title: Mitsukazu Mihara: Haunted House
author:  Mitsukazu Mihara 
description: An excellent story hook actually pays off in this amusing manga. Sabato is a "normal" teenage boy whose life has a big hitch: his family (mom, dad, two sisters) are all goth worshippers of the night who love nothing more than to freak him out. Time after time, Sabato brings girlfriends back to the house, only to have them run scared at the sight of goths in heavy makeup staging mock executions, dismembering dolls and engaging in all sorts of <i>Adams Family</i>esque shenanigans. Most of the humor in this surprisingly funny volume derives from Sabato's hair-pulling frustration, which takes the usual adolescent complaints about one's family's power to embarrass to a new comic level. It's anyone's guess as to whether Sabato will learn a lesson about different ideas of normal after he's done running through all the available girls in his school and has run out of complaints about his playfully sadistic family. Mihara's artwork has a clean and condensed quality to it, while the book's already well-developed comic sensibility is highlighted by the helpfully quirky side notes inserted into the text to either explain relevant Japanese customs or simply point out something funny. <i>(Nov.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  * * *
  
  # REGRET FOR THE PAST
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Lu Hsun
  
  
  This page copyright © 2002 Munsey's.
  
  
  http://www.munseys.com
  
  _Chuan-sheng's Notes_
  
  
    
  
  
  I want, if I can, to describe my remorse and grief for
  
  
  Tzuchun's sake as well as for my own. This shabby room, rucked away
  
  
  in a forgotten corner of the hostel, is so quiet and empty. Time
  
  
  really flies. A whole year has passed since I fell in love with
  
  
  Tzu-chun, and, thanks to her, escaped from this dead quiet and
  
  
  emptiness. On my return, as ill luck would have it, this was the only
  
  
  room vacant. The broken window with the half dead locusr tree and old
  
  
  wistaria outside and square table inside are the same as before. The
  
  
  same too are the mouldering wall and wooden bed beside it. At night I
  
  
  lie in bed alone just as I did before I started living with Tzu-chun.
  
  
  The past year has been blotted out as if it had never been—as if I
  
  
  had never moved out of this shabby room so hopefully to