D.N.Angel Vol. #01

By Mike Dungan     April 13, 2004
Release Date: April 01, 2004



Creative Talent
Writer/Artist:Hiroshi Aro
Translated by:Alethea Nibly, Athena Nibly
Adapted by:

What They Say
Heart of Darkness. Daisuke Niwa is an ordinary middle school studen with extraordinary genetic "condition." Whenever he starts longing for the girl of his dreams, he transforms into the legendary Phantom Theif, DArk! The only way to lift the curse? To have his love returned, of course. But how can Daisuke win the hear of a girl he can't even romance? The hugely poular manga of unrequited love and fantastic adventure makes its way to America at last!

The Review
Daisuke Niwa is celebrating his 14th birthday by giving a love letter to the girl of his dreams, Risa Harada. Who turns him down flat. Dejected, he goes home, where he has to dodge some amazingly intricate traps just to make it into the kitchen. Apparently, this is nothing new to him. He lives at home with his perky mom and gruff grandfather. While sitting in his room thinking about Risa, he transforms into a taller, older man. This is Dark, a legenday Phantom Thief. It is a curse of his family to transform into Dark. Even his grandfather was Dark in his younger days. The only way to change back is to steal a famous statue. His mother and grandfather have already sent a message to the police warning them that Dark is going to steal the Sacred Maiden statue. Helping him is his pet, a cabbity thing called Wiz. Wiz has the power to transform into wings that allow Dark to do his high-profile work. He can also transform into Dark or Daisuke himself.

Some of the major characters are Risa's twin sister Riku. Risa has long hair and likes to dress in frilly dresses. Riku has short hair and prefers more practical clothing. Takeshi Saehara is Daisuke's outgoing friend. He dreams of a career as a reporter and carries his camera with him everywhere. His father is an inspector with the police and gives him plenty of tips of where the news is. Satoshi Hiwatari is the very handsome, very quiet and very intelligent classmate of Daisuke and Satoshi. He's also, surprisingly, a commander in the police and is the superior of Takeshi's father. He's highly perceptive and appears to have a long family history with Dark.


Comments
The cover is considerably different from the Japanese version. An image of a transforming Daisuke in monochromatic reds is overlaid with the silver logo, and bordered at top and bottom in navy blue. The silvery wing motif runs down and around the edges of the spine. The back cover has a small image of Dark and Daisuke together. The printing appears fine, not too dark. There are also ads for Crescent Moon, Fairie's Landing, Fruits Basket, Psychic Academy and Sgt. Frog. The last quarter of the book is a short story called "'N' is for Nishiki" which Sugisaki wrote and published three years prior to D N Angel.

Sugisaki has a solid style that effectively gets the story across. It's not especially adventurous, but in a story like this, it really doesn't need to be. There's some real strength to the more dynamic iamges, balanced with light airy art in the more humorous passages.

Sarah Dyer's adaptation flows smoothly, and characters have their own way of speaking, which helps to bring out their personalities. On the down side, no honorifics are used, which causes the story to lose some of it's flavor. Also, the students address each other by their given names, rather than by their family names. This will become a bit of a problem later, since addressing each other by family name will become an important plot element later in the story. D N Angel would have benefitted by sticking with the proper conventions in naming and honorifics.

Anyone who's read Saint Tail will recgonize this story. Young kid works as a thief, has a classmate working with the police, has a cute critter as a friend, and lives with an eccentric family. Call D N Angel "mahou shonen." With Daisuke involutarily transforming into Dark at the worse possible moments, it makes school life both hilarious and nerve-wracking. Worse yet, the only way to end the transformations is to have his love returned. But how can he get her to love him when he can't even look at her for fear of turning into Dark? And now it looks like Riku may be developing feelings for both Dark and Daisuke. There are also some very shonen-ai moments between Satoshi and Dark as well as Satoshi and Daisuke. The relationships that develop between Daisuke, Dark, Risa, Riku and Satoshi make this an entertaining read. Recommended.