Animal Sense by Takeshi Maekawa

Meteor showers are so neat, just seeing one piece of space debris burn across the sky is worth it! I just stayed outside and got eaten my mosquitoes two nights in a row. It was a 3 o'clock bedtime the evening before and last night I didn't go to bed until 5 AM, but I really enjoyed sitting and looking at the sky. None of my family wanted to stay up with me, though, so I was little lonely, still its nice to live out in the country at times like that. Takes the mind off the fact that school is starting up once more. That means I'll have to start working again. Yay money, boo waking up early. Also, boo to YOUR MOM.

A.S. - Animal Sense by Takeshi Maekawa

Art and story (c) Takeshi Maekawa

Genre: Shonen
Length: 3 Volumes – 13 Chapters


           It has a fairly simplistic art style, but it is well practiced, the animals are excellent actually, and this being a manga with lots of animals in it that is a definite plus. There were

some problems with it, people looked odd from profile at times; the bodies being too skinny was the main culprit. There’s lots of variety to the face shapes and characteristics, though the eyes are pretty much all typically what I will call the 'Ash Ketchum' style, with the pupil and iris being a tall oval and the rest of the eye is an upside down 'U' around that. So it is an older style of art, and a fairly flavorless version of it, too. The character choices are also a little generic, especially when the hair and clothes are involved. The main character's pig tails, or twin tales as I've heard some people call it, bother me quite a bit for reasons I don't understand. I just find that horn-like hair style annoying as heck, perhaps its because the rest of this manga is pretty normal and realistic but that hair belongs in a fantasy story. Inexplicable irks aside, there isn't anything truly objectionable in the art.
           Hoshino Fuzuki once saw a pigeon and, like many do when they see a bird, wondered what it would be to fly. Only, for Hoshino, she suddenly saw the world from the bird's perspective and actually experienced flying! Of course no one believed her, they laughed and said she must have fallen asleep and had a very vivid dream. So she forgot about it until, years later, it happened again. Now Hoshino can't forget the experience of sharing consciousness with animals and, though she can't tell anyone about it, see how far this power can go.
           This manga is a pretty short read, and its fun and action packed, too. If you don't nit pick at the heroine's powers too much, which I tried to avoid until I stared writing the

review, that is. Hoshino herself is very practical for a lead, and is very capable of doing amazing things the only problem is that when she uses her power its instantaneous and has no repercussions. Also the way it works is rather strange, because she retains her self in her body completely but also sees and hears from the animal's perspective. She of course has no problem balancing this unnerving way of existence though because she can perform actions as herself and still completely connect with the animal at the same time. I'd think she'd disconnect more often than she does, or loose herself more. Who knew that having a disconcerting a power as connecting with animals mind to mind could be so easily mastered? And yes, that was rather sarcastic, but its really unbelievable. In fact, the one time she gets in trouble, its not from being inside an animal, but by physically being somewhere she shouldn't have been. Its way too convenient. It doesn't hurt her to control animals in the slightest, doesn't tire her, doesn't give her a headache, nothing. This sort of takes away any danger to using it, and therefore, makes it rather boring. It drove me nearly as crazy as Hoshino's hair do, because having a limitless power needs something to humanize it or its no fun to see how the user has to cope with it. Also, the three volumes are basically all one story, which is kind of a let down. I wanted to see the main character getting into more adventures and using more animals to help, its mostly dogs, in reality. Perhaps it wasn't popular enough to continue, but its sort of just an extended introduction, really. Still, its a good read for what it is, even if it's been given the blandest treatment. Its no so broken that I couldn't read it, anyway.


3/5 Fun read but not really involving.