Nico Hayashi is a 14 year old middle school student and part time telephone dating operator. Her ability to instantly understand and become what any man is looking for has given her amazing abilities to tell everything about a man just by his voice. When she meets a mysterious old man that hires her to analyze a recording she starts a new career as a sort of spy/mob enforcer/matchmaker/detective. Along for the ride is her unemployed, underachieving, undeveloped 20something hipster pal Iichiro Sudo, who she tags Robo (for his love of Giant Robot Programming). Together they will try to make the world a brighter place one voice at a time.
This is a very unique book. It takes story lines right out of all sorts of different manga genres and remixes them into something funky and new. The art looks like a mix of traditional old school manga and American independent comics, so it is recognizable but also intriguing. The plot is fast, fun, and mixes a sense of danger with a sort of silliness. The book is unique because it uses a lot of clichés to look at how people raised and influenced by pop culture shape their reality to reflect a fiction. It is also about Big Ideas like: modern isolation, the magic and dangers of adolescence, the impossibility of connection, etc. So for a fun comic it has something to think about if you want to look deeper, but it never spells anything out for the reader. That way it gets to stay a fun adventure/spy series and also be something more. A great read for manga fans wanting something different or fans of indie comics.
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