Title: ヤングアニマルあいらんど (Young Animal Island)
Issue Date: 6/10/04
Publisher: Hakusensha
Pages: 336

This is a special edition of Young Animal filled with romantic comedy stories, with a main focus on Ai yori Aoshi, which I believe is the bi-weekly magazine's most popular manga.

First things first, to help sell this special volume, they include an extra cover for vol. 13 of Ai yori. The front and back are similar, just a bit more provocative. Rather than wearing a kimono, Aoi is only hold a towel to her chest to cover herself up. The back cover has all the girls at a hot springs with white mist conveniently covering up certain portions of their body. The mist is removed in the bonus cover.

The two comics I was interested from just reading the list of authors was the bonus chapter to Ai yori (of course), and secondly, Ken Yagami's (of Nanaka 6/17 fame) short story.

The Ai yori story has Chizuru having a crush on a new teacher. In order to find out how to appropriately date someone older, they turn to Chika who hangs out with Kaoru for a day while Natsuki and Chizuru look on.

Ken Yagami's story reminds me a lot of Shamneko's last complete work, "Mikan and Sakura." It's about a pair of twins, one who passed away and comes back 13 years later as a ghost to say her final farewell.

However, I love this genre and ended up reading a lot more than I had planned. There are some authors now that I'm interested in reading their other works. The comics range from cute (Komugi-chan) to some pretty risque. This is a seinen magazine though, so it's not too suprising.

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