Came the Mirror & Other Tales

TL;DR: In this mixed bag of Takahashi stories, some were hits and some were more of a miss. Read at your own discretion. L;DR: It's pretty well established that I'm a Rumic World groupie who'd pay to read Takahashi's grocery lists, so I obviously had this preordered and at my door when I heard about the Viz release. It's kind of exactly what it says on the tin--a handful of Takahashi one-shots about various topics. (side note, for the English releases--Viz, please fire the cover designer. It looks awful.) (...you can hire me. I'll send you my resume.) Anyway, let's talk content, in order of what I think thebest bangers are, so that you can just read the good ones when you're standing in the manga aisle at Barnes & Noble trying to avoid the other sweaty manga readers: Out of the six presented, my favorite was easily "With Cat." Which makes a lot of sense, it's the oldest, from 1999. Reading it kind of gave me that giddy feeling I had when I read Takahashi's Ranma 1/2 for the first time (I am FOREVER chasing that high...). It's a goofy story about childhood love, cats, and a dash of wtf???? I'll definitely be rereading this one, I just love it. "My Sweet Sunday" Is a really sweet collaboration piece by Takahashi and fellow Shonen Sunday author Mitsuru Adachi (who you may recognize from Cross Game). If you're a Takahashi mega fan like me then this will definitely stand out. It gives a lot of background on her manga journey and it's overall just a very wholesome story. A lot of respect to these two mangaka. "Revenge Doll" is something I didn't really expect from Takahashi--a kind of greasy mangaka protagonist cursing people in his life with a cursed doll? It's fine. I had actually already read this one before. "Lovely Flower"--a flower with a bad smell, and a stalker? This one's odd. "The Star Has a Thousand Faces" seemed almost, unfinished? It's about an actress about to kill herself because she mistakenly killed someone... I'm not into these kinds of stories. It's not like dark or anything, I just wasn't the biggest fan. Lastly, the collection's titular piece "Came the Mirror" is weirdly kind of forgettable. It wasn't bad, though. None of these one-shots are bad--some, just better than others. Overall, I do think the first two stories I mentioned are really worth reading, if you have any interest in Rumiko Takahashi's work. And hey, I'm always the first person to shove Takahashi viscerally down someone's throat. Give it a shot!