Manga Review: I.N.V.U., Volume 1, by Kim Kang Won

Rating (Out of 5): ~3 (maybe 2.5)

Publisher: Tokyopop

Volumes: 5 (Hiatus)

Spoilers?: Some.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Powells. RightStuf! (Mostly Out-of-Print)

Goodreads Synopsis:

When 16-year-old Sey's mom departs suddenly for Europe, she leaves Sey with a new family, the Kangs. This "family" is supposed to be normal, but when her foster brother turns out to be a sister, Sey begins to think that her new home is weirder than her old one. She looks for a job so she can get her own place and escape her crazy life, but the more time she spends with her new sibling, the more she discovers that their lives are intertwined.

Review:

Generally, as a rule, I try to avoid all Tokyopop books, unless I am absolutely sure that all of the volumes were released and shouldn’t be hard to get or I already read some of it at one point. None of that applied to this series, but I still got the first two volumes, because they were such a good price. And I’ll probably get the other three, if I can find them at a good price, just so I have all that was released.

I was not overly impressed with this volume, but it was alright. I was also thinking it focused on more than Sey, but I guess it’s okay that it doesn’t.

Sey, the main character, is forced to move in with this other, seemingly normal, family when her mother decides to move to Italy to work on her novel for five years. But the family she moves in with's son is actually their daughter, but the mother has suppressed amnesia after a car accident where her son died. Sey decides to get a job, and this guy from her school, Siho, hooks her up, and he’s supposedly dangerous, but seems pretty nice. And Sey and Terry/Hali (the son/daughter) both have a close relationship with Mr. Cho, Sey’s teacher.

I don’t mind Sey, she’s not bad, and is kind of entertaining. I want to know more about her friends, but that’s alright. Terry/Hali seems alright, I guess, if a little angsty (even if she does have reason, having to pretend to be her brother and all). Siho seems alright.

My biggest problem with the story is all the point of view changes. They are not smooth at all. We’ll be with one character, doing one thing, then suddenly be in someone else’s head for a page or two before going back to the main character, but then sometimes it will show us someone else, when it would usually be in their head, only we’ll still be in the main characters'. It’s just really stilted, and bothersome to me. 

The art’s pretty good. The story is alright, if a bit angsty, it’s not exaggerated, and it’s interesting. I have the next volume, so I will be reading it, and it will depend on how that goes whether or not I’ll want the third volume badly or not.