Reading Backwards

Story by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir & Art by Shiei
Support home-grown manga: Amazing Agent Luna
Rating: Fun.
Read: Tonight!

NOTE: Amazing Agent Luna is manga- a graphic novel, rather than prose.

This has all the makings of a really enjoyeable shoujo series. The characters are well-defined, the art is fantastic, and the story is certainly different. Because Luna is a secret agent for the United States government! See? US-created manga is fun.

Luna has been raised from the egg (she was a test-tube baby) by the US government to be a top secret weapon. Alas, she is now 15 years old and the terrible teens have been lurking under her inexperienced surface. Her division's main concern is the suspicious activity of Count Von Brucken. In the first chapter, Luna sneaks into his embassy and uncovers files that all pertain to Nobel High School.

Naturally, they send her in undercover, with her Control Agent and psych as her 'parents.'

Luna is completely naive and completely sweet and well-meaning. I don't think she has a mean bone in her body. She's completely overwhelmed in the new social environment, which is just how you remember high school- if your high school had been cross-bred with a Japanese high school. That means the classrooms look like they're from overseas, but the kids get away with murder. Skateboarding and midriffs.

It's pretty much what you would expect from there, only not nearly as clumsy as some previous attempts at similar storylines have gone. Luna has to balance work and play (in the name of 'blending in'), without getting exposed. She's already formed attachments to her fellow students and would obviously be sad to leave, while on the other hand she's hating certain aspects and wants out.

Her partners in agentry (and pretend parents) are Control Agent Jennifer, a tightassed bombshell who thinks she knows everything, and Dr. Andy, a really nice guy who couldn't possibly have volunteered for this job. The two argue constantly over methodology- Control treats Luna like a robot while Andy insists on speaking to her as a human being. Control leaps right to the super agent ultra-tech strategies but Andy is more down to earth. Andy is vereh sexeh, and I'm sure plenty of people will like Control's giant tits and bustier. XP

At school, Luna has found friends in Oliver, a skateboarding misfit with a crush on her, and Francesca, one of the popular crowd who has turned away from her snotty mistress, Elizabeth. Luna, Oliver, and Francesca make a sweet trio. Oliver is a character too rarely seen in manga- he opens his mouth when he has an opinion, and there's something fiesty in him. My bets are on him.

And let us not forget the bishounen. Well, he's not typical bish, but he's meant to be. Jonah, who Luna literally runs into in the first chapter. If he doing something suspicious in league with Von Brucken? What'm I saying? GO READ IT ONLINE!!!! GoManga Viewer!