Shoujo Manga of the Month: Tokyo Crazy Paradise

In the past couple of days, I read from start to finish the manga "Tokyo Crazy Paradise". Overall, I give it a 4.8/5. Sounds that I made while reading it: Dum dum dum!!

WARNING: THIS MANGA CONTAINS VIOLENCE AND NUDITY. YOU MUST BE MATURE TO READ IT. (I am very serious.)

I had started reading this manga many many years ago, but I had never finished reading it. Since I've been starting to get back into reading manga, I remembered this one. What I didn't know is that the mangaka for TCP is the same one for Skip Beat. However, I haven't read Skip Beat as of yet, but it'll probably be on my list of mangas to read in the future.

So what's TCP all about? It's about a "boy" named Tsukasa who lives in 2020 AD, where crime is high and girls must learn self-defense in order to protect themselves if they walk the streets alone because it's that dangerous. Because Tsukasa had cops for parents, Tsukasa has a strong sense of justice and usually saves the girls in distress or breaks up fights on the streets (because no one else bothers to do anything about it).

Tsukasa's story begins when you find out that "his" parents have died and "him" and "his" brothers are forced out of their home because they cannot pay their living expenses. Tsukasa then asks "his friend" Ryuji, who is the rich 3rd generation leader of a yakuza group, for help. Ryuji has the brothers fed in exchange for finding out the killer of his father, who happens to be the same person who killed Tsukasa's parents. Tsukasa lies about being able to recognize the face of the killer, and is then forced to be Ryuji's bodyguard to find the killer or else "his" brothers will be endanger.

After this event, Tsukasa remains as Ryuji's bodyguard due to "his" ever-growing debt. ^_^" Lots more things happen like Ryuji's fiancée, other love interests, more dangerous scenarios and pasts unveiled.

SPOILER ALERT!
I have a thing for gender-bending manga (since I had crazy short hair during high school and was continuously mistaken for a guy... >.< ... anyways...), so it might be obvious that Tsukasa is really a .... and Ryuji is in .... with ... . (You can figure out the missing words, right? ;D)

This manga is epic and awesome. The only reason it didn't get 5/5 for me is that there were some chapters where there was just a lot of text to go through to get to the parts I wanted to read. Also, I really love the romantic scenes in the manga, but you really have to savour the moment in order to last through another 5-10 chapters before another scene like that happens again. At the beginning, it's very comedic, but towards the last 1/4 of the manga, the tone is ridiculously serious. Blood everywhere, arms get cut off, gun shot wounds like you've never seen before. Yeah... Pretty much... This manga should have its own genre called "slice of yakuza life". I highly recommend the guys to read it too. ;)

4 days reading 19 volumes (112 chapters) of this was definitely worth it and I would totally re-read it. ;D