Genkaku Picasso Vols I and II
Usamaru Furuya

Viz Media (Distributed in the UK by Simon and Schuster)
17 February 2011/ ISBN 1421536740 and 1421537542
Teenage Fantasy/Manga
Amazon US: vol 1 / vol 2 || UK: vol 1 / vol 2

Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde

Seventeen-year-old Hikaso Hamura is nicknamed “Picasso” by his classmates as he is always drawing. As a shy, introverted boy he does not have any friends apart from Chiaki, a pretty girl who enjoys spending time with him. One day there is an accident involving them both, and Chiaki is killed while Picasso gets off without a scratch…or does he? When Chiaki appears in miniature form - with a pair of wings - that only he can see he thinks he is dreaming, but now he can see auras around people if they are in trouble or unhappy. He also has the power to heal them by drawing what is in their hearts and jumping into the drawing to put things right, but if he does not do this his actually dead body will start to rot…

I wish they had had books like this when I was a teenager. Picasso gets to solve all kinds of teen problems as he falls into his drawings: gender issues, relationships, phobias, eating disorders, worries about being normal etc. These get dealt with in an entertaining and quite original way, as Picasso and Chiaki have to first guess what the drawing means, and then put it right whilst inside it.

I was surprised that this series is actually only three books long, as even one of the problems could be expanded upon to fill a whole volume by itself. As it is there is a somewhat rushed feeling especially about some of the more complex problems that could do with more time spent upon them, their causes and possible cures as well as the outcome. The artwork is of a high standard here, with the strange drawings being particularly compelling and the other figures having a graceful quality accentuated by the lack of color. It will be interesting to see how the final volume ends, but I was left feeling that although I was impressed with what was there, I was left wanting more. However, this is a lot better than wanting less!