DNAngel, vol. 2

DNAngel volume 2
Yukiru Sugisaki
Tokyopop, 178 pp.

The annual midwinter hike is no walk in the park for the students of Azumano Middle School. Daisuke has been dreading the trek all year, but at least he gets to show off his rugged charms for his beloved Risa. But when Daisuke and Riku find themselves lost and alone on the frigid mountainside, it’s Dark to the rescue. Can the Phantom Thief save the day without blowing Daisuke’s cover?

This is quite a pleasant volume of DNAngel, minus the short story in the back. It seems Daisuke's attention is shifting from Risa to Riku, and Dark's from Riku to Risa, which makes for some interesting situations. Daisuke ends up having to transform into Dark on the school trip to save Riku, but no one catches him. Later in the book, Daisuke goes on a date with Risa, only to be stalked by just about everyone in the class. But she seems to want to see Dark more.

For the more phantom thief part of the story, we see Dark is going to steal a precious painting. He makes a bet with Satoshi that if he successfully steals the painting, that Satoshi will leave Daisuke alone. Fortunately, Dark wins, but will Satoshi follow through with the deal? I highly doubt it.

We've also got another bonus story, this one taking up nearly 50 pages called The Demon Returns. Kinnara's fighting partner, Sakura, died fighting an oni. Kin ends up finding her granddaughter, Kazusa. She ends up fighting another demon, and Kin enters her friend Shinji's body to protect her. In the end, Kin stays on Earth. This story wasn't nearly as enjoyable as N is for Nishiki in the last volume. This one just seemed throwaway.

Not much character growth happens in this volume. I'd say that Risa and Riku grew the most, with their love interests slowly shifting. Riku also got some bonding time with Daisuke, which was nice, but it would have been better if she was conscious for most of it. Satoshi still seems snob-ish, and Daisuke's mother tells Daisuke to "never relax around that kid." Duh, that's quite obious when he's pinning you against a tree.

The art seems somewhat better with this volume. Other than The Demon Returns, which seems disjointed and messy. DNAngel seemed to flow better for some reason. I couldn't tell you when these were published in Japan, but I know the manga-ka has a knack for putting series on hold to work on others. So I guess she gained experience.

The quality of this volume was okay, I didn't notice any grammatical mistakes. Also, Tokyopop put in a nice translator's note explaining why Daisuke is uncomfortable when someone calls him "Daisuki", because daisuki means that you like that person. Without that, many non-Japanophiles might have been scratching their head. A few speech bubbles were cut off by the binding and one of the bubbles were empty, but that's what I've grown to expect from Tokyopop.

Art: 3.5 (If it wasn't for The Demon Returns...)
Characters: 3
Story: 3.5 (just for this volume. More could have been done.)
Quality: 3

Overall, this gets an 3.25, falling closer to average. But this is still great for a shojo series, and I'd recommend it (at least up to volume 3). Next time you go to Borders, instead of buying that next volume of Absolute Boyfriend which you'll most likely regret, why don't you pick up DNAngel instead?

And just a tidbit, volume 3 does not have any short stories in the back. Yes!