X-Day

    (Tokyopop, 2003)
™ and © Tokyopop

Here’s a plotline readers aren’t likely to find on Boston Public. A pod of outsiders, stressed to the breaking point by the pressure cooker that is high school, decide to blow up their school building. What stops this manga from being The Breakfast Club by way of Bowling for Columbine is (a) they plan to do it when the school is empty, and (b) neither the damaged athlete, the hollow Goth, the nice guy with the terrible secret, nor the creepy teachers has a clue as to how to build a bomb.

Still, they press on with their conspiracy, even if their furtive meetings are held at what’s clearly supposed to be a Denny’s, as they tentatively get to know each other. Mizushiro handles the material with all due seriousness but never dully, letting readers into the characters’ heads enough to see them as more than stereotypes. Let’s hope they manage to unscrew themselves enough to find a less explosive form of catharsis, but, damn, do these people need a Japanese version of Dr. Phil!

— S.A. Bennett
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#2

October, 2003
Cover Price: $9.99
1 copy available for $7.99 		Setona MizushiroSetona Mizushiro