Juunikyuu de Tsukamaete
Zodiac P.I.

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Hmmm, writing a review isn't my best point. But I dont know, I just wanted to write one for it.

Zodiac P.I. is a mystery book with romance. I have to admit the mystery side of the story isn't detailed like other's. They solve the crime short and fast, sometimes not even knowing how they could even think of that from just noticing something. If you prefer the much more detailed detective work, then I would advice you to stay away from this as you might be in for some dissapointment. However if you simply just anjoy the mystery genre not minding how detailed it is, ... then give Zodiac P.I a shot. The case's are quick and fast. It doesnt drag on for to long, not long enough to get you bored.

The Romance side however is very cute and sweet. Sure might be a tad cheesy, but like some one else said in a comment, its better for it to be cheesy then poo. If you want more dramatic love, read something else like MARS.

The character's arent something new, you can see similar types of character somewhere else, but that doesnt mean their horrible characters. They are still enjoyable to read. Again, if thats not what your looking for DO NOT read this only to be dissapointed.

Really im repeating myself, but once again DO NOT read it if its not what your looking for just to get dissapointed at the end because it didnt meet your expectations. I mean really... my review might not be much, but take it as a hint for what the book holds. If you like what i said then sure give it a try, if not then move on to another. This book can just be said as a nice refreshing book to read, nice and calm, and something light.

Personally I liked it, it wasnt to dark, it was cute, enjoyed the detective work even though it wasnt as detailed as I would like it to be, but still I liked it. Overall i quiet enjoyed the book. Suited the mood i was in perfectly.

Ok, I keep reading reveiws around the net about this manga and how it's unrealistic and therefore somehow sub-par. And I'll concede that a few of the mystery solving explanations are a bit more Scooby Doo than CSI, but I thoroughly enjoyed this story.

Lili Hoshizawa is an astrologer that moonlights as a private investigator (Spica) who solves mysteries with her partner, love interest, and childhood friend, Hiromi Oikawa. The characters are sweet, quirky, and sympathetic.

I would have loved to have seen this Manga go longer. I feel like it's honestly very underrated and wish more people new about it.

To me it really reminded me of my childhood watching shows and reading manga like, Cardcaptors, Pretear and in someways sailor moon.

STORY:
It honestly feels rushed at times, I would have loved to have seen it get more in depth. Although I feel this way, I still enjoyed the fun and adventure they had. Even if some of the mysteries were over the top at times.

ART:
The art is great, I enjoyed the idea that Ando held a ... design contest for her zodiac signs, I love the bond she has with her fans. All the designs she puts into her characters are really thought out.

CHARACTER:
I find the characters to all be cute and enjoyable, they're isn't too much to them when it comes to the main characters but there isn't really anything to dislike. All the zodiacs have personalities reflect their sign to the extreme which was really interesting and entertaining.

ENJOYMENT:
I thought this Manga was fun and upbeat, I love astrology and I have a guilty pleasure for Shoujo so this was a great crossover for me.

OVERALL:
Give it a try, it's worth a shot :)
Still feel this is underrated

First off, I love this manga series so much that I made sure to buy all the books quite fast. It helped that there are only 4 books though. Anyway, the characters are fun and actually rather entertaining, even the ones that don’t stay for very long. Lili herself is actually very cute and smart, especially when it comes to astrology but I noticed that the only thing she seems to use is a person’s sun sign. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it does throw me off slightly since I know some things about astrology.

Her friend is a bit odd though being allergic ... to women. I’m not exactly how he got allergic to women, but he is. Also Lili is the cause somehow though it only gives a really weird explanation that doesn’t actually explain anything. Not only that, but he shows up out of nowhere, with a PHD no less, and yet he still goes to a high school? Something doesn’t actually make sense and that’s pretty much what he always searching for, logical proof. Can someone tell me the logical proof for the PHD and the allergy?

Each story really is a story in itself with only few reoccurring characters to speak of. This gives the manga a lot to go with and sadly, it really does stop a bit to short for my taste. I could see many other times that she could use the rings power and even more, that actually happens at the end. You will understand once you read it why I think they just made the manga to short.

The artwork is actually beautiful though it normally is for a shojo manga. They have really high detailed pieces but then there are some panels that seem a little derpy, but that seems to work with the Comedy of the books.

Story: 4/10

I think that this series, first and foremost, would have benefited from being longer. There was a cute idea for the plot, but I think it could've been better executed if there was more time TO execute it. For being a mystery / detective series, the cases were all really rushed, and only extremely surface level explanations were ever given for how the crime went down.

The story was so rushed, in fact, that the skip between some panels was so jarring, and it was difficult to follow what was going on. I feel like some important contextual information was missing, just because ... there wasn't enough time in the series to draw it all out properly.

The story itself was also pretty basic. Pretty much every twist is either easy to guess because of how simple the story was, or almost nonsensical because of some of the stretches that were made for the executions of the crimes and detective work.

That being said, I do again think that the story had potential, and I think it could've been a great story, though still basic to a degree, if the series had been stretched out a bit more. I don't think the series needed to go any further than where it ended, I just think each scene needed to be stretched out a bit more.

