Without giving away too much plot, manga Ring revolves around Reiko, the aunt of one of our opening page victims. First time we meet her, she's listening to three of her niece's high school classmates recount the rumor that's circulating about the girl's death: that she was one of five teens to watch a "cursed video." Reiko is drawn into investigating the girl's death, which leads her to an isolated cabin with a TV and VCR. Of course she finds the mysterious video, and of course she watches it. Said tape turns out to be packed with oblique imagery and ends with the wordy warning: "The person who watches this will die one week later at this time of day."

Our heroine is immediately caught up by the video's message. Eyes wide open, sweat dripping down her face, she sees a figure in the cabin mirror reflection that appears to be either a longhaired or black hooded girl. When she turns, the figure has vanished. From here on, the focus turns twoard solving the mystery of the unknown video. Reiko enlists the aid of her ex-husband, Ryiuji, a college prof who treats the whole thing as a lark. ("It's fun to have a deadline," he jokes in reference to the videotape's one-week sentence.) Ryiuji is often depicted leaning back and nonchalantly holding a cigarette, so we're pretty sure he's gonna get it for underestimating the power of the evil they're facing.

Ryiuji views the video himself, attempting to pick apart the images and look for clues to its meaning. As the two begin their investigation, yet a third character watches the deadly video; after she dreams of being visited by her dead niece Tomoko (creepily rendered with blood dripping from her eyes), Reiko wakes to find her young son in front of the set. "Tomoko told me to watch," the saucer-eyed kid explains. Now Reiko's race to solve the mystery has an even greater urgency.

Takahashi's script works to regularly remind us the clock is ticking: heroine Reiko periodically tells herself how little time she has. Where modern American genre comics have largely abandoned the convention of thought balloons, they're used effectively in this book, black lines radiating from the text in place of the cloud-like constructions American comics readers know. Throughout the story, Reiko is shown both thinking and talking to herself aloud to get across story points. The thought balloons are a more convincing tactic.