Recently you probably noticed TOKYOPOP’s budget minded little title that has been grabbing up attention of readers looking for a little money savings in their manga purchasing. That title being, of course, Kingdom Hearts (from the SquareEnix slash Disney video game franchise of the same name).
With the fourth volume of the manga coming out (and the collected book of the four volumes coming out in the near future, as well as the 2 volume “Chain of Memories” coming eventually) you’re about to wrap up the set… then what?

If you were wondering what your next budget minded pick-up was going to be you can stop worrying, because there is another series available from TOKYOPOP that comes in at the cheap cheap price of $6 a pop ($4.50 if you are snagging it from Right Stuf International) that you can sink your teeth into.

From filmmaker slash Eisner award nominated writer Alex de Campi and well known artist Federica Manfredi (from such titles as Devil’s Due Hack/Slash, MARVEL’s Vampire By Night & several Italian comic titles) comes schoolgirl coming of age get the Mystery Machine we’re solving a mystery manga entitled Kat & Mouse.

For some girls the thought of having to relocate is akin to a prison sentence (or worst), yet somehow Katherine Anne Foster is taking it in stride despite the fact that she is relocating with her dad (who has become a new science teacher in a posh junior high that Kat is going to attend) and stepmom (I’m guessing stepmom since Kat doesn’t really synch with her from my observations of their relationship). They’re moving from the quiet streets of Iowa to the quiet streets of Massachutes.
Massachutes (if you’ve watched Strawberry Marshmallow DVD V.1 you’ll remember that Nobue’s birthday apparently is celebrated on the 18th of Massachutes… eh?), where the heading is for the Dover Academy, a posh academy of higher learning where the buildings are clean, the students wear spiffy school uniforms, the statue in the front of the building wears a toupee… eh?

Welcome to Dover, the school of higher snobitude. After playing on opening class a game of seat shuffle with the snobby superior kids, Kat begins to realize that her new school is filled with bad bad people who suffer from a bad case of the richies (just like The Urbz… only not as much fun as The Urbz).
However not all the kids are insufferable richies, and their lacrosse team isn’t accused of things suitable for filling space in most cable news daily programming… really. Probably because the school doesn’t have a lacrosse team to be troubled by, and this is Middle School/Junior High but still…

On her first day she makes a friend in fellow social outcast Mouse Huang, a hacker loaner type who has that whole Hermione hyper intelligence needs expressing by continual raising of the hand in class thing about her… don’t worry, she’s cool (in the personality dept where it counts).
Good thing she has made a good friend like Mouse, because (besides the fact that she now has a friend that makes a nice counter for her name… Kat & Mouse) her father is being blackmailed by a mysterious faction within his science class is blackmailing him. Give them C or better or they’ll drive him away… yeah, C or better is smarter than A+ all the way because, well, A+ all the way is abit too obvious don’t you think? Anyway C is passing so it’s not like they’re sabotaging their own efforts with a reasonable request for Cs.

But doing that is not what Kat’s father is about, and he’s not about to bend to their demand (which was accentuated by the theft of expensive microscopes from class).

That theft, by the way, will soon prove to be the fatal error of the mysterious students’ plot.
Important safety tip. Never ever EVER steal from a school that already has a resident thief who goes by the grandeous name of “The Artful Dodger”, because you’re only making an enemy of said thief who will promptly steal back your ill gotten gains and make sure you know who’s boss in the thieving dept.

But the true downfall of this plot will come in the form of the new “dynamic duo” of Dover, the new girl from Iowa named Kat and the hacker girl named Mouse. Rev up the Mystery Machine and break out the Scooby Snacks (the cheese snack cracker variety) because we have a mystery on our hands here.
(Oh, and stay tuned at the end for your 4-1-1 on the art of gathering fingerprints… because, you know, just in case you missed that from CSI, or CSI : Miami, or CSI: New York, or old episodes of Dragnet, or…)
Breakdown time!

Kat & Mouse(trap) the 1st
What’s Hot?
You wouldn’t think a little 99 pager would be a snazzy read, but it is.
Alex de Campi & Federica Manfredi form their own female “dynamic duo” in hitting this on out into the bookshelves, taking advantage of the pages limit in order to deliver a nice tidy well written and finely drawn Amerimanga that makes Amerimanga worth talking about (and voting for in this year’s coming Best Of) once again.

With this and Dramacon (Svetlana Chmakova) on my list already as two AmeriMangas worth snagging and talking about, it looks like we have the beginning of a worthwhile AmeriManga year this year.
And at the low low cost of $6 a pop you can’t really go wrong with this title! Buy it!

What’s Not?
However getting ahold of this title is no cakewalk. It took awhile for Right Stuf International to finally get in a fresh batch of Volume 1 from TOKYOPOP (guess the first batch sold out quickly), and we won’t see the second Volume come out until… WHAT?!? Until November 2006?!? Why!!!

I like this and all that, but why the long long long wait!! Not good!!

Moments to Remember?
The dynamics of the relationship between Kat & Mouse is great. A nice solid friendship that’ll last.

What to Ignore?
Must the rich often be portrayed as insufferable most of the time? Yeah… not an ignore as much as… well… what the… ok, not a complaint either, I’m just saying we need more benevolent nice rich people in the world as a whole, but that’s society’s problem and not the creative team’s problem (sorry).

Overall?
The second $6 a pop budget saving title in TOKYOPOP’s arsenal and it works wonders for me.
It might be a hard title to get ahold of, and you practically have to wait until Thanksgiving to get ahold of Volume 2 (maybe I should make it a Thanksgiving Week review themed item since I am quite thankful for it’s creation and all), but if you are patient and don’t mind the extra legwork to grab a copy then this should be your new best friend.

Take it for a spin and see for yourself, a new manga worth checking out (promise).