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Selected Overview:
GHOST SWEEPER
MIKAMI GOKURAKU DAISAKUSEN!!
by Shiina Takashi
GHOST SWEEPER MIKAMI GOKURAKU DAISAKUSEN!!, by Shiina
Takashi, ended back in issue 41. For anyone who follows the series, here is the
low down on how it all ended.
Issue 39 contained a bit of a foreshadowing. O-kinu, visiting the
very place where she and Yokoshima and Mikami had met at the beginning of the
series, finds an unhappy ghost who died in a motorcycle accident. The ghost,
thanks to his bitterness, is close to becoming an evil spirit. O-kinu risks
herself to save him; she reminds him that life is a gift, and that the joy of
even having taken one breath is much better than not having lived at all. As
she helps the spirit make its transition to peace in the next life, she
remembers her own life as well and all the people she has met. She sees that,
when she dies one day, she can truthfully say that she had fun, and that she
is thankful to everyone, and that she has lived life to the fullest.
Issue 40, rather than following the nostalgia theme, throws the
reader some two hundred years into the future, where Mikami, Yokoshima and
O-kinu are apparently ghosts haunting their own ghost sweeper office. As
some of the most powerful spirits (and personalities) in history, they have
managed to hold off rank after rank of would-be exorcists. Mikami refuses
to go peacefully to the next world without knowing what happened or how
they all died. O-kinu brings in a young woman ghost sweeper, who helps the
"ghosts" realize they are more like psychic memories, "recordings" which
remained in the office long after the real Mikami and company had died at
ripe old ages. Unfortunately, the young ghost sweeper also turns out to be
a heartless mercenary ghost-collector who captures spirits and sells them
off into slavery or eternal imprisonment.
Issue 41 finds Mikami fighting back against the crooked exorcist
with all the righteousness of a senior ghost sweeper instilling justice in
her wayward junior (nevermind Mikami is usually not one for justice).
Mikami's triumph, capped off by the evil ghost sweeper's arrest, the
appearance of Maria and half-vampire Pete, and the news that Pete has bought
the old ghost sweeping offices, leaves Mikami with no more earthly ties or
worries. She is ready to move on. Yokoshima, of course, still wants to know
if he ever managed to make Mikami "his own," but Mikami grabs him and,
together with O-kinu, begins to travel up toward the brilliant light of
paradise...at which point Yokoshima wakes up, back in the modern day, with
O-kinu just returning from her trip. It was all a dream...or was it? Mikami
has had the same dream.
As the whole team starts on a new exorcism job, Yokoshima remains
troubled. He muses a bit about the inevitability of death and what happens
then (such as whether he will be forcibly exorcised, a la Mikami's style, or
gently led to peace, as with O-kinu). But Mikami, ever the realist, scolds
him: "If you worry [too much] about what happens after you die, you can't
enjoy life!" Even as she leaps into battle in the last frame of the series,
Mikami declares that her goal will always remain in the here-and-now, with
the true-to-character accumulation of wealth.
The reader, of course, knows that Mikami, for all her outward
focus on money, still remains at heart a decent person. Perhaps that is what
will help her most in the far future, whatever stage of life or death she
finds herself in.
Selected Brief Updates:
INUYASHA
by Takahashi Rumiko
Overview: Kagome is a modern student teamed up with the strange boy
Inuyasha in 15th or 16th century Japan, seeking to retrieve the fragments of
the magical Shikon No Tama, and trying to stay one step ahead of the evil
Naraku.
This issue: Kagome and Inuyasha had a big falling out back
in issue 43 over whether she did or did not do anything suspicious with
wolf-boy Kouga, and Kagome had stormed back to modern-day Japan. Now, in
modern Japan, nice-boy Houjou is still seeking to go out with Kagome, and
Kagome's friends (convinced that Inuyasha, whom they have never met, is some
horrible violent boyfriend) sets her up on a date. But Kagome notices that
Inuyasha has secretly visited her in her sleep, and she resolves to go back.
Breaking off the date with Houjou, she goes back to the past and is ready to
apologize to Inuyasha for the sake of their friendship. But Inuyasha makes a
weak apology first (though it might only be for breaking her alarm clock).
Whatever Inuyasha's true motives, Kagome is ready to let the hurt go. "I'll
stay with you," Kagome tells him, and Inuyasha can only reply with the
equivalent of a "Hmph."
JAJAUMA
GROOMING UP!
by Yuki 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: Shunpei discovered that
Hibiki is pregnant in issue 40. Now, he and Hibiki are busy trying to plan
their future together. Daigo Satoru has dropped by the Watarai farm, and
unfortunately he and Shunpei are once again at odds, with Shunpei going so
far as to accuse Satoru of stalking Hibiki. Hibiki sternly reminds Shunpei
that he needs to ask Satoru some important questions about the cost of
getting a veterinary degree. Satoru agrees to make some inquiries. Mr.
Watarai shifts some of Hibiki's work onto Shunpei and reminds him that he
needs to inform his parents about the whole situation. Satoru, meanwhile,
is getting the royal treatment from Abumi, and somehow the half-joking
suggestion comes up that Satoru should seek Abumi's hand in
marriage.
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