Wild Act 8
Posted: March 1, 2010 Filed under: Wild Act 1 Comment »Rie Takada – Tokyopop – 2004 – 10 volumes
The story moves to Hollywood and starts with a clean slate, other than the continued trust issues in Yuniko and Ryu’s relationship. Their bickering might not be as serious as it seems, though, since they seem to alternate between fighting and having a good time. That’s interesting, and probably a sign of a healthy relationship. All the same though, Yuniko’s the one who’s secure in her knowledge that Ryu is hers forever, while Ryu is the one who’s worried another guy in America will steal Yuniko away.
At Yuniko and Ryu’s new school, there is another boy named Ryu with ties to Yuniko’s past. It’s possible he can give Yuniko information about her parents, but he’s also convinced that she’s his soul mate, and is prepared for a long fight to wrestle her away from Ryu Eba. Of course, Yuniko does very little to dissuade him other than tell him her heart belongs to Ryu Eba while looking all moony-eyed at American Ryu, so you can see where this is going.
Moving the characters to America has hilarious results. Yuniko can’t speak English, and often makes pretty funny mistakes. One of the first examples was when she was misunderstanding the word “lover” for “Eba” when someone asked about her and Ryu’s relationship, and eventually told the person that they were “sex buddies.” There are also lots of scenes where she flat-out can’t understand what’s going on, and also a lot of scenes where she and Ryu are speaking Japanese in order to confuse the non-Japanese-speaking students. It’s interesting, and something you don’t see very often in a manga. I like it.
My interest is renewed, and while I can’t say I’m looking forward to more relationship troubles between Yuniko and Ryu, I am looking forward to seeing how the series concludes. And I still like it a lot for the healthy sexual relationship the two share, especially since it’s becoming less and less likely that they’re long-lost siblings. If that turns out to be the case anyway… um. Yeah. I’ll let you know.
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