1520 Volume 1 (1520 GN) - Softcover

KAI

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1897376057 ISBN 13: 9781897376058

Publisher: Udon Entertainment, 2008

Synopsis

• A royal maid named Ana, and a nearby kingdom’s young prince, Zelos, have been accidentally bound together by a magical curse. The two 15-year-olds are now each only 10 years of age! They both retain the ability to transform back to their original age, but at the cost of knocking the other down to a mere 5 years old! Now the age-shifting pair must search for a way to break the curse, while also trying to save their two kingdoms from disaster!

About this title

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up—A maid named Ana and a prince named Zelos, 15-year-olds from neighboring kingdoms, are accidentally linked by a magical curse that regresses them both to 10-year-old status. Both have the ability to transform back to their proper age, but only at the expense of making the other child five years younger. The book tells their parallel stories in this magical comedy of errors, detailing how they met and what happened after they were cursed. The story line is fun, if a bit convoluted, and watching the characters' ages ricochet back and forth can be both entertaining and confusing. The transformation is triggered by laughing or crying, which leads to an odd scene of Ana asking a strange woman to tickle her so that she can get back to her real age. Some of the most interesting aspects of the story involve Zelos and Ana examining and breaking the class barrier between them, but the majority of the characters are pretty one-dimensional. The color and black-and-white artwork is done in a variety of styles. This book will be most appreciated by fans of manga that combines fantasy, action, and hints of romance.—Andrea Lipinski, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

A fantasy kingdom is the setting for this new magical transformation story. Zelos is a young heir to the throne in a land ravaged by poverty; Ana is maid to the spoiled princess of a neighboring land that is steeped in wealth. Both are 15 years old, and both end up taking a bite of a poisoned dessert that the prime minister was trying to feed to the princess. Moments later they are 10 years old. Trial and error shows them that if Ana laughs or Zelos cries, Ana, or Zelos, will go back to normal age, but the other will shrink to the size of a five-year-old. It's a strange and arbitrary curse that stretches the boundaries of disbelief, but this is a book that doesn't take itself too seriously from the start. Once all of that exposition and setup is out of the way, the duo heads off to find an herbalist that might be able to cure them; along the way, they get involved in a smalltown drama involving human sacrifice and haunted forests. This first volume ends in the middle of that story's action, making this unsatisfying as a stand-alone read but tantalizing for the promise of what else can be done with the series' strange premise. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Udon Entertainment
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1897376057
• ISBN 13: 9781897376058
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 200