Recently you probably noticed TOKYOPOP’s budget minded little titles that has been grabbing up attention of readers looking for a little money savings in their manga purchasing (and which are slowly growing bit by bit and title by title). It started some months back with Kingdom Hearts, and has just moved on forward from there. With the curiously Disney Princess laden Kilika Princess out now (the latest of the line) I thought this would be as good a time as any to reconnect with some of my favorite titles of the line (and one who so far I only did an interview in connection to).

That means we’re going back for another serving of Agent Boo and Kat & Mouse from Alex de Campi, as well as our first serving of Ninjitsu via Mail Order in Joshua Elder’s Mail Order Ninja.
From filmmaker slash music video maker 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.

The first volume got the mystery rolling.
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 (once again if you’ve watched Ichigo Mashimaro aka Strawberry Marshmallow DVD V.1 you’ll remember that Nobue’s birthday apparently is celebrated on the 18th of Massachutes… yes, I did remention that, and yes it‘s actually New Hampshire and all but… well, what can I say, I like Ichigo Mashimaro a lot and the joke isn‘t about the 18th of New Hampshire…), 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? Oh, that’s caused by one called the Artful Dodger, he or she who is now the focus on our intrepid duo’s lock and load as you’ll soon see.

Anyway where was I? Oh, right, Dover. Welcome to Dover Academy, the school of higher snobitude (or is it?). 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, and nobody is handing out Zizzles to improve your stats in school). 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… you’d think I’d get over the lacrosse team mention and “Duke” and cover on any future references… nah.

On her first day she makes a friend in fellow social outcast Mee-Seen (aka 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 (when she‘s not exhibiting traits of a character who should be hanging out in a Tony Hawk video game)… 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.

But that was last time… this is now.
Volume 2
Ouch. We‘re barely into Volume 2 and already I‘ve gone and tripped over a landmine called a “cliché“… what is it? Here… it‘s called “The Let‘s Get Mouse To Fall In Love So We‘ll Have A Misunderstanding That‘ll Put Kat & Mouse on Shaky Grounds Friendship Wise“ mine… god, that was a lot of words.
A new teacher who, oddly enough, looks like he was cloned off of Kat‘s dad shows up (with the rather ominous name of “Mr. Templar“) and he and his leather jacket wearing ways seems to have gotten Mouse all hot under the school uniform. And, as you figured, he announces a class trip that Mouse insists that Kat go on, but the only way that‘ll happen is if she becomes a teacher‘s assistant and that leads to a confusing situation where Mouse thinks Kat is horning in on the guy (man, older man) she‘s interested in.
Do you hear what I hear? The hills are alive… with the sound of O‘Reilly. Damn O‘Reilly.

But as the friendship seems to be on rocky grounds maybe this isn‘t a good time on Kat‘s part (on the schoolbus to the trip no less) to mention that she needs Mouse‘s help to solve the theft of one of Chloette‘s (the three top of the food chain females of the school) mom‘s wallet which has been blamed (rightly or wrongly) on the “Artful Dodger“. Add to that the new teacher who goes out of his way to insult the Artful Dodger, and an opportunity that even he can‘t pass up and before you know it a trip to a strange museum turns into a crime spree as (while someone commits their own theft) the Artful Dodger makes a painting known as the “Spanish Dancer“ vanish.

If Kat & Mouse can mend fences and get their friendship back on track they might be able to solve this in time for Mouse to get home to watch Doctor Who on the Sci-Fi Channel! (Aren’t you watching that show?)
But as it turns out this is only a lead in for Volume 3 as, well, the ending will show you where you’ll stand when you head for Volume 3... Nuff said, let’s break it down.

Kat & Mouse(trap) the 2nd
You wouldn’t think a little 99 pager would be a snazzy read, but it still is.
Despite a few fallacies of one or two cliché moments here or there I am still most captivated by this read. Alex de Campi & Federica Manfredi once again form the shape of their own female “dynamic duo” in hitting this one 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 if you haven‘t already, remember it‘s up for Best AmeriManga/OEM this year).
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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 with expanded reviews of TOKYOPOP’s other worthy titles in the coming months things are looking up.
And at the low low cost of $6 a pop you can’t really go wrong with this title! Buy it!
Again, despite one or two little faux pases the score has not changed one bit (though last time I forgot to list the score, my bad). A 4 out of 5. (That’d be Silver Star Recommendations once again for this title.)