Magic Touch 2
June 1, 2009
Let me tell you, my imagination went wild when I learned that there was a massage-themed shoujo manga. I mean, think of the steamy possibilities! Alas, this series ran in, like, Betsuhana or some other magazine where the characters just hold hands and blush. I wept a little inside at the wasted opportunity.
Not all was lost, though. Surprisingly, the series has a really strong, flirty couple as of volume two. Issues like jealousy and accidentally watching the boy change come up, as do things like… well, NOT touching the boy. The romance is much more involved than a regular shoujo series, which impressed me quite a bit. I mean, I don’t think the two of them are going to so much as kiss anytime soon, but there’s a lot of other positive stuff going on between them, and series with strong couples tend to be rare.
The premise is that Chiaki is some sort of prodigy when it comes to massage, and in addition to being the most knowledgeable member of her high school’s massage club (!!), she also immediately falls in love with good-looking and popular Yosuke’s back. Apparently the two of them started going out in volume one, and Chiaki can’t keep her hands off him since she feels compelled to massage him whenever she sees him.
The massage angle actually makes the stories in this volume fairly atypical, but without the spin, they’d be pretty average. There’s a club training trip where the instructor hits on Chiaki and Yosuke gets jealous, there’s a chapter where Yosuke tells Chiaki have to be apart (because Yosuke tells Chiaki not to massage him, a mystery until the end), there’s a chapter about Chiaki making Yosuke a lunch and some trauma from her childhood, and there’s a story about… I don’t know, Chiaki keeping a secret from Yosuke. Not the most original fare, but again, the massage angle makes this a fairly interesting read, and both Chiaki and Yosuke are pretty likable, if not at all exceptional.
Hmm. I’ll keep reading, because, well, massage manga, but I’m willing to bet there won’t be a lot of surprises in store.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
June 1, 2009 at 6:03 am
[...] Blindfolded (Heart of Manga) David Brothers on vol. 2 of Lone Wolf and Cub (4thletter!) Connie on vol. 2 of Magic Touch (Slightly Biased Manga) Lori Henderson on vol. 1 of Ninja Baseball Kyuma (Manga Xanadu) Sam Kusek [...]