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Reviewed by Park Cooper me: Hey, what does COWA mean? it's the title of a really cute manga by Akira Toriyama Alethea: Hm... maybe it's from "kowai (scary)"? Because usually when something scary pops up, someone'll say, "Kowa!" Cowa!, from the creator of DragonBall Z, gets an A+. Barbara agreed with my assessment. We’ve each said, previously, that we don’t like horror that is cute, funny, scary, or quirky. Cowa, however, is not horror. It’s just delightful. There’s also something else it’s not. It’s not punny. That’s right, punny. There’s a certain type of work that’s nothing more but a writer/creator trying to recreate (Why, oh why?) that Halloween-themed joke book they loved when they were seven years old. What do you serve a little ghost at a party? Ghoulade. Ha ha ha shut up. http://www.wickermanstudios.com/comics/gsg/gsg-08-03.html Cowa is NOT that stupid thing we’ve all seen way too much of (which my wife once made fun of in the link above). Cowa is just a great kids’ adventure that happens to have cute little monsters in it. In the first chapter, we meet our little monsters: Paifu, a vampire boy who’s part were-koala—show him a cross for three seconds and he becomes a snarling, super-strong fighting koala, and stays that way until you calm him down by showing him something round, and his best friend, a ghost named Jose Gonzalez (No, I don’t know why. A baseball thing?). In the second chapter, we meet the other main character, the strongest man in the world, a former sumo wrestler who accidentally killed a guy in a match one time, so he’s retreated from the world of humans and frankly gets along with monsters better. He’s gruff and harsh... with a heart of gold, of course. And then in chapter three, the PLOT kicks in—everyone but the kids comes down with the Monster Flu, and only the kids are well enough to go far away for the medicine that’ll cure it—and they get their large new friend to drive them. Adventure ensues. And it’s great. I won’t spoil anything else. It’s a shame that it’s just one volume total, but maybe that helps make it so good. Go get it for your kid—it’s a great step up from puns about Boo-berry pie and ghoul-ade. Comment on this review of Cowa! on the Manga Life Forums. |
6 October 2009
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