Copyright © 1995 Nakagaki Kei

One of the most popular reasons for people to visit fortune tellers is to find out about their love life. A lot of emotions are tied up in being able to discover if a particular person is going to be that special someone in your life. What will one's fortune be? How will it all turn out? If you think about it, this could make for the center point of a really interesting story.
How about the fortunetellers? Does anyone tell their story? What would it be like to be employed as a fortuneteller and to really have the gift? ONEGAI ARCANA uses this as the setting for what would have been a typical romance story.
A beautiful young fortuneteller is using rune stones to read the fortune of a young couple. On the couple's way out, the fortuneteller tells the man to be careful for his head. As the two walk home talking about the fortuneteller, a can suddenly comes flying and hits the man on the head. The thrower apologizes profusely about the incident—the couple wonders how the fortuneteller knew.
Later, in school, Hazakura Koba, son of the fortune telling TV celebrity Hazakura Kodama-sensei, is reading fortunes for girls using the Tarot. After the girls leave, all giggly about their fortunes, some male classmates are a bit annoyed at Koba's popularity. Koba quickly deduces that one of the classmates is interested in one of the girls. Koba begins predicting whether or not the two would make a good match. One of the classmates recognizes Sakura arriving at class.
Apparently Sakura had been out to see to her ill father. Koba offers to do a reading for Sakura. In doing so, he finds out that Sakura is not only very aware of how to do a Tarot card reading, but she seems to approach the whole concept of fortune telling extremely seriously. Suddenly, the female classmates from earlier come bounding in to see Koba again, having suddenly discovered that he is the son of the famous Kodama-sensei. For some reason Sakura seems to grow a bit nervous when she finds this out, and she takes the distraction provided by her classmates as a chance to retreat.
At home, Koba's mother finds him watching one of her TV appearances and she finds that unusual. She tells Koba that she has a busy TV schedule this coming week and will be in Tokyo. She asks Koba to look in on her "Arcana"—a small business she runs that is a combination fortune telling place and gift shop. She employs a number of people to tell the customers' fortunes. There is apparently a young new part-time employee that she wants Koba to look in on.
The next day Koba goes to see the manager of Arcana and finds out that this young part-timer is Sakura from his class. Koba listens in on Sakura's performance reading the rune stones for a young woman. As Sakura begins to read that the woman is suffering from a broken heart, the woman abruptly apologizes and leaves. Sakura quickly rushes out and tells Koba that they have to stop that woman—that she is going to die. Koba follows Sakura out of the shop, unsure how to deal with Sakura's great agitation. Sakura pauses, unsure of which way the woman ran. When Koba approaches her, he sees Sakura transform as if light is coming from within her. None of the bystanders see this, though. In this light he sees the vision of the young woman jumping from a nearby bridge. Sakura and Koba quickly rush to the bridge and manage to prevent the suicide attempt.
Sakura turns to Koba and says she had been worried about being discovered at school. She asks if Koba now understands that telling a fortune is not a game; which is how he used to treat it. Koba understands, and he asks Sakura to come back with him to Arcana. After all, they have customers waiting for their services. Koba wants to know more about Sakura and her power. Why was he able to see what no one else saw? There is something else troubling about Sakura as well that he wants to know.
The art is fairly soft. For the most part, the characters are rendered simply with as few lines as possible to give a complete appearance. Some close-ups have a lot of detail to help place the character strongly into the reader's memory. After that, a few lines are sufficient. The use of backgrounds is quite accomplished. They are mostly a very well placed setting for the characters. However, at times, they are used to create mood or establish a general location, giving the reader a good sense of the characters and their feelings.
This story is a fairly simple high-school romance with some supernatural trappings to add color and interest. Sakura's power serves as the catalyst for a lot of the episodes, and it begins to tie her fate and Koba's together. Almost all the stories end happily. However, there is an underlying tension between Sakura, Koba and their surroundings. One wonders how it will turn out for these two? Are they fated to be together or will we find out that a rival can tear them apart?
If you want a simple romance story with a somewhat different setting that adds more to the story, then give ONEGAI ARCANA a read—if you can find it.

Published by Shounen Gahousha (Young King Comics)
5 volumes, complete
184 pages, b&w
Vol. 1: ISBN4-7859-1460-2
¥500
No longer in print
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