Zodiac P.I.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Zodiac P.I. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 十二宮でつかまえて (Jūnikyū de Tsukamaete) |
|||
| Genre | Action, Mystery, Fantasy | ||
| Manga | |||
| Author | Natsumi Ando | ||
| Publisher | Kodansha | ||
|
|||
| Magazine | Nakayoshi | ||
| Original run | November 6, 2001 – ? | ||
| Volumes | 4 | ||
Zodiac P.I. is a Japanese manga created by Natsumi Ando, originally published in Japan as Jūnikyū de Tsukamaete (十二宮でつかまえて? Zodiac Detective) starting in late 2001. The series is published in Japan by Kodansha, and it is published in English by Tokyopop.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The main character of the manga, the "Zodiac P.I." of the title, is a 13-year-old girl named Lili Hoshizawa (星沢リリ Hoshizawa Riri), who uses horoscopes and astrology to solve crimes, accompanied and assisted by her male childhood friend Hiromi after he returns from ten years spent in America for college. Lili uses the Star Ring to tell fortunes and, at times, to transform into the disguise of "Detective Spica", in which no one recognizes her, except Hiro,(such transformations are a common staple of Magical Girl manga.) The ring was left to Lili by her mother, who used it previously to transform into Detective Spica; one of Lili's long-term goals is to discover what happened to her missing mother. Using this ring, Lili has to try and solve many cases including the first published one, about Chihiro, a murdered girl in her class.
Her other cases take her around to different places from a piano school, to a fortune telling TV studio, to a wedding. She solves cases with Hiromi's help.
[edit] Main Characters
Lili Hoshizawa- Really Private Investigator Spica. Actually, she just a substitute of her mother, the "real Spica ". An energetic Aries girl who loves cracking cases. She has a precious ring from her mother that holds the 12 zodiac spirits who give main hints to Lili's cases. She is good with horoscopes and even tells her classmates's horoscopes at school! When she was in kindergarten her best friend was Hiromi Oikawa, who reunites with her when he moves back to Japan from America. Lili's favorite thing to do is go into many disguises and solve cases, and try to stop the mysterious Sirius who thinks she's better than Spica. Her best subject is P.E., considering she is a bit of an underachiever. Lili often comes off as a little clumsy, awkward, and extremely extroverted.
Hiromi Oikawa- He's really smart and was Lili's childhood friend in kindergarten until he moved to America for studying criminal psychology. He's allergic to girls, caused by Lili when she didn't respond to Hiromi's love letter he wrote to her, and gets rashes everywhere when touched by a girl. He was nicknamed "Hiro" in kindergarten. He has a crush on Lili. It is often shown by his acting bitter and sarcastic to her. Many people in the manga notice this and point this out, but Lili never realizes this. Only in the near end does Lili notice Hiromi's true feelings for her.
Sirius- A mysterious private investigator just like Spica. In the final volume of the manga series, she is revealed to be Lili's long-lost mother. She gave Lili a test in the second volume that could've harmed Hiromi. Sirius had actually been hypnotised by a man who thought that Lili's mother had murdered his girlfriend.
Inspector Hoshizawa- Lili's dad. He's a police officer and always ends up in Lili's cases somehow. Even though he never realizes that Spica is actually his own daughter. He was also searching for Lili's missing mother. He's also an Aquarius.
[edit] Format
The manga was serialized in the magazine Nakayoshi in Japan, and has been published in America in the format of four graphic novels (which are unflipped, meaning they are meant to be read in the original Japanese right-left format instead of the usual English left-right pattern), each of which has several chapters. The chapters themselves are printed in the usual (for manga) black and white.
There were color art pages (common in manga serials) featured in the manga's original release in Japan; these pages are also featured in the American graphic novel release of the series, but not in the original color.
Most of the chapters, while sequential and technically continuing several main plots and subplots (or to be more accurate, character development arcs and the central sometimes-background plots involving the mysterious character Sirius and the disappearance of Lili's mother), are what are also known as "stand alones", meaning the main plot (or mystery, in this case) of each episode is not specifically connected with any of the other episodes, and can be read and understood without having previously read the series. A couple of the mysteries are two-part episodes, but the rest are mostly self-contained.
[edit] The Graphic Novels
All of the graphic novels (also referred to as TPB or trade paperback collections, and called "tankōbon" in Japan) for the series feature several chapters of the serial and notes from the creator in the side-bars, including information on astrology and character profiles. They also include brief manga-format side stories based on the Star Ring's zodiac spirits, and one of the books also includes a brief semi-stand alone story about how Lili and Hiromi met and solved their first case together as children in kindergarten.
Volumes 2-4 in the U.S. also include a brief plot synopsis and even briefer character bios, to avoid confusing first-time readers who have picked up the later volumes before reading the earlier ones. This practice is becoming especially common in the U.S. manga publishing industry, also featuring in such titles as Viz Media's Ranma 1/2 and Tokyopop's Fruits Basket collections.
The first (out of four) volume of the series was first published in Japan by Kodansha on November 6, 2001, and in English translation (using the dialect of American English) by Tokyopop on July 8, 2003. The English translations of volumes 2-4 were released by Tokyopop on September 9, 2003, November 4, 2003, and December 9, 2003, respectively. Each of the American volumes was priced at an MSRP of $9.99 USD. The page count for each English-language volume, save for volume 3 (which has 208 pages), is the same, at 184.
[edit] External links
- Zodiac P.I. at Tokyopop
- Zodiac P.I. information at Anime News Network.
- Zodiac P.I. Fansite
