Manga Review: Ran and the Gray World 1 by Aki Irie
Ran Uruma misses her mother Shizuka. It’s not that she doesn’t love her calligrapher father Zen and her big brother Jin (though they often quarrel,) but Mom is so often away at her job in her home village. Shizuka’s visits are rare and much appreciated, even if they’re a hassle to explain to the neighbors. But Ran would much rather not wait, but instead go to her mother. Perhaps her magic sneakers might help?
Ran’s sneakers, a gift from her sorceress mother, allow the little girl to become a full-grown and rather busty adult, at least in body. This gives her access to her magical powers, which cannot be consciously activated at her current age. Ran tries a couple of times in this volume to use this to travel to Shizuka’s village. But she doesn’t get very far before her brother Jin has to fetch her back using his own gift, a fur cloak that allows him to become a wolf.
This is a seinen (young men’s) manga, which so far is most obvious in the presence of both male and female (but not Ran) nudity. Grownup!Ran has a “sexy” figure (good thing she always wears loose stretchy garments) but an innocent child’s mind, and is unaware of the effect she has on men around her. This creates a worrisome aspect to her relationship with wealthy playboy Otaro Mikado, whose penthouse garden she crashes into. Is he just attracted to her carefree personality as a friend, or does he plan to put the moves on her?
Ran’s teachers, unaware of her magical side, worry about her strange behavior at school and frequent small injuries. Meanwhile, we look in on Shizuka’s job, and why it’s so important…not just to her, but the entire world.
The art is nice, with many scenes of magical wonder. This first volume manages to stay on the right side of the skeeviness divide, but this premise could easily go sour, so I am cautiously recommending this to older teen readers on up.
