Be careful around strange animals … you never know what will happen.
Creative Staff:
Story & Art: Ato Sakurai
Translation: Caleb Cook
Lettering: Bianca Pistillo
What They Say:
As a young boy, Chiaki Mikado had an encounter with an unusual, three-headed puppy, and as a consequence of a bite from that dog, he lost a piece of his soul. Now a teenager, he finds himself unable to enjoy anything, but the three-headed dog is back in human form — or more accurately forms — to fix all that!
With his new roommate(s) leading the charge, can Chiaki experience the happiness that has eluded him for so long?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Eight years ago, Chiaki was a normal child who felt sorry for a strange looking puppy which had three heads. When he tried to pet it, the animal responded by biting him, and he has never felt the same. Fast forward seven years and the boy is now fifteen, but ever since that day, he has not been able to have fun or smile. One afternoon he receives a seemingly empty box from his globe trotting father and once opened, out pops a overly enthusiastic girl with black hair wrapped in twin pigtails and wearing a dog collar; she introduces herself as the First Cerberus Kuro, and was sent from Greece to protect him by his wayward parent. Of course her new master is stunned but she as investigates the apartment, Chiaki spots something strange shaking under her skirt … which looks like a tail? Curious as to this strange appendage, he grabs it and with an explosion of smoke, a new person appears. She is dressed similarly, but instead has short pink hair and a muzzle over her mouth. Shocked as to what just happened, he once again squeezes the tail, but much to his surprise, the girl disappears and Kuro comes back.
Still stunned as to this commotion, Chiaki decides to take his new bodyguard on a walk to do some shopping. But as they make their way down the path, Kuro comments that her master has a very lonely scent, almost as if he had nothing he enjoyed doing; without wavering, he plainly responds that his heart feels empty, almost as if part of his soul is missing. However before he can elaborate, another stranger comes out of nowhere and announces that his name is Orthros – Kuro’s brother, and has been sent by the gods to return Cerberus back to Hades. As this maniac lashes out to subdue his sister, Chiaki bravely tries to protect his friend, unsuccessfully barring the path and causing her to scream out in terror. As if in response, a blinding flash of light envelopes her and a new transformation occurs, changing Kuro into something else. This new girl grins with a mischievous smile, her face framed in flowing silver hair and also wearing a dog collar. She then proudly announces that this foe will be defeated in five seconds. What has Chiaki gotten himself into?
In Summary:
When I first heard about this manga, I thought it might be an interesting twist on the typical supernatural harem story: three girls inhabiting the same body to churn up hilarious situational events. However, when I started reading, it immediately became clear that this originality was short lived when Sakurai-sensei started to insert so many nods to other recognizable stereotypes that the premise became watered down and it sank into monotony, bogged down by a mediocre storyline. While it does have an imaginative underlying basis for Kuro and Chiaki being connected by a shared existence – namely part of his soul having been consumed by Cerberus, that is where the cleverness ends. It should have been a big tip off when Sakurai-sensei gave the characters such appropriate names gauged by their hair colors: Kuro for black hair, Roze for Rose and Shirogane for silver or platinum, simple but effective.
With every page, you cannot but think that you have read something similar, a character who changes due to stress or some outside interference, and then it dawns on you – this is the same idea from Ranma ½ or Dragon Ball; Ranma transforms when he is splashed by water and Goku becomes weak when someone pulls his tail, only Sakurai-sensei combined the two by causing changes via tension or yanking the aforementioned appendage. And speaking of tails, every time you see Kuro wander off or wag her tail at some commonplace item, that culture shock is similar to the same displayed by InuYasha whenever he was introduced to modern day places or things. While I can appreciate this harkening back to old standards, the author still had to fill in the most glaring gap with another standard for a mystical series: whenever ghosts or spirits are involved, you need a miko close by to help. Hopefully, this will be the last of these archetypes, otherwise this story will be grinding to a halt very fast.
While Today’s Cerberus manages to keep the reader’s attention with charmingly comical situations within a school environment, the familiarity of iconic characters within this limited cast is wearing thin. Although the story may seem new to someone who is not knowledgeable with the hinted sources, those who do notice them will either like the placement or find them annoying with the continuous acknowledgments. I want to like this series, but it just feels that I have read all of this before. Hopefully that the next issue will not raise any more problems and will create a story which will make us want more.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: A
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: October 25th, 2016
MSRP: $13.00
