Anno, Moyoco. Happy mania, vol. 1.

ANNO, Moyoco. Happy mania, vol. 1. Tokyopop. 148p. illus, c2003. 1-59182-169-X. $9.99. A

Kayoka Shigeta, the 24-year-old heroine of Happy Mania, wants a boyfriend, and she's willing to try anything--love crystals, horoscopes, thigh creams, peek-a-boo shirts, voodoo--to get him. What she does get is a series of flings with good-looking creeps, all of which end in breakups that increasingly take on the character of car accidents. At one point Kayoka, chased by the knife-wielding girlfriend of one of the aforementioned creeps, does get hit by a car. When she gets out of the hospital she decides to be a shepherdess, a resolution that lasts until she meets the next male slug. Will Kayoka ever realize that it's what's inside that counts and that love, in the form of her boring nice-guy co-worker Takahashi, was right beside her all along?

I, for one, have my doubts. Happy Mania is a very funny manga, mainly because of its heroine, Kayoka. An important element of good comedy is exaggeration, and Kayoka is certainly larger than life: combine manic determination with the brains of a chipmunk, throw in a Cosmopolitan magazine and you've got a good idea of her character. What makes us like her, and root for her, is a surprisingly wistful innocence; Kayoka is looking for love, not sex, but she has the two hopelessly confused.

Happy Mania contains bad language, adult situations, near-nudity, and lots of sex. This manga shows everything but the genitals, and the book's publisher gives it an M rating (18 and over), so please be warned. An entertaining read, recommended for collections geared towards older readers.

A--Recommended for advanced students and adults. This code will help librarians and teachers working in high schools where there are honors and advanced placement students. This also will help extend KLIATT's usefulness in public libraries.

George Galuschak, YA Libn., Montvale P.L., Montvale, NJ