Chikyu Misaki

by Yuji Iwahara and Iwahara Yuji

This final volume brings the enchanting, modern fairy tale and critically acclaimed series to a close. A shadowy figure combs the lake looking for Neo - a young boy who is secretly the shape-shifting... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1401208010
• ISBN13: 9781401208011
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: CMX
• Length: 210 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 4.9" x 7.4"

Customer Reviews

The Loch Ness manga!

Take a shapechanging sea monster, and throw in a cool gold heist, and you've got the weird manga, Chikyu Misaki. A young girl named Misaki and her widowed father move into her grandfather's lake cottage which she inherited. The town of Hohoro is a place where it snows alot, but despite that it has a legend of creatures named Hohopos living in the lake, similar to the Loch Ness monster. Misaki becomes friends with Sanae, a local in her new classroom. On the way home from school, Misaki and Sanae come across a secluded part of the lake and meet an actual young Hohopo. It immeadiately kisses Misaki on the mouth, and then transforms into a young human boy. Misaki and Sanae are amazed by this, specially when he turns back into his sea monster form from oing back into the water. Sanae then kisses them returning him to his human form(it's the same no matter who kisses him). Misaki then decides to let him live with her for a while, and since she technically owns the new house they live in her father can't say much against it. Calling him Neo after a certain character from The Matrix, things seem to be slightly happy for Misaki and her cute new boytoy/pet, if only she can teach him to use the bathroom though. Now going into a completely different plot, a young heiress is kidnapped, and the crooks want her grandfather to pay 240 million in gold for her release. What they don't know is that the girl's tutor is part of the kidnappers gang. After getting the ransom, the criminals head out in a plane with the loot over Hohoro during a snowstorm, but the plane crashes into the lake. Only the woman passing as the tutor survives, and is found by a neighbor of Misaki's who is a lone hunter. The woman tries to find a way to protect her identity, and reclaim the gold now stuck at the bottom of the frozen lake. So, as if the girl with her pet sea monster storyline wasn't enough, they managed to fit in a pretty good crime drama too, although the two seem to take a little time to come together. There's a serious cuteness factor going on with the two girls and their most-of-the-time-naked boy/pet, but CMX edited alot of the nudity involved as they have with several other of their titles. If you can bare that though, you should be able to enjoy a very original and unique manga.

Super cute art and great characters!

I really loved this manga, the art style is so different from what you usually see and is very unique and enjoyable to look at. I first saw this in a preview book from CMX and just couldn't stop looking at the amazing visual style and wanting to know more about the story and characters. Iwahara's work actually reminds me a bit of Calvin and Hobbes, especially in the detailed backgrounds and use of varying line widths to great effect. The characters are super cute and very individualized and the plot, though nothing super new, is definitely fun to follow. If you've been wanting a shoujo manga with a new and different look, then this is the one for you!

Above average cute shonen

I first noticed Iwahara Yuji's clean, elegant manga style some years ago, and I am happy to see some of his work translated for this market. His art is usually more evocative than the overpowering dinner-plate eyes on the cover of this volume would suggest. He is particularly good at rendering the sinuous movements of the dragon-like creature that appears in the background; these pages are just a pleasure to look at. Chikyu Misaki tells a solid story -- mostly cute, somewhat scary, and grounded in a real-world ambience -- around some familiar plot points. His characters are interesting and well-rounded, but the art is what really carries the show here. CM is definitely worth a look if you have any interest at all in the cuter style of "shounen" manga.