Sexy Voice and Robo

(Viz, 2005)
™ and ©2002-2003 Iou Kuroda

Nico (14), wants to be a spy, so she hones her special skills (a gift for intuition and an ear for voices) studying humanity as a phone sex worker. After impressing an old gangster with her abilities, she (and her sometime-sidekick Robo, a desperately lonely guy who’s obsessed with giant robots) is soon doing increasingly odd jobs for him.

Harriet the Spy collides with Spike Lee’s sex-line operator opus Girl 6, and, while the premise is certainly outré, if you aged the heroine, this could be a USA network detective series. She’s naïve enough to dub herself “Codename Sexy Voice” and thoughtlessly charge into action, but has a remarkably mature appreciation of human behavior, sexual and otherwise.

It starts with a predictable formula but becomes progressively stranger, as she starts to consider the consequences of her actions. It’s nice to see Viz try something this unconventional when it comes to art (it seems influenced by Ultra Klutz creator Jeff Nicholson) and format (400 pages in traditional-graphic-novel size).

— S. A. Bennett

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#1

June, 2005
Cover Price: $19.99
1 copy available for $16.00

Iou Kuroda