I grabbed up a large portion of this series for about 6 cents each last year, and managed to track down the balance of it not too long afterward. So it's time to actually read it and see if it was worth the few bucks it cost me. Spoiler alert: it definitely was.
Mai, along with the concurrently published Area 88, was one of the first manga series to be presented to North American audiences, albeit adapted to a format comics readers were used to. It would take a few more years before the right-to-left tankoban became the format of choice. When I picked it up to read, I wasn't sure what to expect, though given my experience with manga and anime, I should have known. Mai reads like many manga I've read, and many anime I've watched, in that it blends, not quite seamlessly, a serious conspiratorial story with light, slice-of-life vignettes. Mai, who appears to know she's got psychic powers, is also simply a 14-year old girl, who worries about what her friends think of her, about boys, and about school. She uses her powers to play silly pranks (like stopping a baseball as it flies toward home plate), but the darker aspects of the story reveal that she is actually one of the most powerful psychics on the planet. I don't think she knows that yet, though.
The art is gorgeous, as is much manga art. There's something to the simplicity of the characters and the complexity of the world they inhabit that is just beautiful. It's rare that I find manga art that I don't find immediately aesthetically gratifying. As for the story, it's been set-up so far. I'm sure once the dark and the light start to mix, we'll have a pretty satisfying action story. But I'll tell you more about that tomorrow.
"Why am I having this nightmare? It's sooo bizarre, so strange."
Other Things You Might Like Reading
A totally mad fantasy manga from Viz: The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1252: Bastard #1, 2001
Fantastic Golden Age reprints from Eclipse: The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1304: Mr. Monster's Super-Duper Special #5, January 1987
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