Hands Off! (Tokyopop)

(Tokyopop, 2004-2007)
™ and © 1998 Kasane Katsumoto
Reads right to left; black and white series.

Kotaru is 15, as pretty as a girl, and has ESP which can be triggered by touch (hence the title). So of course he rejects the unwanted contact from his disagreeable cousin (who has psychic abilities of his own) and together they somehow become unsanctioned detectives at their school. Their caseload includes non-supernatural whodunits that veer towards the dark and dangerous and include a missing girl and a mysterious, increasingly violent stalker. Kotaru somehow always finds himself in bad situations that Tatsuki has to get him out of.

Here’s yet another manga which is overly fascinated with pretty boys with an obvious yet undeclared homoerotic subtext. (Our hero’s supposed platonic crush on a older college guy “of course” leads him to dressing up like a girl—which he doesn’t seem to mind one bit.) But the author’s keen appreciation for human feelings, like the way the “bad guys” are always revealed to be as damaged as they are deranged, requiring understanding more than punishment, elevates this to a higher level.

— S.A. Bennett

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