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Sexy Voice and Robo #1-2
Sexy Voice and Robo
Working part-time as a telephone-dating operator, Nico Hayashi has plenty of clients eager to engage her in titillating conversation. But what her customers don't know is the person they're flirting with is really a 14-year-old junior high school girl with a secret agenda.On the phone she's known as Sexy Voice. But, really, she's more than a professional flirt. Secretly, she wants to change the world and maybe become a spy and fortuneteller, too.Along for the ride is her friend Iichiro Sudo. He's an underemployed twentysomething hipster with an obsession for collecting toy robots. Together they are Sexy Voice and Robo...two people doing their best to bring some hope into this crazy world. Story and Art by Iou Kuroda Release February 19, 2013 UPC 7-82009-22313-9 eISBN-13 978-1-4215-5843-1 Imprint VIZ Media Length 396 pages Series Sexy Voice and Robo Category Manga Age Rating Teen Plus
400 pages, Paperback
First published July 5, 2005
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85 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
December 12, 2007
In truth, I expected a bit more from Iou Kuroda's Sexy Voice and Robo, though I couldn't really tell you what. The basic story involves a 14-year-old "telephone dating operator" who can figure things out about people by listening to their voices. She can also manipulate people like hell by altering her voice and/or telling people what they want to hear. Nico Hayashi, a.k.a. 'Sexy Voice,' actually wants to be either a "spy or a fortuneteller" when she grows up. Her sidekick Robo is an out-of-work collector of toy robots (I don't know anyone like that, do you?) who tries to assuage his loneliness by meeting women through the teleclub. He's a bit slow on the uptake, but an otherwise sympathetic character, and he's constantly being manipulated by Nico into being her partner in pseudo-spying. The third main character in this book is a mysterious old man who becomes Nico's boss. He clearly has a checkered past and lots of ties to the underworld, and yet (of course) he's basically a good guy at heart.
This book falls down in a couple of ways. First of all, there's not really a coherent narrative that underlies the various vignettes. This would be fine in an autobiographical comic, or a comic that was just trying to introduce a few characters in order to give us a slice of alternate-world living, but in Sexy Voice and Robo Kuroda throws us suddenly in wildly dramatic story arcs that only last a few pages, and then rips us out of them just as suddenly. This leaves the stories feeling as if they are either incomplete, or as if they've been artificially cut short. This ties into a second major failing of this book, which is the realization of secondary characters. Secondary characters play a major role in this book (often as villains) but they never seem to have realistic, or at times even fathomable, motivations for what they're doing. There's the mobile phone systems programmer who develops an unstable system and simply needs an "element of chance" to make the decision to destroy the system from the ground up. Why this is the right choice, the comic never really reveals. Why Sexy Voice is the element of chance isn't really revealed either. But you do get this fantastic bit of dialogue: "You've been sent here to do this. It's your destiny." Uh-huh. This gets us to the third problem with the book, which is that the dialogue is often either badly written, totally unrealistic, or at times even confusing. I'm not sure if this problem is ultimately the author's fault, or the translator's fault, but it definitely kept me from ever completely buying what the comic was trying to sell me (and trust me, I wanted to buy!).
That much said, there is a lot of enjoyment to be had from this book, and I certainly don't regret having read it. There's a hit man who can only remember as far back as three days ago. There's the woman who leaves notes in love hotels as a series of clues that ultimately lead to the phone of a particular room — the only phone that can make a call to her mobile phone without getting an operator's voice. There's the crazy otaku who wants to turn off all the Christmas lights on Omote-sando. And etc. And all of this done in a nice brush-style that kind of reminds me of a combination of Paul Pope and Ben Katchor, which is a strange combination, but I'm going to stick to that claim.
