Gaba Kawa

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Gaba Kawa is the story of a young demon girl’s search for love. Rara, sent to Earth to cause nothing but mischief, finds herself falling in love with a hot human boy. So begins her wacky attempts to worm her way into Retsu Aku’s heart.

This would be your normal romantic comedy except for one very important factor: whenever demons use their powers to help humans, they lose that power. Lose enough and the demon will disappear entirely! This brings up a question that every true shojo heroine must answer for herself: Is true love worth dying for?

Overall, I really liked this book. The characters were ... cute and entertaining. While it sometimes strayed from total believability (come on, it’s a story about a love-struck demon!) I’m glad I bought it, and I plan to check out more from Rie Takada. If not for one small problem, I’d slap 5 stars on this baby and call it a day.

Since this is a one-volume series, the main question for me was: does it end well? Too often do I see short series scramble to wrap up everything in the last chapter. Unfortunately, Gaba Kawa falls victim to this. Instead of being a fitting conclusion to a funny series, it seems rushed and not very thought out. Gaba Kawa is a manga that just misses being “Great” and is instead regulated to merely “Good”.

If you’re in the mood for a quick read with cute characters, this is the one for you.

If you’re in the mood for something that you’ll want to read again and again… look elsewhere, my friend.

The whole thing is that Rara came from the demon world, seemingly, to drag mortal souls to Hell – but really, she just wanted to be with Akusawa Hiroshi, supposedly one of the top demons in the underworld. Rara has a friend/enemy named Bibi that she seems to compete with until the end.

A lot of people I’ve talked to, who had at least read this oneshot, had said that Retsu Aku suddenly saying “I love you” to Rara was kind of unexpected but, the reason why I love this oneshot so much, is because it’s not only gradual – but you can see his love ... actually grow! It’s just really subtle for the most part – I almost missed it myself but when I realized that, yeah he was starting to have feelings for her but he’s not really forward with his emotions like Rara is. And that’s why the two of them work!

The comedy is really well done – I can easily relate to her feelings/situations (trying so hard to impress a guy but always end up being clumsy or it falling apart) and I just really have a ball with Rara’s reactions! It’s clear that she was never really meant to be a demon – straight from the beginning, she was more excited for causing little mischievous deeds than actual evil deeds.

In the end, after Rara disappears, somehow Retsu finds her real self, a girl named Sara who had been stuck in a coma for six months prior. I actually kind of wished the oneshot would explain how he found her and still be able to attain her memories.

There are few manga that I think would make perfect anime (unless it’s already animated) but this is definitely one of them. I think this could probably be easily a 12-13 episode series (maybe 26 if we actually focus on the budding relationships on not just Rara and Retsu, but her relationships with Kayato, Bibi, Rara’s demon mother, and even the demon world itself) and they wouldn’t need to take anything out – just add some things that’s nuanced between changing mediums.

I don’t understand how no one else couldn’t have read this manga and thought it was adorable! There were some parts that were funny with Retsu and Kayato – the classmates think he’s gay because he hangs out with Kayato a lot because of his powers (although, I do have to complain that they never really specified if Retsu had psychic and the ability to see ghosts or just seeing ghosts – but I’m being a little nitpicky there); and because of that, and in an effort to get him to join their club, a club actually sent Retsu their best looking guy as an “offer” to join.

It’s kinda messed up when you think about it but they didn’t go farther with that gag anymore than they had to – and I’m glad it didn’t because that would have been slightly homophobic (well, a little more than it kinda was).

Well, Rara tried to dress up in a boys’ uniform to impress him but she even admitted it was a stupid idea.

I also liked the idea of Retsu and Rara sending ghosts to heaven instead of hell (and Rara freaking out about it).

Ugh, though I just adore this manga! It’s short and sweet and to the point. It doesn’t take itself too seriously but it’s serious when it needs to be. The ending is really sweet. The pacing was really well done. The art (especially the chibis) might take some time to et used to but no major complaints. The characters are actually pretty memorable. I only wish I could get to know some of the characters more but that would cut time in between Retsu and Rara and it was short enough as it was. I hope one day, though, that someone would read this review and would understand my feelings about this manga. It’s too cute and Takada Rie made a world that’s just too fascinating to just leave it as a one shot!

Gaba Kawa is a story about a magical girl coming to earth to cause mischief, but instead wants to help a human guy instead. She's determined to have the guy fall in love with her by her own means, not through magic.

The story's pretty typical, at least the twist is if she uses her magic to help humans she can lose her power. So, she has to decide between love or self-perseverance. The art is nicely drawn, but nothing out of the ordinary for a shoujo.

It was a good short manga that was enjoyable. Overall, nothing extraordinary.