This week’s Manga Minis run the gamut from mystery to horror, as Michelle reviews volume twenty-five of Case Closed (Viz), I review the first installment of Sugar Princess: Skating to Win (Viz), and Phil looks at the second volume of the Vampire Hunter D (DMP) manga.

Case Closed, Vol. 25

By Gosho Aoyama
Viz, 200 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

I’d never just jumped into the middle of a series before, but the nature of Case Closed made it an entirely painless process. The “case briefing” laid out the basic premise (including a helpful list of detecting equipment), and it was pretty easy to grasp the essential relationships between the characters. Coming in at the beginning of a murder mystery at a skating rink also meant that I wasn’t totally lost story-wise.

There are two complete cases in this volume, each featuring a slightly different cast of supporting characters. I found it impossible to venture a guess at the culprits, since at least one murder method was insanely convoluted, but was entertained nonetheless. The way Jimmy had of attributing the solutions to an adult detective was slightly silly, but I did enjoy it when he’d be forced to feign childish exuberance over some random thing in order to bring about the discovery of a crucial bit of evidence.

In the final two chapters, Jimmy and some friends were more concerned with escaping criminals rather than apprehending them, and in the course of events, Jimmy was seriously injured. The volume ended on a cliffhanger, but with thirty or so more volumes of this series left to go, even I know enough not to be worried.

I definitely enjoyed what I read here and am intrigued enough that I have already made plans to acquire the first volume so I can try reading this series from the beginning.

–Reviewed by Michelle Smith

Sugar Princess: Skating to Win, Vol. 1

By Hisaya Nakajo
Viz, 176 pp.
Rating: All Ages

Maya Kirinoki, the plucky protagonist of Sugar Princess, is a natural on skates. While attempting a double axel at the local rink, she’s scouted by coach Eishi Todo, who’s impressed by her grit and strength, if not her finesse. He taps her for a pairs skating gig with Shun Kano, the rink’s big star. Shun, however, proves to be an even bigger pain in the ass, taking umbrage at Eishi’s plan and snubbing Maya.

Can you guess what happens next? Well, if you’ve seen The Cutting Edge, Strictly Ballroom or any of a dozen films pairing a rank beginner with a snotty champion, then you know what the next 10 or 20 chapters of Sugar Princess will bring. All of the genre’s tropes are here: the “I won’t skate with an amateur!” scene, the hero with a tragic past, the high-stakes competition that will determine the rink’s future. Like the aforementioned movies, Sugar Princess downplays the amount of training and raw talent required to make it in figure skating; Maya works hard, to be sure, but she quickly masters moves that take experienced athletes years, not days, to learn. (In one of the manga’s sillier moments, Maya explains she learned the double axel from watching television. Makes me wish I’d paid more attention when Mary Lou Retton was vaulting… I might have been a major gymnastics talent!)

None of this will matter to the manga’s target audience of eight-to-ten-year-old girls, however. For them, Sugar Princess’ faint hint of romance, feisty heroine, and skating shop talk will be more than enough to hold their interest. The artwork will appeal to first-time manga readers, as Hisaya Nakajo uses a clean, unfussy style that surrounds her characters with plenty of white space, making it easy for n00bs to handle the book’s right-to-left orientation. As an added bonus, the manga includes several splash pages featuring pictures of and commentary about Nakajo’s favorite skaters.

The bottom line: adults may find Sugar Princess too formulaic to be satisfying, but pre-teens (especially those with leotards or leg warmers in the closet) will find it irresistible.

–Reviewed by Katherine Dacey

Vampire Hunter D, Vol. 2

By Saiko Takaki
DMP, 200 pp.
Rating: Young Adults (16+)

Vampire Hunter D’s publishing history dates back to the mid-80’s, and his escapades are known for mixing genres, including horror, science fiction, and westerns. The latest series featuring the character, who is a human/vampire hybrid and bounty hunter living in a post-Apocalyptic world, is not a reinvention, but an adaptation of one of Hideyuki Kikuchi’s early novels. As such, it delivers everything seasoned fans will likely expect, but little else.

In volume two of this eponymous series, D is hired by a town called Tepes to solve a series of murders seemingly perpetuated by an undead bloodsucker. The central mystery is tied to some ruins, where four of the town’s children disappeared years ago, and where they just as mysteriously reappeared weeks later. One of the four, a beautiful young woman named Lina, helps D unravel the mystery, due both to her curiosity about the Vampiric history surrounding the ruins as well as her attraction to D, who is easily the most civilized man to ever set foot in relatively-uncivilized Tepes.

The plot is something of a labyrinth, but the atmosphere is appropriately spooky, and Takaki passes a cursory checklist of genre trappings: horrific monsters and creatures from beyond who bear a Lovecraft-ish influence; vague pseudo-science talk; Old West fashions; and a frontier attitude, especially with regards to vigilantism. Unfortunately, there’s hardly any spark to D and Lina’s would-be romance, which one gets the feeling is supposed to be tragic. For nearly the whole volume, D plays his emotions so close to the vest you’d think he was totally indifferent to her. Perhaps that’s how gothic dream boys handled courtship twenty years ago, but this is the 21st century, D. Make the first move.

–Reviewed by Phil Guie