Kabukimonogatari: Dandy Tale

A tale of heroine Tsubasa Hanekawa from her own perspective, in her own voice—if that can hold true for a damaged soul who, depending on who you’re asking, suffers from a split personality or a supernatural aberration. The bone-chilling brokenness of her household, where father and mother and daughter keep three separate sets of cookware in the same kitchen and only ever prepare their own meals, and the profound darkness nurtured in the genius schoolgirl’s heart, come to life, if that is the word, through her self-vivisection. (Source: Kodansha USA)

Our sorry hero, his reformed girlfriend, and the amnesiac class president have all graduated from their high school out in the boondocks, and self-described Sapphist and ex-basketball ace Kanbaru, retired by reason of an “injury,” is starting her senior year and the narrator of this volume—her voice far more introspective than the smutty jock’s we thought we knew. Bereft of the company of her beloved mentors, the only other person around her with any working knowledge of aberrations the junior Ougi Oshino, apparently a relative of the Hawaiian-shirted folklorist, she feels a bit alone and blue, and sick with dread that the devil residing in her left arm courtesy of the Monkey’s Paw might act up again while she sleeps. Investigating a rumour that she fears might lead back to her, the former star ends up peering into an abyss of negativity called Rouka. Trapped in a pit the like of which could only be escaped by the one girl who was able to pull off slam-dunks in her basketball nationals, can the penitent Kanbaru, however, still be aggressive? (Source: Kodansha USA)