In this installment, Steam City is under attack by a wily Dr. Guilty. To stop this madman, Narutaki and Goriki must join forces. When street girl Selena stumbles into Ling-Ling's hospital seeking a rare medicine, Narutaki joins Detective Onigawara to help find it. But then criminals Wolf and Carlos hijack a zeppelin in their attempt to thwart Narutaki and Goriki's careful plans.
Kia Asamiya(麻宮 騎亜, born in 1963) is the pen-name of a popular Japanese manga artist whose work spans multiple genres and appeals to diverse audiences (1990s).
He is well-known for using influences from American comics, television, and movies in his work, and describes himself as a big fan of both Batman and Star Wars. One of the most widely-published Japanese manga-ka, nearly all of his stories have been translated into other languages, including English. His two most successful and popular manga series to-date are Nadesico and Silent Möbius.
Prior to becoming a manga artist, Asamiya graduated from the Tokyo Designer School, and then worked as a character designer for a number of anime series, and even designed models for some of the later Godzilla movies (1980s). For this career, he used a different pen-name, Michitaka Kikuchi (菊地 道隆), and maintained the two professional identities separately for many years. Several of the anime series that he worked on were very popular both inside and outside of Japan, most notably including Sonic Soldier Borgman. Even after focusing primarily on his manga career, Asamiya continued to do character designs and creative consultation on anime series based on his stories, occasionally under the Kikuchi name.
In the early 2000s, Asamiya has shifted his focus from teenage and young-adult stories to stories designed for children and for an American audience. In the former case, he credits his young children as a motivation, but in the latter case, he points to a long-standing desire to work with his favorite American characters. To that end, he has worked on projects with Image Comics, Marvel Comics, and DC Comics, as well as developing a manga adaptation of the movie, "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace".
While many Japanese artists (and artists in general) are quite reclusive, Asamiya often makes an effort to be available to his fans. He maintains a website with news and information about his studio, Studio TRON (named after the Disney movie TRON). He also aids and assists his Official Fan Club by sending them regular announcements and limited-edition merchandise. Despite these actions, he shunned all public photography, and had the often-hilarious habit of depicting himself with a placeholder sign for a face. It has become a trademark feature of his books that instead of a picture of the artist, there is an elaborately decorated rectangle sporting the words "Now Printing".
Created in a time before ratings for manga I like to give this series a rating of Older Teen due to violence, language, some minor nudity, and murder for the most part. Just a warning though this book ends on a bit of a downer so if you are super sensitive to such things you might want to have the next book ready so you can see things get better.
Set in the fictional world of Steam City where they use coal as the primary energy source and is named due to all the steam released by the machines around them. Within the steam however hides an assortment of villians and only kid detective Narutaki and his friends can over come everthing that goes bump in the night.
Case 13 reveals the return of Dr Guilty and the dreaded Shadow Bolt #3 which is even stronger then its predecessors. Watch as Goriki faces seemingly impossible odds as he fights against the new evil mecha created by Dr Guilty. Case 14 involves a kidnapping of Ling Ling but things are not always what they see. Who is the mysterious Phantom Thief Tinker Bell? Finally in Case 15 Naruataki must use his bravery and wits to save the life of a sick girl by getting her medicine. Hope this preview has wet your appetite to find out more details about each case. :)
My favorite part of the book is when Ling Ling throws herself in front if Shadow Bolts attack to protect Narutaki. Luckily Dr Guilty seems to be in a good mood because he now has the blueprints to Goriki and decides not to follow through with the attack that would have seriously hurt or possibly kill Ling Ling and Narutaki.