Manga A Day: Hands Off! Volume 8

Amazon.com: Hands Off! Volume 8 (Hands Off!): Books: Katsumoto Kasane ISBN: 1595321608 ISBN-13: 9781595321602

Three teenage boys, three flavors of ESP. Yuuto can read auras, Tatsuki can see the past by touching objects, Kotarou is an empath and healer. Both Tatsuki and Yuuto can boost their powers by touching Kotarou.

No, it's not yaoi.

Honest! It's not. It's not even boy's love. Yes there are really touchy feelie guys, but Kotarou has a girlfriend. They kiss and everything! Yuuto is a total ladies man for most of the series before settling down to chase after one particular girl. And I'm not sure if Tatsuki realizes that people come in two flavors. That being said, the chapter image for chapter 47 (an angelic Kotarou holding an injured Tatsuki in his arms) is the gayest thing I've ever seen.

Besides that the story comes to a more or less satisfactory end in this final volume of the series. At the end of volume seven Tatsuki had been kidnapped out of his hospital bed. Kotarou and Yuuto search for him, thinking he'd run out on his own. Tatsuki nearly escapes and overhears someone saying that it would be better to wait "until the two were together." Then they dump him on his front doorstep.

Guessing that they want to kidnap him and Kotarou together he enlists Yuuto's help in keeping Kotarou away while he tries to hunt down the people who kidnapped him. The "secret psychic organization" that popped up around book 5 or 6, reappears and you can't tell the good guys from the bad guys. Of course, trying to keep Kotarou out of the mess just makes him more eager to dive right back into it.

The ending feels rushed, you never get to really find out who or what makes up the secret organization that is so interested in Kotarou and Tatsuki (or why they're ignoring the pretty powerful Yuuto completely.) They never explain if there are two organizations or if Udou and Kiba are just renegades. Or why, exactly, Tatsuki's head explodes.

TATSUKI'S HEAD EXPLODES

Ehem, anyway... there are loose ends. But overall most of the main questions are answered, like why Tatsuki developed powers and how it's connected to Kotarou.

The artwork in Hand's Off is very unusual. The faces and eyes are all very sharp featured. Everyone's head kind of looks like upside down triangles. The eyes stretch wide across the face, foxlike. (Look at the cover above to see what I mean) It's a style that you usually see in beginning artists. But unlike an inexperienced artists the proportions are consistent and the panels uncluttered. It's very distinctive, and very suited to the brooding she has her guys do. It looks a bit strange on the girls, but there are only three of those so it's not a problem. I'd be interested to see other works by this artist, just to see how she draws other characters.

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