Kamisama Kiss (VIZ Media)

200 pages, b&w, $9.99

(W / A: Julietta Suzuki)

 

Nanami is having a pretty rough week. Her classmates have noted that her lunches aren’t that great and have taken to calling her “Brokenami.” Her ne’er-do-well father has skipped town, leaving her with an eviction notice and a stack of bills. It gets worse, though, when the eviction notice leads to an actual eviction and she finds herself looking to stake a claim on a little piece of park bench. While wandering through the park, her dilemma sinking in, she comes across a strange man being attacked by a dog.

 

Nanami finds herself rescuing the strange man and having a conversation with him about the home he ran away from 20 years ago when suddenly, proving that no good deed goes unpunished, he gives her a smooch on the forehead and a map. He tells her to tell the people there that he sent her, then skips off into the wild. Nanami, having nothing better to do, follows the direction on the map and finds herself at a shrine that is sacred to the local love deity. She soon finds out that the sneaky old creeper giving out smooches and sob stories in the park was the previous deity. He had skipped out twenty years ago, leaving it in the care of Tomoe, the resident yokai, and spirits of the shrine. A yokai is an animal spirit in servitude—a fox/human hybrid, in this case (who shall henceforth be referred to as Kittyboy, thanks to a turn of events that I could use an After-School Special to explain), who is actually kind of attractive. The spirits of the shrine are shape-shifters who appear in a doll-like form which is, honestly, more than a little creepy.

 

Of course, Kittyboy wants nothing to do with hapless Nanami and hilarity ensues as she tries to learn her new duties, both literal and political, while navigating between the regular world and the spirit world. Kittyboy quits and takes off to hang out with some geisha, while Nanami gets lost in the spirit world looking for him at a bar, meets a bad character that wants to eat her, and eventually tricks Kittyboy into re-entering her service by kissing him as she falls from a tree where he’s making fun of her for her predicament. Then he spiffs up the shrine for her to live in and they both help another deity find love.

 

Julietta Suzuki is quite prolific in her native Japan and this is all predictable fare from an experienced mangaka but, somehow, it’s not boring. I can’t quite put my finger on what separates this from the horde of supernatural manga being released right now. Maybe it’s because Suzuki’s characters are so sweet. The sometimes-tremulous Nanami isn’t cloying, Kittyboy eventually comes across as heartbroken and saddened by his original master’s defection instead of a just a garden-variety jerk and the spirits quickly become cute, not creepy. Nanami’s transformation into local goddess is very well-paced, making it a lot more believable than a lot of books that either get to that point with a simple and magical “SHAZAM!” or drag on forever. The artwork is, again, good, but there’s nothing outwardly remarkable about it until Suzuki throws in something to keep us interested. There’s a panel with Kittyboy and a fish that made me giggle out loud and, dear readers, manga seems to be no laughing matter for me these days. Eventually, Kittyboy and Nanami share a moment that leads me to believe that he might not always be so heartbroken over his previous master.

 

Perhaps I’m just jaded, but there’s a lot out there that crosses my desk that I flip through stone-faced and drop with a sigh. Kamisama Kiss doesn’t seem like anything especially magical, but I laughed and sighed and fretted in all the right places. I found myself strangely into Kittyboy and empathized with Nanami. I’d recommend this one for anyone who loves their love stories with a little bit of magic and subtlety. | Erin Jameson