Haunted House

An excellent story hook actually pays off in this amusing manga. Sabato is a "normal" teenage boy whose life has a big hitch: his family (mom, dad, two sisters) are all goth worshippers of the night who love nothing more than to freak him out. Time after time, Sabato brings girlfriends back to the house, only to have them run scared at the sight of goths in heavy makeup staging mock executions, dismembering dolls and engaging in all sorts of Adams Family –esque shenanigans. Most of the humor in this surprisingly funny volume derives from Sabato's hair-pulling frustration, which takes the usual adolescent complaints about one's family's power to embarrass to a new comic level. It's anyone's guess as to whether Sabato will learn a lesson about different ideas of normal after he's done running through all the available girls in his school and has run out of complaints about his playfully sadistic family. Mihara's artwork has a clean and condensed quality to it, while the book's already well-developed comic sensibility is highlighted by the helpfully quirky side notes inserted into the text to either explain relevant Japanese customs or simply point out something funny. (Nov.)