Full Moon O Sagashite, Volume 1

Young Mitsuki loves singing and dreams of becoming a pop star. Unfortunately, a malignant tumor in her throat prevents her from pursuing her passion. However, her life turns around when two surprisingly fun-loving harbingers of death appear to grant Mitsuki a temporary reprieve from her illness and give her singing career a magical push start.

A bittersweet tale of puppy love, tragedy, and aspirations of pop-star fame. A spark of hope ignites to a blaze in twelve-year-old Mitsuki Koyama's life when a comical pair of magical beings appears to prove to her that dreams really do come true.

Young Mitsuki loves singing and dreams of becoming a pop star. Unfortunately, a malignant tumor in her throat prevents her from pursuing her passion. However, her life turns around when two surprisingly fun-loving harbingers of death appear to grant Mitsuki a temporary reprieve from her illness and give her singing career a magical push start.

Publishers Weekly

Imagine a whimsical combination of American Idol, Cinderella and Showtime's Dead Like Me transposed to Japan and aimed at children, and you may have a sense of what this manga is like. It begins ominously: 12-year-old Mitsuki Koyama, an orphan living with her repressive grandmother, must have an operation to remove her vocal cords, due to a malignant growth. Yet Mitsuki refuses, because her dream is to become a professional singer. Mitsuki is even visited by two death spirits, Takuto and Meroko, who inform her she has only a year to live. But the two spirits, once human themselves, are hardly frightening (Meroko even wears bunny ears to amuse children) and Takuto decides to help Mitsuki realize her goal. He transforms her into a healthy 16-year-old, who takes the name "Full Moon" and begins her rapid rise to pop music stardom. A romantic tangle between the three and Eichi, Mitsuki's long-lost boyfriend, also ensues. Tanemura draws cute kids in conventional big-eyed manga style, though occasionally she creates romantic images of striking beauty, and her manic layouts drive the story forward. There is little to interest adults here, but girl tweens should identify with Mitsuki's ambitions and romantic dilemmas. (July) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Arina Tanemura began her manga career in 1996 at the early age of 18,

when her short stories debuted in Ribon magazine. Tanemura gained

notoriety with the 1997 publication of I-O-N, a high school romance with

a supernatural twist. From 1998 to 2000, she worked on the popular series

Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, about a young girl who is the reincarnation of

Joan of Arc, followed by Time Stranger Kyoko in 2000-2001 and Full

Moon o Sagashite in 2002. Despite Tanemura's intentions to draw in a style

that makes her stories difficult to animate, both Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne

and Full Moon o Sagashite have been adapted into TV series.