Zodiac P.I.

Title: Zodiac P.I.

Genre: Mystery, Romance, Fantasy, shoujo

Author: Natsumi Ando

Status: Finished

Story:
During the day Lili Hoshizawa attends middle school and practices a long time family tradition of fortune telling on her classmates. One day Lili runs into (well technically falls on) an old friend of hers from when she was young. In due time her friend Hiromi learns that Lili is the legendary private investigator, Spica, what Hiromi or anyone else for that matter doesn't know is that Spica weilds a special ring that helps her to solve the crimes through horoscopes and astrology. Lili soon gains some enemies that wish nothing more than to see Spica stop solving crimes.

Characters:
Lili Hoshizawa - a very energetic young girl. She's bold and extremely into astrology.
Hiromi Oikawa - Lili's best friend when they were young. He already has a degree in criminal psychology. He's allergic to females ^_^ and breaks out in hives whenever Lili touches him.
Detective Hoshizawa - Lili's dad, a chief investigator with the police.
Sirius - wants nothing more than to test Spica, but why?
Zodiac Chibis - although this isn't their name, they each have individual personalities and reside in Lili's ring.

Review:
When I read this there wasn't much other manga out there at the time. I knew a little about it already because I had read a short preview of it on the Kodansha website. When I read this I couldn't wait for the next one. I'm not usually into mystery stories but with the fantasy and comedy theme mixed in this it made it much more entertaining. I was almost able to guess some things that would happen in the manga which actually made me quite happy to see that i was right and it didn't make me mad that it was predictable, as I usually feel. I actually learned about stuff in this manga, beyond learning how to kill people, and I find that very rewarding in a manga.

Recommend:
I had the same feeling reading this as I did when I read Imadoki so I guess I will compare it to that. But they really don't have much in common. I guess it was at the same level of shojo-ness in my estimation. I guess it's kinda on a magical-girl genre even though it's not really magical girl. I liked learning about astrology and in a way it kinda reminds me of Fruits Basket, but I guess thats just because of the zodiac aspect. Honestly I don't know what to compare it to as far as to recommend it to someone. All i can say is that if you are a shojo fan you shouldn't pass this one. And even though it says Mystery on the back i'm going to also call it a Romantic-Comedy.

I give this manga a 8 because it held my attention span, it was only 4 volumes, and it was overall a good read.