gain the change that

The Competition, Ichi

he seeks in himself?  It’s all whimsical, comedic entertainment at its best.  However, the magnetism of watching your archetypal bad boy (in this case, Hasunuma) fall for the likes of Mitsuo is just too sweet to turn away.  Mainly because we see it all the time in conventional romance stories where the bad boy is reformed through the admiration of the good girl.  In essence, there isn't much differences in any budding relationships, despite the sex of the partners.  This, and the slow pace of love taken in this series, is the reason I loved Eerie Queerie!

Small Japanese vocabulary lesson in concerns to shonen-ai/yaoi genres...

The Uke and the Seme.  Guess who is which?

A uke character is normally described as the fail, feminine character in the dynamics of the male-male relationship.  The seme character is the opposite.  He is the moody, brawny character that often is overprotective of his uke.

Manga Realness: "Doubt!!" by Kaneyoshi Izumi

Here we are guys; readers and friends of Comic Towel.  Manga enthusiasts and those curious enough to take my loved titles as recommendations, I present to you Manga Realness Number Two: Kaneyoshi Izumi’s Doubt!!.  But first, this is not based on Yoshiki Tonogai's manga series with the same name.  

The New Ai Maekawa

Coming from my loathsome sessions plodding through the Peach Girl manga series (which I bailed out on), Doubt!! did a good job dissolving the growing weariness I gathered from reading about Japanese schoolgirls who allowed her peers to run over her.  Translated as “bullying”, the Japanese term ijime describes this type of behavior seen in many school-based manga stories.  Now that’s not to say there wasn’t a supply of this in the five volumes that make up the complete series of Doubt!!.  After all, it wouldn’t be a shojo manga series without melodrama, plaid skirts, sharp-jawed boys, love triangles, depraved ijime, and the misunderstood tanned student with duck lips.  Nevertheless, the more or less distinct difference is that the protagonist in Doubt!! was (or at least started out) a little more on my temperamental level when it comes to not accepting crap from others.

Will So's past break his relationship with Ai?

A six volume shojo series crossing Romance and Slice of Life, Doubt!! tells the school life story of Ai Maekawa, an overlooked junior high teen who turns her image around to begin an acknowledged, new life in high school.  Armed with a new haircut and pimple cream, this transformation jumps off the series after a small prologue recounts her last embarrassing moment in junior high.  Feeling a lot more confident in her looks, Ai enters high school with the admiring eyes of her peers.  In turn, she suddenly finds herself in the mix of two of the school’s popular boys, So Ichinose and Yuichiro Kato.  A seemingly over flirtive (another word I made up) womanizer with a sketchy background related to his childhood, So Ichinose literally scoops Ai up and hangs off her backside during the first chapter of their meeting.  Why?  Because she is new, cute, and prospective-looking to his limbido.  Alternatively, his best friend, Yuichiro Kato, hangs back to admire Ai from afar, while berating So for his overzealous flirting.  The boys are two sides of the same coin, and as the placidly cool Yuichiro grows feelings for Ai, and Ai grows feelings for So, So tackles the difficult task of keeping his checkered past out of sight and from drawing a line between him and Ai.  Meanwhile, Ai has to battle her own past, as figures from then emerge to wreck her sudden popularity and budding relationship with the boys.  This all befits the web of drama that makes up Doubt!!.  And it only gets juicier as each of their secrets are revealed.

Now, what hooked me to this series…

Does Yuichiro stand a chance with Ai?

Some can say that the determination for Ai’s transformation reinforces how girls cater to a cultural obsession with looks and social popularity.  However, to me, Ai changing her looks installed in her that she is worth more than she believed before.  She didn’t think she was cute.  She didn’t think she would ever get a boyfriend.  She didn’t think too much of herself.  Then she decided to move away from that frame of thinking and make a change.  Granted, it can appear shallow for her to believe that looks is the beginning of this inner and outer transformation; nonetheless, her doing so sparked a fighting spirit inside of her.  I don't know about you, but I've always admired individuals who can make a change and take charge of their lives.  Seriously, how many people can wake up and decide to do battle with their issues instead of feeling sorry for themselves?  That's why I liked Ai and dedicated myself to reading her story. 

Still, her story doesn't stop there because soon she has to defend her new attitude--which kept me further invested in her story. 

Ai's ijime became jealousy-driven once she reached high school.  The girls who did not know of Ai’s past chose to bully her because she was pretty and gained the attention of the most popular boys in school.  However, driven by the torture she experienced in junior high, as well as her will to remain consistent in separating herself from those experiences emotionally, Ai did not back down from this new misconception that her bullies formed about her.  After all, the fight from her previous slew of misconceptions built enough character to combat the other.

At one point a student expressed: “Pretty girls get everything handed to them.  You don’t know what life is really like.”  Instead of succumbing like during her past insecurities, Ai chooses to stand up (quite violently I must add) for herself under the realization that the ijime she faced in junior high has only changed.  While she is somewhat thankful to be labeled "pretty", it did not come easy.  Therefore, she sure as hell wasn't willing to let someone taunt her about something they knew nothing about in regards to her emotional struggles.  So the best thing for her to do was to shut it down before it started.  And that's what she did when she fought back for her respect.  

This resonated with my experience adjusting from junior high to high school.  Like Ai, it was this adjustment that let me know that I didn’t have to take crap from anyone else anymore, and that I wasn‘t so unattractive that I needed to lay in my own darkness.  What I believed for myself was exactly what I had a right to pursue.  I didn’t have to lie in my shell any longer because there was nothing wrong with being confident, loud, and even obnoxiously cheerful.  So take control of your life when you find it necessary.  You’re going to come across opposition of some sort any way.  Might as well attempt to make the best of yourself in the process.  Feed confidence into your emotional diet even if that means changing your looks.  And most of all, stop feeling sorry for yourself.  Give yourself some credit for moving through life itself.

