I love this manga! It's definitely my favorite right now. It has all the right elements: pretty boys (once you get used to the art style and see it develop, then it all really looks great), hilarity, adventure, Cold War themes, and really awesome characters. It's my top recommended, especially for those who may have lost interest in mainstream manga and anime these days. It'll really pull you back with not only it's vintage charm, but just its own brand of charm. It's like a breath of fresh air, which you wouldn't expect from a manga that started 30 years ago and is still going on now.

This manga is... okay. It rather disappoints though. I loathe most of the Tokyopop covers because they re-color the pictures badly, and use the WRONG PICTURES for the covers without any good reason I can see. The first few volumes are great. They're funny, they're cute, and they have some shounen ai elements. However, it goes down hill around the time when the manga-ka (manhwa-ka?) changes writers. Its shounen-ai themes are pretty much pushed to the side for a more confusing plot, and the end is... anti-climactic at best. It could've been a cute story about growing up, but it ended up being some kind of weird story about reincarnation and other stuff that didn't really matter. It still had laughs along the way, though, but I think the first few volumes are the only ones worth getting.

Will I get the point of it more if I read X/1999 or something? Because stand-alone it's not much to brag about...