What is Shonen Sunday? Shonen Sunday is one of the largest weekly manga magazines in Japan. Containing some of the latest and hottest boys' manga series in Japan, Sunday has hosted such notables as RANMA 1/2 and the currently popular MEITANTEI CONAN.

Selected news from this issue:

This week's Shonen Sunday features a short, 35-page story by the author of the popular series USHIO TO TORA.

Selected Overview Sora ni Hane Ga... (A Feather in the Sky...) Fujita Kazuhiro The setting is a fantastic world, where villages perch upon mountain tops, and an evil queen rules the land. The oppressed villages that dare to rebel are struck down by fire from the sky. Against this backdrop, a young woman named Zonoha, ridiculed for her simple-mindedness, befriends a poor, despised inventor called "Mushime" ("Bugeyes") by the cruel locals. Mushime is building a mysterious structure which, he says, is a gate for happiness. In the local village, the mayor has invited three impressive heroes to town: young, good-looking, rich and powerful, the three promise the means to deflect the fire from the sky and allow the overthrow of the evil queen. Mushime questions their confidence in their deflector, but is beaten away by the crowds. At last, the rebellion is underway. Mushime, still working on his machine, tells Zonoha the story of a brilliant young man who believed something in the sky was sending the fire down to earth. Everyone ridiculed that young man, and the secret police soon did terrible things to him. As Mushime speaks, the sky grows dark. He pulls the lever on his strange contraption, and it unleashes a powerful beam of energy that stops the fire from the sky from reaching the town even as the defenses set up by the three heroes crumble. The queen is dying, pierced by countless weapons, but she recalls the story of a crazy man who had sought to study the magics of channeling energy. At least she would destroy him with her machine in the sky. Mushime, meanwhile, is wounded, struggling to reach his machine's lever again, and he admits to Zonoha, who wants to know why he has done so much for people who had treated him so badly, that he had simply wanted to be proud of himself. He and Zonoha turn on the machine, even as the fire comes from the sky again, this time directed at them. Caught in the energy of Mushime's machine, a strange, gigantic structure comes plummeting from the sky. Time passes. The wild celebrations honor the three young, powerful heroes of the revolution. But Zonoha knows better. She and Mushime, now in a wheelchair, speak of flowers coming to the mountain-top someday. Review Fujita Kazuhiro simply has one of the most sincere (as well as recognizable) drawing styles seen in Shonen Sunday. Though in some ways rough and heavy, Fujita gives the characters' faces expressions of warmth and determination that shine through the pages. The stories are like that, too: though not always perfectly paced or easy to follow visually, they speak of individual people, and they glow with an inner sincerity. This story is no exception, and the hope is that the author will continue to write quality manga like this short story.

Selected Brief Updates Inuyasha Takahashi Rumiko Overview: Kagome is a seemingly normal student who finds herself in fifteenth or sixteenth century Japan, where she meets the strange boy Inuyasha. Now, they are on a quest to retrieve the fragments of the Shikon no Tama, whose powers are sought by evil beings. This issue: Inuyasha and Kagome are fighting a demon-frog that is inhabiting a lord's body. Inuyasha has been asked not to kill the monster, but his patience is rapidly wearing thin. Kagome, meanwhile, seeks something hot (hot water, hot oil) to snap the frog spirit out of its victim. She has a brainstorm — a small flame combined with a can of hairspray creates a fireball that forces the spirit out of the lord, and Inuyasha dispatches the entity. Most everyone is saved. (Great joke in this episode, relevant to RANMA fans: Kagome at one point demands in disbelief, "You're saying I should boil some water right now, right here?!" — in stark contrast to the ubiquitous kettles of hot water in RANMA.)

Me Gumi no Daigo Soda Masahito Overview: Asahina Daigo is a young firefighter with the "Me" Company, who has an unusual ability to find and rescue people in danger. This issue: Expecting to get fired for admitting he had driven the pump truck into the meeting hall, Daigo psyches himself to deceive some colleagues into lifting him (on a ladder truck) to the top of a tall tree, where he photographs a baseball he had lost six years before. Later he runs into Ms. Ochiai, his old teacher. But the elevator they are riding is suddenly jolted.

Love Ishiwata Osamu Overview: Takagi Ai ("Love") is a girl who, in a bid to have a re-match with her old tennis rival, has entered a high school tennis club disguised as a boy. This issue: Youhei has just lost a game to a creepy guy named Yamashiro, who, it is said, sold his soul while in Germany. Meanwhile, Love's tennis teammates are practicing up at the mountain retreat. Segawa Tsuguru, after shouting into a valley that he would follow Love anywhere (though he feels like an idiot afterwards), falls into the river and must be rescued by Love — who cannot stay because she would be recognized as a girl. As is his usual habit, Segawa imagines a goddess rescued him.

Grooming Up! Yuuki Masami Overview: Although originally a city boy, young Kuze Shunpei has taken to working as a farm hand at the Watarai racing horse breeding farm; he also has taken to Watarai Hibiki, one of the Watarai daughters. This issue: Hibiki receives a pendant that Shunpei thinks is from his rival Satoru. He is even more suspicious when she goes shopping for a return gift. But at last, he finds out her brother had sent her the pendant and is very relieved. He then makes the mistake of assuming she is impressed by men who can drive (he can't) — only to discover she is, instead, deciding that she needs a driver's license herself. In fact, Shunpei is invited to get a license along with her.

Ghost Sweeper Mikami Gokuraku Daisakusen!! Shiina Takashi Overview: Mikami Reiko is a money-hungry, gorgeous female ghost buster, aided by her sex-starved and underpaid male assistant Yokoshima Tadao, as well as kind and gentle female ex-ghost O-kinu. This issue: Yokoshima's future self arrived in the previous issue to save his wife — Mikami — from a slow-acting spider poison that she had been exposed to ten years before. But now, present-day Yokoshima has exposed himself to the poison as well. Now, older Yokoshima must get a sample of the poison to make an antidote for both himself and Mikami. Unfortunately, the monster spider knocks both Yokoshimas unconscious, and Mikami discovers who the older Yokoshima really is — which could mean the younger Yokoshima's death. ("If I'd known at the time that I'd marry you, I probably wouldn't have let you live." — future Mikami.)

Major Mitsuda Takuya Overview: It has been four years since Honda Goro put together the Mifune Little League. Now, in junior high school, he is reunited with his old friends and is faced with a new baseball crisis. This issue: Honda's powerful left-handed pitching convinces the coach of the rival team to apologize and reschedule the otherwise pathetic match for two months hence. Yamane, once so bitter, has been so impressed by Honda's left-handed pitching that he, too, decides to overcome his old injury and learn to throw with his left hand.