If you could go back to junior high or high school, what would you do differently?

Manga Realness: "Absolute Boyfriend" by Yuu Watase

I have a humble collection of manga, so this will be a modest series of posts (not really).  Nevertheless, my manga library was a lot larger in the past, but many of the titles that I decided not to venture pass book one (unless it was a one-shot) did not make it during years of moving and rearranging cluttered bookshelves.  In retrospect, I wish I kept many of them because I fume silently at the absence of my copy of Antique Bakery Volume 1.  Did I give it away?  Or did I misplace it in my mess?  It always seems to work that way: you grow out of certain phases then you tumble your way back in.  One year my manga library grows, the next year it’s stagnate, the following year it’s dwindled.  And on it goes.

Nonetheless, there are a few manga series and one-shots that I refuse to separate from.  Some of them I’ve completed and some of them I hold on to in the hopes of one day picking back up to complete.  Naturally, the other singular element that assists with my decision to hold on to a title is the artwork.  

So with all of that said, let’s get into Manga Realness Number One.  By the way these are not ranked; alphabetically arranged with each category, though.  With Sailor Moon completely out of the way (what manga series can beat that?), my first favorite completed manga series is Yuu Watase’s Absolute Boyfriend.

Absolute Boyfriend is about a withdrawn Japanese high school girl (she happens to live alone while her parts work overseas) named, Riiko Izawa, and like many shojo genre girls, Riiko is having romantic problems.  Well, Riiko’s problem is that she can’t seem to have a romantic problem.  Guys that she's interested in are never receptive to her.  When it finally appears that she will remain loveless throughout her school years, a strange set of circumstances, involving her returning a missing cell phone, sets Riiko on the path to finding love.  Or does it?  It is nowhere near as easy to determine.  The missing cell phone belongs to a mysterious stranger who, after listening to Riiko’s romantic woes, offers her a card and CD-ROM that directs her to a website called Kronos Heaven.  It is here that Riiko spends a late school night customizing what appears to be her perfect boyfriend, offered for order by Kronos Heaven.  While she approached much of this as a joke, the next day Riiko receives her wish in the form of the perfect, robotic boyfriend named, Night (he is part of the Nightly Lover android series).  Per the instructions, a kiss is required to activate Night.  With Riiko ready to comply, this is where the fun of the 6 volume manga series begins!

Riiko Izawa

Night is given to Riiko on a trial basis; he must be returned three days after purchase.  The mysterious cell phone stranger reveals this to Riiko during his service-appreciated visit.  The problem is that Riiko wasn’t aware of the statement, and is therefore stuck with Night and a one million dollar (or yen) bill.  With her first payment only days away, Riiko and Night quickly devise ways to earn money, including working in a hostess bar.  Night even disguises himself as a woman to assist Riiko; such a dedicated fellow him be.  Until Riiko is groped by a drunk patron does Night come out of his wig to protect her, subsequently leading to both of their terminations from the bar.  Leaving the bar broke, they run into the mysterious cell phone stranger.  Realizing her struggles, he offers Riiko a deal: the organization will waive her fee if she provides them with data concerning her relationship with Night.  This will assist the company in creating even better boyfriend models for future customers.  Gladly, Riiko agrees.  She is determined to teach Night everything about women.

It all makes for a great set-up, especially when you factor in the antics the two go through to keep their secret, as well as their comedic dialogue.  Other elements that unfold within the series includes the crush Riiko’s neighbor, Soshi, has on her.  This eventually forms a love triangle between the three where Night and Soshi battle it out for Riiko’s attention and affection.  Other characters join in on the adventures, including a miniature version of Night who assists Riiko during a time when Night requires repairs to his cyborg body.  Nevertheless, the main focus of the series revolves around Riiko’s maturity and choice.  With a sudden brew of romantic options, will she choose the robotic boyfriend, Night?  Or will she choose the moody and flawed human character, Soshi?

Night.  The robot mate.

Without a doubt, this manga series contains many of the elements that I love in manga.  That's one reason I loved it so much (other than the hilarious plot).  I read the volumes as each English adaptation was released (2006-2007), so it came along as a positive distraction from the mundane life I faced working my ass off to keep up with bills and rent in a city three hours away from home.  I can distinctly remember reading volume three while gassing up my car for a trip to Six Flags (needed that break).  So why was I so invested in the series?  Because Riiko was so terribly unsound when it came to figuring out her love life, and for good reason when you consider she resorted to a robot to try to fulfill that void.  I could relate to her in that aspect--not the robot nonsense.  I knew what it was like to wonder why certain tingling elements revolving around relationships and finding love did not seem to operate correctly in my own life.  I, too, like Riiko, spent a lot of time swallowing down the interest in place of accepting my solidarity.  But at the same time I longed for companionship.  You begin to adapt this armor where you stress to others that connections and relationships are not needed in your life, meanwhile you watch the relationships of others blossom and secretly ask yourself what is so wrong with you.  Now, I wouldn’t dare pay someone to be the “absolute mate”, but I know what it’s like to struggle in finding answers to your questions without endangering the integrity and self-respect that makes up yourself.  Even if those two things are the very things that get in your way.

Check out Absolute Boyfriend Volume 1 on Amazon.com and look out for Doubt!! by Kaneyoshi Izumi.