At an anime convention, sixteen-year-old Breanna Cota finds herself transported to a strange new realm where everything is anime.  There she learns she is “the chosen”.  The Kingdom of Shojo is in trouble.  Seven evil governors need to be destroyed to kill a spell to which Princess Yuka has fallen prey.  The governors (Anger, Covetousness, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Pride and Sloth) must be eliminated and only Breanna has the power to complete the jobs.  Unfortunately, Breanna isn’t impressed with anime (the Japanese animation which is currently all the rage) at all. 

THE WANDERING SCHOOLGIRL is the first in a new graphic novel series by Gary and Louis Gallegos.  For those unfamiliar with graphic novels, the entire book is like one full-length comic strip.

While I did enjoy the opening to this series, I do question the age group for which Amazon.com has listed the book.  The book pokes fun at today’s anime (especially the shows like Pokemon) and there is mild sexual humor—enough that my children (eight and eleven) were left thinking older teens would appreciate the book more than they did.  Personally, my fourteen-year-old neighbor found it far more appealing than my children.  So I would recommend the book for your late middle-school early high school crowd.

The illustrations fit well with the book, and the story is certainly enjoyable.  I find myself interested to see what happens next.  I also had a good laugh over the reference to Disney’s Little Mermaid being a hottie. Gary Gallegos was an artist for several Disney movies—no, Little Mermaid was not one of them, but the reference still made me laugh!

My only other issue deals with two grammar errors.  Twice the subject/verb agreements were off and that drew me from the story as I re-read the sentences to see if I’d missed something.  This won’t bother everyone, but if you have an eye for catching errors, they will glare at you.