Cheeky Angel, Vol. 18

天使な小生意気 [Tenshi na Konamaiki] #18

by Hiroyuki Nishimori

Miki's erstwhile fianc - Takao Gakusan kicks his revenge scheme against Megumi and her friends into high gear. Kidnapping the whole lot at once might satisfy anyone else, but for Takao it's not enough...not nearly enough! His ultimate goal is to turn best friends Megumi and Miki into enemies, and he will stop at nothing to achieve it. And unless Megumi can figure out a way to thwart him, he just might succeed!

Genres: Manga

192 pages, Paperback

First published May 17, 2003

About the author

See also: 西森博之

Reviews

[Beth]

I gave vol. 17 two stars, mostly because of how tired the plotting was. I didn't feel like Miki's ex-fiancé Gakusan needed to come back, and he and his thugs are such obvious black hats that they're boring to read about. For the most part, Cheeky Angel's author Nishimori has done fairly well at creating imaginative situations for the characters to respond to, that are also fun and funny to read. This arc's somewhat more serious, and maybe that's why my response was lukewarm to start with. This volume is probably not better than the previous one, if looked at "objectively," but I enjoyed it more, so it goes back to getting three stars.

At first, I was annoyed with this volume's brainwashing plot: something that, for me, shows that an author is running out of ideas and is relying on overused tropes. However, Megumi is easily able to break the hypnotism. That does open up the question whether (1) the story acknowledges that hypnotism doesn't work that way (and Gakusan was taken in by a con artist), or (2) Meg is just that strong-willed. I'm going to go with (2) because there is no evidence whatsoever for (1). She's moving on to solving her predicament in her own distinct way--playing off others' perception of her being a girl (crying and cowering) for the cameras trained on her, while also acting proactively to free herself, as would be expected of the main character of a fighting manga.

Just a couple volumes to go. There is absolutely no way this series' ending will elevate it above the "worth reading exactly once" level, but it's been decent enough to keep me reading it, and that ain't a bad thing.

[Kirstie]

Series review in Vol 1, series wrap up review in vol 20