And finally, there's a lovely 'dated moment' in this comic. This comes when Nico/Sexy Voice calls her parents from a landline because she doesn't want anyone to see that a 14-year-old is using a mobile phone. I mean, how on earth could a 14-year-old ever get ahold of one of those super-expensive things, and why would she need one anyhow? The original book was published back in 2002 and I guess this just goes to show how quickly 2002 can become dated when it comes to stuff like the culture of personal technology.
This book falls down in a couple of ways. First of all, there's not really a coherent narrative that underlies the various vignettes. This would be fine in an autobiographical comic, or a comic that was just trying to introduce a few characters in order to give us a slice of alternate-world living, but in Sexy Voice and Robo Kuroda throws us suddenly in wildly dramatic story arcs that only last a few pages, and then rips us out of them just as suddenly. This leaves the stories feeling as if they are either incomplete, or as if they've been artificially cut short. This ties into a second major failing of this book, which is the realization of secondary characters. Secondary characters play a major role in this book (often as villains) but they never seem to have realistic, or at times even fathomable, motivations for what they're doing. There's the mobile phone systems programmer who develops an unstable system and simply needs an "element of chance" to make the decision to destroy the system from the ground up. Why this is the right choice, the comic never really reveals. Why Sexy Voice is the element of chance isn't really revealed either. But you do get this fantastic bit of dialogue: "You've been sent here to do this. It's your destiny." Uh-huh. This gets us to the third problem with the book, which is that the dialogue is often either badly written, totally unrealistic, or at times even confusing. I'm not sure if this problem is ultimately the author's fault, or the translator's fault, but it definitely kept me from ever completely buying what the comic was trying to sell me (and trust me, I wanted to buy!).
That much said, there is a lot of enjoyment to be had from this book, and I certainly don't regret having read it. There's a hit man who can only remember as far back as three days ago. There's the woman who leaves notes in love hotels as a series of clues that ultimately lead to the phone of a particular room — the only phone that can make a call to her mobile phone without getting an operator's voice. There's the crazy otaku who wants to turn off all the Christmas lights on Omote-sando. And etc. And all of this done in a nice brush-style that kind of reminds me of a combination of Paul Pope and Ben Katchor, which is a strange combination, but I'm going to stick to that claim.
And finally, there's a lovely 'dated moment' in this comic. This comes when Nico/Sexy Voice calls her parents from a landline because she doesn't want anyone to see that a 14-year-old is using a mobile phone. I mean, how on earth could a 14-year-old ever get ahold of one of those super-expensive things, and why would she need one anyhow? The original book was published back in 2002 and I guess this just goes to show how quickly 2002 can become dated when it comes to stuff like the culture of personal technology.
April 1, 2009
the art is the striking thing about this manga, sly energetic brushwork regarding with affection how strange and fucked-up life can be. the stories are pretty good but it's the characters who stick, particularly (for me) robo, who never seems to quite catch up. i get that.
July 28, 2011
This book was a train wreck. The plot made no sense, the characters were boring, and the art was mediocre. I gave up halfway through.
July 14, 2023
Reread. Not as quirky and charming as I remembered. Came across more as borderline questionable with some of the subject matter, especially since the main character is supposed to be a 14 year old girl who really seems to know a lot of very worldly things. Donated.
February 2, 2009
I really dug this, and really enjoyed the characters and situations throughout. It really did feel hip and relevant in ways that is sometimes hard to find when you're reading something that's been held up at the cultural border by the need to be translated, and I'd be glad to read more of this.
But I have to say, I was disappointed that the stories don't really delve, for the most part, into why characters are doing what they are doing. The point of Sexy Voice's missions seem more in line with preventing a terrible event that detection, if that makes sense, and sometimes that left me scratching my head at the end of a story, especially the first one.... I mean, when a kid is kidnapped and the ransom demand is to not turn on the Xmas lights on the giant tree at the mall, yeah, I want to see the kid rescued, but even more than that, I want to know why that's your ransom demand. But I never found out.... Why kill the asshole soccer player in such a dramatic way-- a soccer ball primed to explode during a corner kick-- if it's just because he's an ass.
