Pure Trance by Junko Mizuno

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Um...Pure Trance is a manga made by the twisted mind of Junko Mizuno.  She is well known for her versions of Fairy Tales such as Little Mermaid, Cinderella, and Hansel and Gretel.  Junko Mizuno's work is not your typical share of manga.  Her stories are dark, humourous and fun to read.  There is something strange and unique about her stories and the unpredictability is always welcomed.  

Pure Trance is one of Mizuno's first works to stray away from established fairy tales and attempt to make an original story.

Summary

After the third World War, Earth's surface became toxic and forced humans to live underground.  Life underground has created a ton of social problems as a result of consuming a pill called pure trance (overeating being the symptom).  The story centers around a hellish hospital where a crazy director named Keiko Yamazaki whips her nurses and torments her patients.  Despite what you read, Pure Trance is a dark and humorous shoujo ("girl") manga!  

This girl manga is not a tale about high school or multiple love interests.  There is a ton of unpredictable moments in this manga.  While I do love some unpredictability, I wished there was more structure to Pure Trance.  Pure Trance lacks the structure that Mizuno's previous works had and I was lost reading this manga until a few pages in.  There is a bit of exposition in the beginning to explain the state of the world but I felt that dialogue and drawing could have saved me from the exposition.    

Mizuno's artwork is different from a majority of manga out there.  There is a chibbi like style to it.  As a fair warning for those that read anything in public, Mizuno puts her characters in various forms of undress.  Issues like pregnancy, extreme drug usage, and other feminine problems.  The cute art style of this manga makes such issues less shocking and adds to the insanity in the story.  The story ends suddenly, unfortunately.  

There is a ton of trivia on the bottom of each page and is worth reading on a second reading.  Mizuno has gone on to make other original manga.  I hope her other original works will grab me whenever I get around to reading them.  Pure Trance just did not grab me.