Friday, December 14, 2007

+ Anima by Natsumi Mukai


Rated T for Teen 13+ from Tokyopop

The Main Library has book volume 3
The North Branch Library has books volumes 1-10 (complete).

Volume Summaries:

Volume 1: On Astaria, + Anima are people, apparently mostly youngsters, who have some animal attribute. Cooro is a boy with black wings like a bat. He is impetuous and a little naive. Husky grows a fish's tale when he's in water. When he was very young, he was found and held captive by a traveling circus, performing as a mermaid. Cooro sneaks into the circus to see the act, and is himself captured. When told to enact a story where the "Messenger of Death" (Cooro) falls in love with the "Mermaid Princess" (Husky), Cooro turns the tables on the circus owner and escapes, taking Husky with him.

The two boys come upon a village which is being threatened by a gang of crooks. There they meet another + Anima, Senri, who has a bear's arm and talks very little. They help the villagers outwit the crooks, and then journey on.

The last of our main characters is introduced next. She is Nana, a little bat-girl who is living in an underground cavern populated by orphan children.

Volume 2: Cooro is tricked into delivering honey to the castle of Lady Beena, whose son is reputed to be cursed. Of course, when the trick is found out, the others rush to rescue Cooro who doesn't really need rescuing.

Traveling on, the four encounter a peddlar, Rose, who is revealed to be a cat + Anima. They also are confronted by an Astarian commander who takes an immediate dislike to Senri, calling him a Kim-un-Kur. What's that all about? I think we'll find out in future volumes.

Volume 3: Cooro helps a young man use his glider to save his family when rain washes the road out and medicine needs to get through. Our little gang is given shelter by a blacksmith and his ward, Margaret. Interesting tidbit--she used to be a + Anima (a deer) but now that she has a home and feels safe, her deer aspect vanished. So being a + Anima is not a permanent thing?

Anyway, good old Igneous (the commander from the previous volume) shows up and demands that the blacksmith repair all the swords for his company. The blacksmith refuses--he hasn't had anything to do with swords since he rescued Margaret. Then Cooro has an idea, and the swords are all tranformed into tools such as knives and axes.

Nana becomes convinced that Husky is really a girl, so he finally strips off to convince her. Of course, he makes Cooro strip off too. Finally, the group encounters Rose again at a hot springs which is supposedly haunted. A buffalo + Anima was injured and has been coming to the healing springs at night. Now that he has been healed, he agrees to go on his way.

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