I guess what I'm saying is that part of why I like detective stories is that I like to read about deviants and the way they settle on such weird and telling ways of committing their deviancy, and in that regard, this series didn't satisfy, in spite of how wonderful it was in other ways.
M
But I have to say, I was disappointed that the stories don't really delve, for the most part, into why characters are doing what they are doing. The point of Sexy Voice's missions seem more in line with preventing a terrible event that detection, if that makes sense, and sometimes that left me scratching my head at the end of a story, especially the first one.... I mean, when a kid is kidnapped and the ransom demand is to not turn on the Xmas lights on the giant tree at the mall, yeah, I want to see the kid rescued, but even more than that, I want to know why that's your ransom demand. But I never found out.... Why kill the asshole soccer player in such a dramatic way-- a soccer ball primed to explode during a corner kick-- if it's just because he's an ass.
I guess what I'm saying is that part of why I like detective stories is that I like to read about deviants and the way they settle on such weird and telling ways of committing their deviancy, and in that regard, this series didn't satisfy, in spite of how wonderful it was in other ways.
M
September 15, 2015
Sexy Voice and Robo follows the adventures of 'Sexy Voice', a precocious teenage girl, and her friend/minion 'Robo', a lonely 20-something robot otaku. Sexy Voice is hired by a shady old man to take on odd jobs such as spying on people or finding certain items, this gives each episodic chapter a bit of a sense of mystery and adventure as there is always some new plot to uncover. Robo is usually called upon to save the day in some fashion, tho not so much personally as much as by virtue of being an adult and therefore having a car, etc.
I enjoyed reading this - the loose, quick, brush pen art style (reproduced crisply in this large, A4-sized book) made me want to go out and buy a brush pen myself and start doodling.
Episodic chapters mean that this volume is easy to pick up and put down if you only have a few mins at a time to fit some reading in. However, I found this was also a bit of a downside - the stories didn't quite captivate me enough to make me want to read the book cover-to-cover in one sitting, and once I had put it down at the end of a chapter it was quite a while before I decided to pick it up again.
So all-in-all an enjoyably different book, even if it didn't hook me completely.
I enjoyed reading this - the loose, quick, brush pen art style (reproduced crisply in this large, A4-sized book) made me want to go out and buy a brush pen myself and start doodling.
Episodic chapters mean that this volume is easy to pick up and put down if you only have a few mins at a time to fit some reading in. However, I found this was also a bit of a downside - the stories didn't quite captivate me enough to make me want to read the book cover-to-cover in one sitting, and once I had put it down at the end of a chapter it was quite a while before I decided to pick it up again.
So all-in-all an enjoyably different book, even if it didn't hook me completely.
August 1, 2012
Nice manga. The premise is funny and a bit risqué, but the book itself is rather tame. Nico Hayashi is a sharp, witty and precocious 14-year old, that finds people fascinating. So, she works part time in a Hotline, acting out a new character each time, and enjoys understating, manipulating and uncovering the secrets of the people she talks to. When she grows up she wants to be a fortune teller or a spy. One of her playthings is Robo, a 20 something, part-time employed, naive geek, who nonetheless is there for Nico whe she needs him. An old man of dubious reputation meets Nico by chance and finds her fascinating, so he gives her work and investigations to do for money, she names herself "Agent Sexy Voice". The stories are mosly stand alone, and you explore with Nico diverse strange situations she has to solve for her boss. Most of them are interesting and fun to read through. Nico is an amazing lead character who mantains you hooked. Robo is more of a side character, I don't get why he gets top billing in the title nor did I find him particularly likeable. The art style is certainly less structured than usual, but it is nice still. Recommended for those intrigued by the premise and down to earth, charming, human stories.
