DNAngel, vol. 7

DNAngel volume 7 (of 13) ongoing
Yukiru Sugisaki
Tokyopop, 168 pp.

Things just keep going from bad to worse for Daisuke--he's suddenly taken away by The Second Hand of Time, which Dark failed to steal. The only remaining link to Daisuke lies within another painting that he had unwittingly given to Riku the day before. Dark now has to retrieve the painting...while pretending to be Daisuke!

Another installment in the DNAngel series. Why does it seem the pacing of this series has slowed down? Maybe because Riku seen Daisuke transform into Dark and she still doesn't get it...

Dark failed at stealing the second hand of time. Why? Because Freedert whisked Daisuke away into a painting that he had give Riku a day ago. So somehow, Dark drags Riku into the painting for no reason. She has yet another chance to discover the Daisuke/Dark secret, but I'm pretty sure the manga-ka doesn't want her finding out until the final volume.

Apart from the main story, we're still going through the play Ice and Snow, with the main male character changed to Dark (played by Satoshi) and Freedert (Daisuke) tangeled in a romance. Actually, there's so much implied yaoi between Satoshi and Daisuke the characters even point it out and fawn over it.

The characters don't seem to be progressing-them seem to do exactly the opposite. Riku is becoming dumber and more oblivious, Daisuke is trapped and helpless, and Dark is becoming a pervert. Then we've got Satoshi, who seems like he wants some hot yaoi action.

The art is the same, currently the same quality as last time. The character's ears are drawn really low on their heads in this volume, which was kind of weird.

Tokyopop seems to be making volumes shorter. This one is 168 pages and the last one was somewhere between 172-176? Other than that, this is their normal standard- cut off word bubbles, one or two grammar mistakes, and non-translated sound effects.

Art: 3.5
Characters: 3
Quality: 3
Story: 3.5 (It got interesting, but then it was cut off by the Ice and Snow parts.)

Overall: 3.25 or a C. The story was intersting, but was constantly pushed away because of the Ice and Snow play. The characters aren't progressing either, they're actually becoming more oblivious!