(Episode Seven: Water play and a killer video.)

I don't want to give the impression that I have any kind of grand scheme here - by and large this series of manga samplings has proceeded on a whim by whim basis - but The Ring was not the book I originally planned to review this week. I'd already purchased and begun the first volume of Paradise Kiss when I happened on this Dark Horse edition at my local comics shop. Bought it, put it aside with the intention of getting into it later, but something kept drawing back to the book: perhaps it was the striking red cover. With Ai Yasawa's punk/glam fashion romance still unfinished, I turned to Hiroshi Takahashi & Misao Inagaki's adaptation of this hot property story and quickly immersed myself in it. Mr. Impulse Blogger, that's me.

I'm told that this manga version is primarily based on the Hideo Nakta-directed film Ringu (though Dark Horse's cover blurb obscures the point, reading as if the work is an adaptation of the source novel by Koji Suzuki). Manga scripter Takahashi is also the scriptwriter for the movie, though, so this makes sense. At this point, I've viewed neither movie nor read the novel, so the point is probably moot. But I can't help wondering about the way that Dark Horse sells it as a book adaptation. Is a book manga-ization more legitimate than a movie adaptation? Is Classics Illustrated classier than an old Dell movie retelling?

This edition appears to be combining two graphic paperbacks - midway into it, at page 154, the pagination starts over again for another 154 pages. I find the format editorially lazy (c'mon, Dark Horse, you're translating the numbers, anyway, so why not maintain the first pagination?), but 300-plus pages of pb-sized manga for $14.95 remains a decent bargain. Not as good a deal as an issue of Shonen Jump, say, but at least the paper's more durable.

So what about the actual contents?

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First element that strikes me, when I start in the book's opening chapter, is Inagaki's art. The artist makes his adult figures big-headed and childlike, a look I've associated with more kid-friendly fare, not horror manga. When, after opening with a scene between two teenaged victims-in-waiting, the story shifts focus to reporter heroine Reiko, for the space of a few panels I don't recognize her as any different age-wise from the two teen-girls. It's like watching a remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre being played out by Hummel figurines.