DNAngel, vol. 3

DNAngel volume 3
Yukiru Sugisaki
Tokyopop, 182 pp.

It's time for the St. White festival, and Daisuke has been so busy working on the festival committee that he's forgotten to get a present for his beloved Risa. His mother, in her infinite generosity, forces Daisuke to take a simple white ribbon as a gift. To top it all off, there's a story going around that if a boy gives a white ribbon to a girl and ties it for her on St. White, they will fall in love ...

This volume of DNAngel is an improvement. The art's better, the characters have improved, and more goes on. I think that's because we don't have any short stories in the back, but that's a good thing. Also, I like the cover for this volume. Daisuke is holding some sort of long red scarf, so it reminded me of Laharl's from Disgaea.

We start out with the celebration of St. White's day, with Daisuke with his white ribbon. It's rumored that when you give a white ribbon on a girl on St. White's day, she'll love you forever. So his mom forces him out the door with it. Well, a few incidents later, Daisuke runs into Riku in the closet. He's in Dark Mode, so he stops a boy from harassing her. Daisuke had lost the white ribbon earlier, so he makes use of the dusty curtains and wraps one of them around her. After a kiss, Daiskue runs off like usual.

Daiskue collapses of a fever in class, so it's up to Satoshi to run him off to the clinic. Riku fakes stomach pains to ditch class and catch up with Daiskue. She admits her love of him, but he is actually awake and hears. She runs off, and Daisuke runs off after her. He gets kidnapped by some suspicious folk...

Who turn out to be commercial producers. They want him to film a commercial with Dark. But how do they know his secret? His mom signed him up for this. ^^; Yeah. So then after that, Daisuke turns into Dark and has to steal another object. He succeeds, but Riku is there stalking him. She runs into Satoshi, who was crossdressing, trying to trick Dark. But everything works out in the end, with the ad being plated on TV and Daisuke running to school the next day.

We got to see more of Dark this volume, with him taking over Daisuke on White day. He's quite the lady's man, kissing Riku. Riku is showing more of her crush for Daisuke, but when she actually has to face him she usually runs away. Satoshi seems like he likes men. That's the vibe I get from him. Also, with everyone exclaiming how him and Daiskue look so cute together, I expect some more yaoi fluff in future issues. Daisuke seems like he has an attraction to Riku. Poor Risa must feel left out.

The art has improved even more than last time. It looks more manga style, with the characters proportioned right, the use of some chibi Daiskues, and a more bishonen appearance of Dark. Sugisaki-sensei is improving even more.

The actual published book was okay, we had two cut off speech bubbles. This volume seems a little bendy, maybe because it's a bit smaller? But I''m not sure. We've also got some extras, with character popularity polls, a day in the life of Satoshi, and a cute 4koma about Wiz, everyone's favorite little animal.

Art: 4
Characters: 3.5
Story: 3.5 (It felt a bit filler, though.)
Quality: 3

A solid 3.5 Well done! We got to see a bit more of the characters, the art improved greatly, and there was more substance. We also got some nice extras, too.