Time Stranger Kyoko, Volume 1

June 2, 2008
Here's another early manga by the creator of Full Moon O Sagashite
and Gentlemen's Alliance Cross
. Fifteen-year-old Kyoko is the incognito princess of Earth, attending public school anonymously while her twin sister, Ui, has been asleep since birth. Kyoko sets off on a quest to gather the 12 god stones to save Ui's life, but as an added bonus Kyoko hopes Ui will take over her princess duties and stop those pesky riots going on outside the palace. The story has an extremely busy plot and equally layered, busy art; the detailed costume designs are a mishmash of time periods, lots of screen tone, and speed lines fill every frame. Fantasy elements are heaped on; in this future, humans mix their own DNA with animals and plants to form the Flower Tribe, the Dragon Tribe and even an evil Demon Tribe. Despite the older teen rating (perhaps due to a bloodied dragon corpse in one scene) the story has appeal for young girls; Kyoko is a magic girl with a talking time wand, a robot-cat sidekick and two cute teenage boy guardians who can transform into dragons. In her author's notes, Tanemura admits she was in a “slump” while writing this story, and the resulting work is uneven.