Keita and Yoko’s next job is on tap with a young woman that’s slated to die – tomorrow!
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Mamiz Arisawa and Mari Matsuzawa
Translation/Adaptation: Amanda Katsukara & Lorelei Laird
What They Say
Kawahira Keita and his plucky Inukami, Yoko, have settled into an uneasy partnership when they are approached by the butler for the fabulously wealthy Shindo family. He offers them anything they desire…if they will take on a simple job for the Shindo family.
Keita’s head whirls, especially when he meets the beautiful heiress, Shindo Kei. Kei is about to celebrate her twentieth birthday, a day which should be joyful but which marks the end of her life! This is the Shindo family curse: to be visited by the Grim Reaper on her twentieth birthday.
It’s also Keita’s job – to face down Death himself! Even with the help of the irrepressible Yoko, can Keita defeat Death and save a young woman’s life?
Includes a special Inukami bonus story, Inukami Girls Academy!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The manga adaptation of Mamizu Arisawa’s light novel series continues with Mari Matsuzawa starting up a new tale that doesn’t actually finish in this volume. Only a hundred and thirty or so pages of this book is the primary story while the remaining forty or fifty is given over to the special side stories and bonus bits about how manga is made. Not knowing that until you hit it in reading the book, it took the wind out its sails with the main story as it left me wanting to see more of what was going on, not these particular side stories. With only two more volumes of the series to go, though, I can understand why they kind of spread things out like they did, not that I like it.
Looking for their next job, Keita and Yoko find themselves being hired by a rather amusing butler who turns out to be a former wrestler. He’s currently serving in the Shindo household under the only remaining member of the family, twenty-year-old Kei. Kei doesn’t look her twenty years as she resembles more of a middle school student if only just barely. The Shindo family gained a lot of wealth decades earlier after the family had fallen into ruin as Kei’s grandfather made a deal with the grim reaper in order to gain the money. The curse that has befallen the family ends with Kei though as when she turns twenty, death will claim her.
Death is quite the jerk in this book, it must be said. Apparently once Kei was born, the bespectacled reaper would show up every year on her birthday and torment her. She eventually stopped celebrating her birthdays but things would still happen that only made her sadder and more ready for her death. She did try to hire people to defeat the reaper when he showed, but nothing ever worked and the curse generally indicated that those serving her would die. So she’s now ready to end it all and has sent all the staff away, but the butler throws a kink in the works by hiring Keita and Yoko without giving them all the details. Of course, Keita’s the type to take up a challenge and he can use the money. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t get too far here as much of the time is spent on setup and then some of the interactions with the grim reaper before it moves on to setting up the title match challenge that Keita offers him.
In Summary
Not having read any of the prior Inukami books, this book proved to be immensely accessible outside of not really understanding what the deal is with Yoko and her abilities. The relationship between her and Keita is a bit less than clear, but some of that gets taken care of as time goes on and in the special end stories that shows the dog training days the two have at some school. Inukami has a very clean look to it which works well though I would have liked to have seen more backgrounds to the panels. The special stories at the end felt like they were too much and took me out of the flow of the book itself, but it’s a good sign that the main story left me wanting more. Inukami is pretty simple overall but it has a good bit of charm to it and you can easily jump into it even halfway through its run.
Content Grade: B-
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Seven Seas Entertainment
Release Date: September 29th, 2009
MSRP: $9.99
