Inubaka 16
Posted: June 15, 2010 Filed under: Inubaka Leave a comment »Yukiya Sakuragi – Viz – 2010 – 22+ volumes
Oh, Inubaka. Now that I’m used to the disturbing number of cheesecake shots for such an innocent series, I can kick back and enjoy the cuteness otherwise.
The stalker story from the last volume continues as Suguri does all she can to save Amuro after she was struck by a car. But her heroics give Fujita yet another reason to admire her, follow her around like a crazy person, and give her expensive jewelery. Inexplicably, Suguri tells neither her employer nor the police about Fujita, so I guess she’s not as creeped out as I was by him. But who am I to judge? She was the one who was kidnapped by him as a child, so if she wants him around, that’s fine by me.
Later, Suguri helps a friend of a friend pick out and train a new puppy. I was trying to figure out if the story was using irony or not when Suguri and the other two girls got together, because there was some seriously dumb conversations between them, and all three came off as stereotypical empty-headed teen (in this case, slightly older) girls. I don’t think there was any irony, which is sad. But it did do a good job of portraying the worries of the friend, who got a puppy as training for the baby she wants to have. The story also does a good job of showing all the ways getting a new puppy can go wrong, and how training doesn’t go well if you do certain things badly. The girl, optimistic at first and very excited, is not doing so well by the end of the volume.
Admittedly, I want to find out what she does with her puppy.
You win, Inubaka. I like you now. This series is a serious guilty pleasure. It’s definitely not all that great since the characters are so shallow and the stories are admittedly a little stupid because of that, but it is fun to read, and I’m not even a dog person. Actually, that’s probably its biggest strength, most of the past several volumes have had more character-centric stories than dog-centric, and I find that to be more interesting. That’s how it gets you.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