April 9, 2016
Wow. I've been vaguely aware of this for years, as a paltry slice of "alternative manga" in English, from those wonderful years when Viz were printing things like Taiyo Matsumoto's No. 5. Incidentally, like No. 5, Sexy Voice and Robo is now out of print and incomplete, though unlike No. 5 it was never completed in the first place- it just drifts gently to a stop and was sidelined while the author worked on the cycling manga Nasu (which was adapted into a pair of hour-long OVAs headed up by the animation director of Spirited Away).
Somehow the premise manages to entirely avoid being skeevy, which was a definite possibility. What I wasn't prepared for was the art. Unlike, say, Matsumoto (yes, I am going to keep up that comparison, deal with it) Kuroda's character design and overall aesthetic is comfortably within the mainstream for manga (apart from the attention paid to clothing as opposed to costume). What really makes him stand out is his line- beautifully thick, fluid, brushwork. I'm going to have to find scanlations of everything else he's done, because this is some of the best-looking manga I've read in years.
Somehow the premise manages to entirely avoid being skeevy, which was a definite possibility. What I wasn't prepared for was the art. Unlike, say, Matsumoto (yes, I am going to keep up that comparison, deal with it) Kuroda's character design and overall aesthetic is comfortably within the mainstream for manga (apart from the attention paid to clothing as opposed to costume). What really makes him stand out is his line- beautifully thick, fluid, brushwork. I'm going to have to find scanlations of everything else he's done, because this is some of the best-looking manga I've read in years.
June 12, 2008
A reviewer-type says "the most European version of Tokyo you'll ever get to see". And that's true...I adore the illustration style here--it's got manga base but is like fixated on imperfection of real folks. Excellent element of the storytelling.
And I am a sucker for a tough but sweet teenage heroine and a dorky twenty-something guy whose being played.
Yeah maybe there was a little bit I didn't understand, but I followed most of it, and I liked how it thought about the normal world and the the seedy underground that COOL spies must inhabit at times.
And I am a sucker for a tough but sweet teenage heroine and a dorky twenty-something guy whose being played.
Yeah maybe there was a little bit I didn't understand, but I followed most of it, and I liked how it thought about the normal world and the the seedy underground that COOL spies must inhabit at times.
November 12, 2009
Picked up this book after watching the live action adaptation. I really like the drawings, the quirky storyline and eccentric characters. Very endearing. The only downside is that the ending was a bit abrupt. Wonder if there is going to be sequel? And if you are wondering - the live action adaptation is worth checking out.
March 10, 2013
Much much much better than the title makes it seem. Functions as short story narratives and also as a commentary on youth growing up in two different veins: 1) socially savvy and able to navigate complex situations in a rapidly changing world. 2) pop-culturally savvy who know the ins and outs of characters and celebrities but little else.
March 27, 2015
I admired subtle foreshadowing in artistic decisions, the brushwork and the highly detailed backgrounds that drew me in. The whole environment demands to be searched thoroughly; for clues perhaps, complimenting the detective/mystery theme. An intricately connective story following a young pathological lier with a big heart.
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September 4, 2008This book was pretty entertaining, although the basic plot was pretty creepy- a junior high girl was the equivalent of a sex phone operator. Still, was funny and full of action, manipulation, deceit etc.
December 8, 2015
I adore the japanese dorama version of this, so I was overjoyed when I found it in the reduced section of my local comic store. I prefer the dorama to the book, so my rating is probably higher than it would have been if I had read this in isolation.
June 5, 2008
I love the brushy art, but it's really hard to follow. Some of that might be translation? But I think probably it's just that it jumps around too much.
October 1, 2011
A bit of a pleasant surprise. I picked it up on a whim after flipping through it. A really nice series of stories about a very clever girl who wants to learn more about what drives people.
August 9, 2013
enjoyed it a lot. took me on routes I could never predict. I hope there will be a sequel in the future.
March 1, 2016
The odd premise drew me in, but the story has stuck with me since my first reading years ago. It starts out funny and light, and draws you deeper in as the stakes get higher.
April 23, 2016
Surprisingly good.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews