DNAngel, vol. 4-5

DNAngel volumes 4 & 5 of 13 (ongoing)
Yukiru Sugisaki
Tokyopop, about 174 pp. each

Vol. 4 While continuing his relentless pursuit to get the scoop on Dark, Takeshi becomes distracted by a mysterious young woman in a museum. He falls instantly head over heels for her, and recruits Daisuke to help find out whom she is. But the path to love takes them far from home...

Vol. 5 After barely escaping the fight with Krad, Daisuke find himself with no one to turn to. He has a new enemy out to kill him and Dark is nowhere to be found. When Daisuke receives a clue about Dark’s whereabouts, he goes on a search-and-rescue mission for the phantom thief. Meanwhile, Riku and Risa manage to get each other lost, sending their classmates into a manic panic! Found on Amazon.

Not much goes on over the course of these two volumes. I'd say out of the 5 volumes of DNAngel I've read, these would be the weakest, story-wise and art-wise.

Volume 4
Volume 4 starts off with an encounter of Takeshi (Daisuke's annoying, journalist friend) and Menou, the embodiment of one of the treasures Dark/Daisuke is planning to steal. After that, the whole class, including Riku and Risa (Daisuke/Dark's love interests) go on a trip to an island.

Not much goes on story-wise as aforementioned, other than some dealings with Menou and getting the treasure that Dark was stealing. Takeshi's interest in Menou seemed just like a plot device to get Dark to wait another chapter to steal her "treasure".

The art went downhill in this volume. Remember that great art in volume 3? Well it isn't here. The characters seem disjointed once again, with off proportions and weirdly-arranged facial features. Sugisaki-sensei's art varies from volume to volume, so it could go up or down in quality at any time.

The characters aren't developing very much. We see some emotion from Takeshi, which is good because he's not being annoying for about a chapter. Daisuke seems like he's becoming more helpless, because he has to rely on Dark more. The only one who grew a bit is Satoshi, because we're going to find out his alter ego soon, which is foreshadowed a bit.


Volume 5
The whole class is still on vacation. At least in this volume, we meet Krad, Satoshi's alter ego. Think of him like you'd think of Daisuke's alter ego Dark, just more controlling. Krad pulls out another half of a treasure that Dark was missing, and traps him inside it, leaving Daisuke helpless. Daisuke uses one of his treasures and an eternal girl named Toto appears, who's going to help him retrieve Dark's memories, which are conveniently condensed into feathers.

Yes, if that bolded sentence up there reminds you of an anime/manga series called Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE, you're darn correct. I'm not sure if it's a homage to that series or what, but Daisuke now has to find Dark's memories, or else Dark will be trapped in the mirror world forever. Thankfully, this filler arc only lasts about less than half of the book, so it isn't too time consuming. After that, Daisuke comes out of the mirror world and rescues Risa and Riku, who have been trapped on a small island and in a forest.

The art is an improvement over volume 4, but didn't reach the quality of volume 3. It was only published eight months after volume 4, so the art didn't improve a lot. The characters look better, with better proportions and realistically-arranged faces.

Not much character growth here. Daiskue is still dependent on Dark to save him in the worst of times, and they both seem unsure about their feelings towards their love interests. Satoshi, who once seemed independent and intelligent, seems more helpless and shota-like when he's trying to get out of Krad's transformation. Riku and Risa seem hopeless, waiting for their knight in shining armor to come rescue them from wherever they are.

Tokyopop's release was about the same as the first three volumes. Regular quality paper, untranslated sound effects, and small bonus material.

Overall

Art: 3 (Has gone down)
Characters: 3 (Down too because of lack-of-growth)
Quality: 3.5
Story: 3 (Filler)

Overall, both volumes get a 3, or an C, bordering on the edge of C-. The story doesn't seem to be going anywhere, there's not much character growth, and the art quality is down.

I'm still going to continue this series because I've got volumes 6 and 7 waiting for me inside my Ottoman, so prepare yourselves. Hopefully there will be less filler.