Tokyo Crazy Paradise

This series is always cited in the mini-bio of Nakamura Yoshiki in the Skip Beat volumes. Kozuki Tsukasa is a girl, living as a boy, in Toyko in the year 2020. The city is so dangerous for women that pretending to be a boy is much safer for her. Tsukasa's parents were killed when investigating an incident involving the yakuza, leaving her and her 3 brothers to fend for themselves. Tsukasa is tricked into debt by her classmate and yakuza boss Shirogami Ryuji, who is one of the few people who know that Tsukasa is actually a female. Ryuji allows her to work off the debt as his bodyguard, but it is just an excuse for Ryuji to keep Tsukasa by his side. The story revolves around yakuza conflicts, Tsukasa's true identity, and the deepening relationship between Ryuji and Tsukasa.

I thought it was pretty good. I did finish all 111 chapters in 24 hours. (I didn't sleep last night.) The art is definitely recognizable as Nakamura's. There are a couple of panels that could have appeared in either manga. It is quite different from Skip Beat, though. The romance moved along much faster and there is a lot of action, which is virtually nonexistent in Skip Beat. It's quite a bit more graphic. Lots of blood, limbs being severed, and Tsukasa's breasts are shown about a half dozen times throughout the series. The boob shots aren't just random fanservice, though. They actually serve the plot.

The scanlations that I read often had missing pages, untranslated pages, or pages with blank speech bubbles. I don't think I missed anything major, but it was rather irritating. Maybe I'm just too spoiled by all the high-quality stuff I get. Since TCP is listed in all of the Skip Beat volumes, you'd think that it would be licensed in the US, right? Wrong. There is no English release for TCP. Why cite it as a major work in an English volume if it's not available in English? I don't understand. Ah well.

My verdict: Definitely worth the time, but I probably wouldn't buy it unless it was on sale (in English).