By Yutaka Tachibana. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Melody. Released in North America by Tokyopop.

This review is utterly filled with spoilers for this entire volume.

Having teased us for four volumes, this is the one where most of the plot guns are fired off. We left off last time at the culture festival, where Yabe ran into a girl who looked just like Motoko’s dead older sister Kanako. But… Kanako’s dead, right? After all, Motoko would never lie to us! Motoko, sadly, is AWOL, cutting school to try to figure out what’s going on, while Yabe continues his clean-cut look, an obvious sign that he’s not over Kanako at all.

This volume, as with all of this series, lives and dies by its four leads. Yabe, knowing that he’d be better off with Yuri but also knowing that means very little to him. Hirao, still trying to make Yuri happy while being unable to tell her of his own feelings. Yuri, pinballing from one emotional extreme to another as she ends up sobbing by the end of the volume (and we’re reminded of Motoko’s warning to Yabe, “You’re gonna make Yuri cry in the end. 100% guaranteed.”). And Motoko, doing what she does best: playing the villain, hitting on attractive women, and doing her best to protect Yuri from the inevitable.

Surprisingly, Kanako actually plays a large part in this as well. She knows that she has amnesia, and can figure out fairly quickly that Yabe and Motoko are connected with her past. But she doesn’t, at first, want anything to do with it. Considering how Tachibana portrayed her in the past volumes, it’s very odd to see her handled sympathetically in this one. After all, her past involved incestuous jealousy and attempted murder. Why would anyone want her to get that back?

My favorite scene in the volume is probably when Motoko – after 3 tries in previous books – finally tells everyone the truth of what happened with Kanako that evening when she “collapsed”, and how the entire family conspired to “kill” her. Yabe is, understandably, furious, and punches Motoko to the ground with a right cross. One can argue about whether or not Motoko deserved this, but the telling part is Hirao’s inner narration – Motoko played up her nastier side to get herself hit, as she hated herself for what they did. But again, I could spend several blog posts just analyzing Motoko.

This all comes to a head in the finale of this volume, where Kanako is kidnapped by the gay street gang that is after Sekine. By now Sekine has become a secondary target, and their main goal is to beat Motoko and Yabe to death, by any means necessary. (As I noted in Volume 3, this series is not known for its tolerance of gay men, or writing them as anything other than crappy cliches. It’s a major fault.) Unfortunately for them, when they knocked Kanako out to kidnap her, they also provided the impetus for her memories to return.

Interestingly, she’s NOT immediately psychotic and evil again, as her ‘new self’ is fusing with the old, and her mind flashes back to her treatment of Yabe, calling it into question. She’s convinced he won’t come to rescue her – after all, she did stab him – and when he does, she ends up confused and in tears, convinced that he’s now doing this to hurt her. It’s very well-written, and gives us hope for future volumes, even as she reverts to her Motoko-obsessed selfish self at the end.

So Volume 5 is over, and Yuri and Yabe lasted precisely two volumes as a couple. Yuri’s curse strikes again! Of course, there *is* a non-bad boy who’s in love with her. But he’s a wuss. Will Volume 6 be the kick in the head Hirao needs to finally get his girl? … Wait, no one cares about the guys in this manga (least of all the author, who notes this several times). What will happen with Yuri and Motoko? We shall see… In the meantime, this is probably my favorite volume of Gatcha Gacha to date, providing humor, drama, and tons of soap opera.

By Yutaka Tachibana. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Melody. Released in North America by Tokyopop.

After the serious drama that enveloped much of the last volume, it’s good to see Gatcha Gacha ease back and have some relaxing chapters with people actually being happy. Well, except Hirao, of course. And, well, Yuri is plagued by self-doubt. And so is Yabe. And Motoko? You’d think she’d be happy watching all of the screwups around her, but it doesn’t seem that way.

