Manga-ka: Ryo Saenagi
Publisher: Tokyopop
Rating: Teen (13+)
Released: July 2008

Synopsis:
“The heart-thumping, vein-draining conclusion! When a suspected vampire escapes from a mental institution, Paranormal Task Force members Nanaki and Ao are on the case again – except this time, they have to cooperate with the regular police! Are they doomed to become the vampire’s next meal?”

The third and volume final volume of Psychic Power Nanaki puts Nanaki and his aforementioned psychic powers to work against a suspected vampire. When the priest accused of murdering his victims while drinking their blood escaped from the mental institution that held him, the hunt is on for Nanaki and Ao as their paranormal investigation group, Lock, is put on the case.

My favourite moment of this was undoubtedly when the vampire resurrects himself, where he briefly monologues about his next move and then mentions in the subtext “Now that my clothes have regenerated themselves.” Don’t you love those convenient abilities? An amusing, quickly tossed in butt-saver on Ryo Saneki’s part.

Onto the story itself, can’t have a paranormal series without at least some mention of a vampire, right? Alongside that episodic story of the volume, this final book of the series also seems desperate to fill in readers on Ao’s story when sadly there just isn’t room for it. The last few pages of the story even manage to explain his back story out of context, just for the sake of doing it. Poor Ryo Saneki, you seem like you still had much you wanted to say! Disappointedly, they were things I really would’ve liked to know too.

I’m not sure if was the original story or Tokyopop’s translation of it, but somewhere along the line I found parts of this book confusing me. I couldn’t tell clearly who was saying what, and why some speech bubbles seemed to contain text and arrows referring to multiple people. It was only in the first few chapters but it tripped me up on numerous occasions.

As a whole, Psychic Power Nanaki isn’t much of a note-worthy series, with generally flat characters and little in the way of growth. However, even here in volume three, there remained some energetically-brisk fight scenes, humorous interactions and predictable, but entertaining, climatic revelations of the episodic plots. While I wouldn’t go around necessarily singing this one’s praises, I still recommend it to fans of Ryo Saneki’s work and it fit comfortably at its three volume length.

Review written October 8, 2008 by Lissa Pattillo.
Book purchased in-store from Chapters

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About the Author: Lissa Pattillo

Lissa Pattillo is the owner and editor of Kuriousity.ca. Residing in Halifax, Nova Scotia she takes great joy in collecting all manners of manga genres, regretting that there's never enough time in the day to review or share them all. Along with reviews, Lissa is responsible for all the news postings to the website and works full time as a web and graphic designer.