cover image ONEGAI TEACHER

ONEGAI TEACHER

Yosuke Kuroda, Andy Seto, . . Comics One, $9.95 (200pp) ISBN 978-1-58899-196-6

Teenager Kei Kusanagi is sleepy the day this story begins, having spent the night scanning the sky for UFOs. Too bad he isn't fully alert when his new teacher, Mizuho Kazami, arrives. Then he might have seen she's an alien sent to monitor proceedings on Earth to ensure that her own people avoid the mistakes humans make. He finds out soon enough, however, when she teleports the two of them into a locked gym closet, resulting in a scandal that can be solved only, according to Kei's uncle, with the two of them marrying. That ceremony completed, Kei must try to hide the fact from his friends while attending school and trying to make sense of the strange turn his life has taken. Just 18, Kei is scarcely ready for the complications of marriage with a human, let alone with a jealous alien who is dealing with her own identity crisis. It seems Mizuho volunteered for Earth duty because she is half-human. Along with long legs and an hourglass figure, she has a human ability to feel envy, donning camouflage short shorts to tail Kei when he goes to the movies with a female friend. With an abundance of scenes involving teleporting and loss of consciousness; a never-explained Smurf-like creature named Marie who is involved in piloting Mizuho's spaceship; and lettering that sacrifices readability for fidelity to the layout of the Japanese original, this is a challenging read. Still, Hayashiya's artwork is all good-natured enthusiasm, with the energy of teen confusion and Mizuho's abundant charms, rather than extra-terrestrial machinery, filling most of the panels. (June)