Happy Mania: Volume 1

Anno takes a different approach to the typical romance story. While her protagonist, Shigeta, longs for a boyfriend who will both turn her on and treat her right, her greatest struggle is actually remaining unattached long enough to meet him when she's available and overcoming her own obsessive insecurities in the process. Anno's art has a loose, kinetic style that she puts to good use, for the most part keeping her Japanese take on the growing chick lit genre from falling into sedentary, talky cliché. Anno has reimagined the romance story as an action comic, and the result is a graphic novel that keeps a narrative momentum moving far past the age-old question of "will she or won't she?" (In Shigeta's case, she will.) Shigeta moves—she runs, kicks, throws tantrums and sleeps around. Additionally, her rambling interior monologue is a funny running rant of "I don't have a boyfriend!" anxiety. The first volume of this series is not above some formulas. Much like a television pilot, most of the other characters are sketched only in broad strokes so far. Shigeta's best friend, Fuku, does little more than sigh sympathetically. The attractive heel, Takada, is little more than an attractive heel. And overlooked bookstore co-worker Takahashi is likely, in later volumes, to be the boy that Shigeta decides is worth settling down with—just so long as it doesn't happen too soon. While readers may root for Shigeta to ultimately fall for Takahashi, until she figures it out, her misadventures with men make a delicious guilty pleasure. (Apr.)