Switch

After seeing Switch by Naked Ape so many times in stores, I finally bought it. It always did look interesting and the art is pretty exceptional, but I never picked it up until last month, and now I have over 10 volumes! Haha

Switch is about a rookie drug investigator named Eto Kai who partners up with Kurabayashi Hal. They are sent to investigate drug cases and they often go in on the scene projects. They don't work behind desks, they are sent after the drug dealers and the druggies to take them down. They often go undercover and have different names. Kai can't really remember his past and he has a "switch" personality. When he gets really hurt, he changes to a completely different personality. He's usually a very nice guy who's a bit of an idiot at times and Hal always calls him "good for nothing", but when he switches he becomes totally sadistic and likes to hurt people. Hal and Kai are both in the Kanto Narcotic Control Division, and the division is tracking a specific group called Ryugen who's selling a new type of drug called Dragon Speed. Ryugen always seems to be able to avoid them though, and the drug problems in Tokyo are bigger than anyone thinks. The drug dealers are all targeting people who already have a weak resolve and attack them.

Overall this manga is very very amazing. The thing I like best about Switch is that Kai doesn't "switch" all of the time. We're lucky if he even switches in a volume! Kai switches about once every two or three volumes, and sometimes even four, and that's what I love. It's not like Rosario + Vampire where the main girl switches in every single chapter, Kai barely switches. Now there's a main storyline underlying all of the mini story lines in the manga. The mini story lines are all about the current drug problem and how the division is dealing with it, but the main story line is still about the Ryugen. I love this manga because it's not what anyone expects, you can't exactly predict what's going on or what's going to happen and there's a lot of psychological problems in it which makes it exciting. There's also a lot of action, so I recommend it to everyone.