Yes, Yuri’s gotten what she wants, and is now dating Yabe. And proceeding to tell THE WORLD! We are reminded again of one of the main reasons why Yuri keeps getting dumped, as she has a tendency to overdo things, and smothers Yabe with affection and bentos. He’s unnerved by all this attention, and tries to get her to stop, but to no avail. And as the volume goes on, and Yuri keeps trying to get Yabe to say that she’s pretty and cute, and that he loves her, we realize that Yuri is still convinced deep down that she’s going to get dumped. 12 ex-boyfriends can do that to a girl.

Balancing this out we have Hirao, who at least manages to be a little more aggressive in this volume, but still gets nowhere. (The author notes in a sidebar how this manga features all strong women and weak guys. She’s right.) It’s interesting seeing Hirao from the perspective of Hanada, the council VP who’s crushing on him. The flashbacks we see show that whenever Hirao’s not dealing with women, he really is the perfect guy. Unfortunately, the end of the chapter, showing him seeing Yuri unconscious in the nurse’s room and trying to steal a kiss, show that women make him a complete idiot.

The wild card in all of this, of course, is Motoko. Even though this volume (for once) doesn’t focus on her, she’s still present throughout, manipulating situations for her own amusement. She’s certainly not confident in Yabe, saying point blank that he’ll make Yuri cry. “100% guaranteed.” There’s also a very intriguing scene where she tells Hirao that he is her “insurance policy”, saying there’s a time limit to all of this, and that either a) Hirao needs to make Yuri fall for him, or b) Yabe needs to genuinely fall for Yuri before that time is up.

Onward to everyone’s favorite shoujo plot, the school festival! Yuri is running around all over creation taking photos. Yabe and Hirao are dressed as old-school samurai, with Yabe even getting a shave and having his hair dyed back to its natural black. And Motoko is dressed up as a guy, pretending to be a seductive waiter in order to get more girls to buy ramen from their class’s booth. Motoko makes a very handsome man, needless to say. Yuri, for one, is intensely attracted to her dressed like this, and reminds herself that it’s just Motoko. (She actually seems terrified when Motoko gets too close – a reminder once again that it’s Yuri’s relationship with Motoko, even if it’s not romantic, that is the main pairing in this love comedy).

Yuri is twitchy in general – one of her ex-boyfriends is trying to get her back, and has decided that the best way to do this is by stalking her desperately and threatening her little brothers. Luckily, to her rescue comes both Motoko, pretending to be Yabe, and Yabe himself, both of whom threaten the guy within an inch of his life. Of course, Yuri doesn’t actually need all that much protecting – she shows up and decks the guy, swearing that if he comes after her family again she’ll kill him. I have to admit, Motoko may be the reason people read Gatcha Gacha, but Yuri’s no slouch either.

The confrontation leads to more Yuri and Yabe love-love, and even Motoko is starting to wonder if he’s actually serious about this. Clearly we need some sort of hideous plot complication. Oh, there it is! Hirao sports someone familiar wandering around the festival. It would appear to be Motoko’s sister Kanako. The trouble, as Motoko helpfully notes, is that Kanako is in fact dead. However, that’s not stopping her showing up in a classroom right as Yabe and Yuri are about to kiss… and Yabe spotting her. To make matters even more confusing, she doesn’t recognize the man she once stabbed. Is this really Kanako, or just a lookalike coincidence?

The last 6 pages of the book focus on Sekine (dressed as a cute girl for the festival) and Motoko (dressed as a hot guy) and Sekine’s unrequited crush. Even the author’s side comments note that Motoko is in denial about her sexuality (most likely as she associates those feelings with Kanako.)

So we’re now halfway through this series, and this volume continues to do what Gatcha Gacha does best – provide us with broad, trashy soap opera of the finest kind. Complete with Motoko’s violent boots to the head. Certainly the cliffhanger of this volume promises more and more complications for Volume 5.

By Yutaka Tachibana. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Melody. Released in North America by Tokyopop.

