Kagome, Kagome

Genre: Action/Drama

Length: 3 Volumes

Allegiance: Shueisha

Mangaka: Toshiki Yui

Vintage: 1999-2001

Intelligence Agency Report by: Phate

Takeuchi Masami’s father has recently passed away, and as a result, his grandfather is forcing him to move out of his house. With only 80,000 yen a month given to him as living expenses by his grandfather, he needs to find a relatively cheap place to live. Enter his friend Nishino Kagome, who promises to help Masami find a place, under one condition: he needs to allow Kagome’s “Extremely Normal Phenomena Observation Society” to use it as a meeting hall until they get their own. While not a believer in things of that nature, Masami nonetheless agrees. Strange things are now happening in his new place, and he just may soon change his skeptical view on the supernatural...

Research Agent Report by: Phate

Plot
Characters
Impact
Visual

6.25
6.00
6.25
8.50

Overall

6.25

(not an average)

Loosely based on a Japanese children’s game of the same name, Kagome, Kagome’s premise and plot had me nicely hooked at the start. Sadly though, it turned out to be just another mediocre shounen manga.

Imagine that you are listening to a new song. The song starts off decently enough, with splotches of dullness and excitement, and continues at this pace. Then, about half of the way through, it becomes a jumble of tunes from all across the musical spectrum, and persists until the finale. That’s sort of what Kagome, Kagome is like. Too many unnecessary plot additions are thrown in midway as an attempt to make the manga more interesting. This might be due to the manga’s relatively short span of three volumes. Toshiki Yui must have been unable to pick and choose ideas, and instead just threw the whole batch in and baked it to what he perceived was a good story, instead ending up with an utter mess.

While not exactly going from bad to worse, the characters aren’t much to praise, either. The main character, Takeuchi Masami, isn’t particularly bad as much as he is just plain forgettable; another run-of-the-mill shounen male lead. The same pretty much goes for the characters Nishino Kagome and Kusaga Kagome; while not bad, they don’t do anything or have any positive or negative characteristics to make them memorable, let alone likable. I’m also not sure what Yui-san was going for with the secondary characters. They are introduced as if they’re going to have some sort of big impact, but just end up on the back burner.

Fortunately, there is one positive factor in Kagome, Kagome, and that would be the visuals. The character designs themselves aren’t all that new to the eyes, but they are clean and attractive. The spirits, combined with the atmosphere, were very effective in giving me some good chills down my spine—for the most part, anyway. Some designs are really lacking in the creep-out department, and can look just plain ridiculous.

In the end, Kagome, Kagome is nothing to write home about. While being successful at creating a chilling atmosphere with equally chilling (or just disturbing) demon designs, it’s shot down by a mediocre plot and less-than-memorable characters. To think that I really thought I was diving into something special. Oh well.

Research Agent Report by: Drake

Plot
Characters
Impact
Visual

5.75
6.25
8.00
8.75

Overall

6.50

(not an average)

If a head pops out the closet, who ya gonna call? If a headless body haunts you, who ya gonna call? Ghostbust- er, not quite. You call on the Extremely Normal Phenomena Observation Society (or as I’ve coined, ENPO). What is the ENPO you ask? It’s a society from Toshiki Yui’s manga Kagome Kagome, which is basically Love Hina and Yu Yu Hakusho put together. Yep, you got it, a helpless guy swimming in a world of problems with the opposite sex as he tackles supernatural entities.

Sadly, while the plot sounds phenomenal, it isn’t. While Kagome Kagome has great plot ideas within in the manga, but the execution is poorly done. This is mainly due to everyone’s pet peeve: a lack of time and space, not surprising considering the manga spanned a whole three volumes. The characters were poorly strewn about the manga without any development. You meet new characters who just seem to be there, yet suddenly two chapters before the end, you’re bombarded with complex information and startling revelations and as a result, are barely able to grasp anything before the manga is over. However, my biggest problem with the manga is the sheer volume of pointless innuendo and/or blatant sexual references. Really, the pages devoted to that kind of fanservice could definitely have been better used in spreading out the information given at end of the manga.

Thankfully, buried underneath this mountain of rushed work and lack of planning with regard to plot, there is a great hidden gem: the art. Though character designs are nothing spectacular, the art is clear, beautiful and eye-catching. Whether the actual designs were scary or not is up to you, the viewer. Personally, I didn’t find it creepy, although I did see the art as a good method of depicting the scenes as the mangaka desired. However, it wasn’t something that could convey more than what was actually on the page.

Though the manga is severely lacking in a lot of key areas, it’s still a decent read, and shouldn’t be tossed aside lightly. While the sexual references are ultimately pointless, they do provide a few chuckles. Bottom line is, if you want a quick read featuring great artwork and don’t mind untapped potential, then go check out Kagome Kagome.