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MANGAKA: Kyousuke Motomi
TRANSLATION: JN Productions
ENGLISH ADAPTATION: Bryant Turnage
LETTERS: Eric Erbes
ISBN: 978-1-4215-8214-6; paperback (April 2015); Rated “T” for “Teen”
200pp, B&W, $9.99 US, $12.99 CAN, £6.99 U.K.
Kyousuke Motomi is a mangaka (creator) known for her two manga series that were published in North America, Dengeki Daisy and Beast Master. Her latest manga is the supernatural high school drama and romance, QQ Sweeper.
The series focuses on two characters. First is the tall, dark, and handsome, Kyutaro Horikita, the cleaning expert of Kurokado Private High School. One day, he finds a maiden sleeping in an old room on campus. She is the second character, transfer student Fumi Nishioka, and like Kyutaro, she has a talent for cleaning.
Early in QQ Sweeper, Vol. 1 (Chapters 1 to 5), Kyutaro discovers Fumi sleeping in the “Old School Building.” To her, the place is dirty... but alluring and mysterious. Kyutaro, considered a weirdo by the other students, keeps the building clean, but he is a cleaner both in the physical world and in the spiritual realm. When fellow student, Junya Sakaguchi, gets dirty and infested, Kyutaro will discover that Fumi may have a surprising talent for getting rid of dirty things.
The QQ Sweeper manga is unusual simply because so much of it focuses on cleaning services and janitorial duties. Creator Kyousuke Motomi depicts the cleaning as more than just drudgery. There is a technique to getting it right and to taking a dirty room or object and cleaning it down to the tiny details.
QQ Sweeper Volume 1 introduces quite a bit about the series' magic and its internal mythology, but not so much that the series loses its sense of mystery. The unknown will be important to this series, as nearly all the main characters are incomplete, especially when it comes to their pasts. QQ Sweeper is different, especially when compared to Motomi's previous series, Dengeki Daisy, but like this earlier manga, QQ Sweeper is filled with thrills.
B+
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux
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