Also a bit of a side note, some very basic information was inconsistent, but I don't know if it's a fault of the author or the translator. I did read scans of this online, but it seems like the person scanned the official English translation by tokyopop for most (but not all) of it, so I'm not sure where the error occurred. The main character was mentioned at one point to be an aries, and then at another point she was said to be a taurus, and she had three different birth dates listed that I saw. Seeing as astrology is a major plot point, it seems odd to me that more attention wasn't paid to that?

Art: 7/10

Okay, I will admit that I am a bit biased here because I personally really like pretty shoujo art styles, but I did enjoy the art in this manga. It isn't anything TOO fantastic, though, and there are definitely some anatomy issues and issues with panels being cluttered / the sequential timing being off (as discussed in the "story" section). But it definitely is pleasing to look at for the most part, and it's pretty nostalgic as well if you're a fan of 90's-00's shoujo styles.

Character: 6/10

The characters in this series didn't really have much time to be properly fleshed out (again), but most of them are trope-y enough that you can get the gist of their character without too much information from the manga itself. I do think that they did a decent job though considering the limited series length, but I would probably say that the main characters are likeable but average, and pretty much everyone else is pretty forgettable.

Enjoyment: 7/10

While I did have a lot of issues with this series, I do think it would be a good read for either a younger audience, someone who's just looking for some 90's-00's shoujo nostalgia, or if you're just going into the series not expecting too much to begin with.

Conclusion:

This manga felt very very rushed and not fully fleshed out. It never really got any deeper than the surface level plot and characterization that you would expect, but I did enjoy the series nonetheless. If you just want to read a cute shoujo manga, it's definitely worth a shot.

Well, believe it or not, this is the first manga review I’m doing and I don’t often read that much manga, but not that this is a foreign concept to me considering I watched a lot of anime that has a manga either was released before or after the anime has even aired, although I’m told a lot that if said anime ends, just read the manga although the only time I ever did that was after watching Battle Angel Alita and I happen to like that manga more than the OVA and as for the manga I’m about to review, there was something about ... it that did drew me in……more likely a few things that drew me into this.

Lili Hoshizawa is an ordinary girl… except she can tell the furture with the Star Ring, given to her by her mother, which calls on the help of Astral Spirits. With the help of the vitim’s Astral Spirit, Lili solves numerous cases with her partner, Hiromi Oikawa. This story is about a girl named Lili Hoshizawa who can see into the future. She uses her powers to solve crimes under the name Spica. Her old friend named Hiromi Oikawa helps Lili with all of her crimes. One good thing about this book is that it gives educational things about astrology.


Here’s the thing that I never saw in a manga or an anime before…..a detective using astrology and the zodiac signs to solve cases. I must admit, I was liking (actually, I was loving) that whole aspect with the storylines of different characters doing these crimes, although I like that some of the culprits aren’t always the people who does it for the sake of being evil and yet those people happen to exist there but still, their stories did caught my attention for a while.

I find the characters in here to be highly likable but also in the sense of fucking weird. There’s the main girl, Lili (or Spica), a very high-spirited girl who shows her intelligent side whenever she’s on the case and she does have her sweet side and her hard-headed side (Well, she is an Aries, as it mentions there) but it often involves her and her childhood friend Hiromi Oikawa, who returned to Japan after studying criminal psychology in America. He is the straight guy (normal one) in the manga but has a weird allergy of being allergic to girls and he gets rashes everywhere when he is approached to one. The one character I happen to find very interesting is Sirius, A P.I. who was testing Spica and happens to be more like her once you get into the manga more.

As for art style of the manga, I find some of the work very well-detailed but there were some images and speed lines that I couldn’t make up when reading it but at least, it didn’t hurt my eyes and left me confused. All in all, the art style is fine here.

FINAL VERDICT: Even though the manga is only 4 volumes, I got to say that I really liked the work. It combined the detective genre with the elements of astrology into something that was worth reading. I’m surprised nobody has made this into an anime series….or at least an OVA. Yeah, I would make this an OVA since it feels more appropriate.

Zodiac P.I is a magical girl detective manga series by Natsumi Ando. Lili Hoshiwaza is thirteen-year-old girl who moonlights as “Spica”, a private detective who solves cases that the police find difficult. She comes from a long line of astrologers and uses astrology to foretell people’s future.

The characters were pretty decent and fairly likable. They are typical Shoujo characters you could see in any other Shoujo romance and this series has quite a bit of it. The comedy was cheesy with Lili’s love interest Hiromi being allergic to girls. He is her childhood friend who returns after spending several years in school abroad.

Lilli ... summons Zodiac Spirits using the power of a special ring that was left behind by her mother. The spirit summoned depends on the case, the date of birth of the victim, and the timeline when the crime occurred, to try and piece together what happened. These Spirits have their own personality traits respective to their zodiac sign.

The art was very nicely drawn and the character designs were superb. While the atmosphere was dark and mysterious, it also had that Shoujo feel good upbeat style. The manga is about 20 chapters so the pacing was pretty fast.


Overall, its an okay story.