May 14, 2021
Piyo Piyo is a collection of short stories written by Mizukami Satoshi between 2005 and 2006. The book has 8 chapters (each one being 30 pages aprox) and it's the second installment of Mizukami Satoshi Tanpenshuu (The first is Geko Geko).
The stories are the author's experimental works considering that neither was serialized. Still, I consider these good on their own, the plots are interesting, the supernatural elements (Mizukami style) are entertaining and the characters are fun. If I were the editor, I would've green lit for serialization at least two.
To be fair, not everyone likes this format, the majority of manga readers enjoys long works
...
that tell a story and develop the characters or gives you a certain amount of fanservice.
I think you already guessed the structure of each story: beginning and introducing the main characters, something supernatural happens, the characters resolve their issues, end.
It's useless to talk in general about this so let's see what's so interesting or captivating about each story, what makes it worth a read.
- Piyo Piyo (chapters 1,2,3) - For some reason it's this long, it's a wholesome story about a dad, his daughter and their giant chick.
- The Girl in the Iron Mask - a supernatural love story between a high school boy and a girl who always wears an iron mask, expect cute romance and action.
- Givvyup and Trymor - a story about one guy's inner demons, very good from a psychological point of view.
- The Chosen Path - Groundhog Day but it's your regular salaryman and a cute girl.
- Thunder Girl in Monster Town - it's happening in the same Monster Town as the one from Geko Geko volume, colorful characters and lots of youkai, we follow this girl's boring life as an exorcist.
- The Head, The Hole and Monster Town - again Monster Town but with other characters, more youkai than humans.
This volume is pure fanservice for Mizukami fans, we see elements/settings and characters from his other manga. Monster Town is the same town (but in the future) from Sengoku Youko, there's a couple resembling Samidare and Yuuhi, a girl from Sanjin Sadou appears. It's such a great feeling when you tie in the connections, I very much enjoyed that. A first time reader of Mizukami shouldn't worry about that.
His art style though looks a bit rough, it's decent but there are hundreds of better mangaka in the business.
I think this volume is worth a read, the stories are captivating, sure, they aren't extraordinary but the author gets straight to the point and delivers an overall message that the reader can easily understand. Some may find them unimpressive because the action is limited on characters doing everyday life stuff with a pinch of supernatural and we're not going into deep stuff, all stories are very light-hearted.
I enjoyed it and I feel that all of the author's fans will enjoy. And it's a good short-stories volume for a person who likes light-hearted supernatural stuff.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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