Say what you will about Courtney Love, but the lady sure knows how to ride the wave. First time I read the p.r. about the punkrock/actress/pain-in-the-ass-rock-'n'-roll-widow creating her own manga series for Tokyopop, I flashed on Marvel Comics' early Kiss and Alice Cooper comics: attempts by artists considerably past their rock prime to jump-start stalled careers with comics that played off their rock personas. Considering the character that Love "created" as the frontwoman for Hole - a loudly dysthymic punk harridan - I had to wonder whether a manga series developed (in writer D.J. Milk's words) "from Courtney and the fascinating breadth of her personality" is really the route to take toward broadening manga consciousness in America. But, then, I personally don't find Live Through This to be half as listenable or replayable as, oh, the Go-Gos' Beauty And The Beat, so what do I know?
In any event, here we are with the first volume in Misaho Kujiradou, Love & D.J. Milky’s Princess Ai (Tokyopop), an Age 13+ fantasy title set in the, ahem, Tokyo pop music world. Looking at the title heroine - designed, apparently, by Paradise Kiss creator Ai Yazawa - and it's clear our Princess isn't a direct mirror image of the Girl w./ the Most Cake. Long-legged, bedecked in ripped clothes and holey fishnets, Ai looks far too winsome to be a Courtney Love surrogate. And when she sings, winning over a crowd that "doesn't even like metal," it's hard to reconcile this with our memories of the living Love's vocal instrument.
Volume One opens up with our heroine waking up in the middle of Tokyo, seemingly suffering amnesia: she only knows her name and can recognize the fact that she's on planet Earth (thus quickly establishing that she's not from around these parts). Her dress is revealing and strategically ripped (later we'll see her take scissors to an outfit, so it's unclear whether this ragamuffin look is the result of an arduous trip or a simple fashion ploy); the only other possession she has is a small heart-shaped box that has secrets locked within it. When an anonymous street type tries to steal the box - in a sequence that's initially confusing since artist Kujiradou doesn't clearly differentiate the two male figures involved - a young man named Kent tackles the miscreant.
Kent, a dreamy lookin' guy who turns out to be both a librarian at the nearby university and an accomplished songwriter/guitarist, looks to be the series' potential love interest. ("I feel like I know him," Ai thinks after they've been formally introduced, which doubtless foreshadows future plot developments.) He winds up taking Ai under his wings, much the chagrin of his annoyingly needy gay roommate, Hikaru. And it's in the university library where our heroine gets her first clues about her past: she flashes on images of a woman wearing a sun mask, who reveals that Ai has been named after her country of origin ("Ai-Land" - and, yes, someone puns on this in the first volume). Her secret must remain just that, the apparition says, but we know that this can't be because - unbeknownst to our heroine - a fanged female Fury named Tess is pursuing her.
Article comments
1 - aisha
i love this book and the songs.... i love them
i wish who ever wrote those songs make some more songsss plzzz