I came across this fair-condition manga at the Used Book Superstore in Burlington MA, and decided to give it a try. I believe this is the last of a 4-volume series; if I like how it turns out I may hunt up the previous volumes.

Later: The story was OK, but I found the art style too sketchy for my taste, with the characters looking too similar. There were some nice panels - especially of the dancing, when the artist showed the muscular exertion and sweat resulting from those graceful leaps. The story itself concludes a tale of an eager young dancer, a famous, successful (slightly) older dancer whose injury may end her career, and a talented male dancer whose all-male dance company is wildly successful. But he's dashed off to England on a personal errand and has not returned, even though there's a big performance scheduled - and young Aya (the eager one - and the only woman in the troupe, though I gather she hasn't performed with them on stage before) cuts her hair to boy-style and volunteers to take Akira's role. Classic understudy-saves-the-day plot, right? Complete with some slapstick when the guy who's funding the performance notices that Akira's not there and tells them to shut things down - at which point our heroes tie him to a chair so that the show can go on! {grin}

There's a nicely triumphant climax and all, but I found the whole thing a bit light - not to mention the concerns about how near Akira came to simply punting the whole performance, costing his entire troupe their jobs and damaging everyone's reputation. Not nice, Akira!

The bonus story "Kiss + Alpha" dealt with a minor character from the main story, and I actually liked it better - it showed his early attempts to become a dancer, in the face of parental disapproval, and managed to fit in an early disappointment, perseverance, a miscommunication-ridden first meeting with a younger Akira that inspired him, and his eventual rivalry with Akira for Aya's affections. [If the series ran any longer I'd be pulling for him to win out over the mercurial Akira!]

The other bonus story, "Land of Happiness", doesn't feature the same characters at all, and is a much more bleak tale of a young woman in an abusive relationship with a dangerous and controlling older man. When a young man falls for her and realizes her plight, he tries to rescue her, which is in keeping with what she recalls of her mother's advice about waiting for someone to come and carry her away to "the land of happiness" - until she finds out that her father abandoned the family and her mother was either fantasizing or outright lying to try and comfort the child. The story's a dark one, and while there is a happy ending (for 2 out of 3 of the main characters!) and it includes the lesson that one should make one's own happiness and not expect others to do so, the lesson's muddied a bit by the details {wry grin}. But I still found both bonus stories more compelling than the main one, so I guess this was the volume for me!

I left this book on the "take a free book" shelf inside the library at around 2:30 or so; hope the finder enjoys it!

*** Released as part of the 2014 D for December release challenge. ***

*** Released as part of the 2014 What's In A Name release challenge, for the embedded "Dan" in the title. ***