Natsumi Mukai

+ Anima is a fantasy manga series about a group of children who possess different animal traits, referred to as +anima. In a world that is often mistrustful and cruel to other +anima, Cooro, a boy with black wings like a crow's, travels the world encountering others like him.

Like many stories about people who are outcast because of special abilities, this series deals mainly with the group of +anima trying to find a place where they belong, and deciding whether they would give up their powers if they had a choice. While some chapters dealing with other people's prejudice against the +anima can get rough, the tone of the series is still fairly upbeat, making this more of a fun adventure for tweens and teens than a thought-provoking study on identity.… (meer)

In this, the first collected volume of Natsumi Mukai's popular manga series, crow-winged Cooro searches for other outcasts like himself, Anima who can assume the caracteristics of a particular animal at will. Along his journey, he collects the sometimes-merman Husky, a large bear-like protector named Senri, and a cute little girl named Nana who can manifest the ears and wings of a bat. Each of the four stand-alone chapters in this manga recounts a quickly-resolved adventure on Cooro's journey and concludes with him collecting another companion. While bearing all the hallmarks of a high fantasy quest story, Cooro's mismatched band of anima seem to have no particular purpose or goal and are constantly becoming entangled in the problems of whatever village they come across. The very last scene in the last chapter hints at an evolving story arc, but this volume seems mostly concerned with assembling the players and establishing their back stories (even if, in some cases, this just means alluding to a "dark past").

The illustrations in this manga seemed more coherent than most. The stylized faces and intricate body decoration seem fairly typical of the genre and were here effectively employed to describe people with fantastical, sometimes frightening, attributes. Unlike in some mangas, this artwork was clearly intended to be seen in black and white and so lacks some of the smudgy grayscale of other series.

Fun, humorous, and full of action and adventure, this manga series will appeal to ages 10-14. While rated teen for some violence and suggestive humor, I think it would be appropriate for slightly younger audiences. Furthermore, the themes of alienation and discrimination that the anima face will dovetail well with the emerging self-awareness of the tween set.… (meer)