Octopus Girl, Vol. 1
Grade 12 Up–This horror/humor manga mixes teenage angst with bodily fluids, eyeballs, and intestines in alarming proportions. Takako is a goody-two-shoes who is the target of a group of girls who tape her mouth shut and jump on her stomach until the remains of her lunch come out of her nose. The punishments escalate as the bullies nearly drown her in a pool, pull her out so that she can vomit profusely, and then shove an octopus into her mouth. Because Takako is allergic to octopus, this causes still more vomiting (its here that readers will be grateful that the artwork is not in color). That night Takako wakes to find that she has mutated into a creature with a human head and an octopus body. Her life as a good girl ends abruptly as she exacts her brutal revenge on the bullies who tortured her. In subsequent chapters, Octopus Girl falls in love with a human, battles a vampire, and even stars in a highly entertaining Trying Too Hard to Be a Shojo Manga Special. The cover of this book will appeal to younger readers, but, because of the language, nudity, and mind-altering gruesomeness, it should definitely stay in high school or adult collections.–Andrea Lipinski, New York Public LibraryCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.