First off, it has to be said, this volume has offensive gay stereotypes. The gay male stalker type who likes to molest young boys? Is here. The insane psycho lesbian who will crush anyone in order to have no one else but her sister? Is here. The latter is handled better than the former, but neither are handled with what you’d call grace. The author even notes in a sidebar that she’ll get angry letters saying she doesn’t understand gays, and admits she does not.

That having been said, this is overall a good volume of Gatcha Gacha. The author has now realized that Yuri is not the reason anyone reads this, and though Yuri is still our ‘viewpoint’ character, much of the focus is now on Motoko and her screwed-up life. That said, Yuri is a very important part of this volume. Yabe is continuing to try to push her away at the start, and notes that her love is too “heavy”. Unfortunately, that awkwardly translated word is exactly what all her other boyfriends used when they broke up with her, so it sends her into a spiral of depression.

Yabe, of course, is still trying to deal with Kanako’s death. Seeing how awesome he was in the past, especially through the eyes of one of his kendo counterparts, really drives home the fact that he’s been unable to deal with anything since her death. Surprisingly, though, he seems to finally appreciate Yuri for who she is (Yuri getting hit by a truck and living might have helped a bit) and is ready to confess. Motoko being Motoko, she demands that he confess at her mansion, convinced Yabe won’t be able to handle the traumatic memories.

Which we finally get to see, in a flashback to some of Motoko and Yabe’s past. This is the best part of the volume, with some fantastic turns of phrases, and some nice subtlety. We first meet Motoko as a short-haired gangly tomboy, trying to defend her sickly half-sister against… well, against herself, really, as Kanako’s jealousy is even now a major issue. We also see that she and Yabe have been friends since childhood, and that Yabe, upon meeting Kanako, instantly falls in love with her. Sadly, Kanako only has eyes for Motoko. We flash forward a bit, and see Motoko growing her hair longer. She says she just felt like it, but the implication is that she’s trying to fend off Kanako’s incestuous tendencies. (Wearing t-shirts that say ‘Juicy American Princess’ is not helping much, IMO.)

Things come to a head when Kanako sleeps with Yabe, so that she can drive him away from Motoko and Kanako has her all to herself. This is a chilling scene, with Kanako bluntly telling her sister that she doesn’t care if Yabe lives or dies.

Something inside Kanako had shattered. And when it did, the broken, razor-sharp shards exploded from her and cut into everyone around her.

We then end by seeing, with a little more detail, the scene implied in Volume 1. Kanako running off in the snow, Motoko angrily looking all over for her, and finding her crumpled on the sidewalk. So now Yuri knows the truth, and what’s more, she and Yabe are finally a couple. The end!… wait, no, there’s 5 more volumes to go. What’s missing?

Well, I suppose I could mention Hirao. It has to be said that the guys in this manga do not fare nearly as well as the girls. Yabe is a slacker who can’t let go, and even now looks to be getting together with Yuri so he can try to blot out his past with Kanako. And Hirao is still pretty pathetic. Yelling at Yabe for making Yuri sad is not the same as telling Yuri your actual feelings, even if life is conspiring against you every time you do. He gets a bit better later, but the love triangle of him, Yuri, and Yabe is still a bit malformed.

It’s also worth noting that Motoko’s grandfather attempts to tell his own version of “the truth”, and tells Yuri that Kanako and Motoko had different mothers, and that her father abandoned Kanako. Luckily, Motoko arries to leap in here, pointing out that her parents wanted to have Kanako as well, but the grandfather refused to let her go, using her medical bills as an excuse. Ah, family drama. I know all about that myself.

Oh yes, and Sekine turns out to be a cute l’il bishie when he takes his huge glasses off. Who here’s surprised? The first chapter is the closest we get to comedy here, proving that Motoko can take a baseball bat to the head and get right back up (albeit with severe bleeding).

It’s a good volume, with a couple of exceptions, and one has to wonder where they can take this now that we have all of Motoko’s backstory… wait, what’s this? The preview for Volume 4 notes that they meet a girl who looks exactly like Kanako? Oh dear! Could it be that we STILL don’t know the whole truth? Stay tuned for the next volume of this pretzel-like series!