Comic Review: Toto! The Wonderful Adventure (Part 3)

Sorry that I've been late with getting this last part of the review done, but I had a few other projects coming up lately. Here, I'll be covering Volumes #4 and #5 of the Toto! manga. Oh, and yes, this is where the series ends, despite the fact that the story remains unconcluded.

Volume #4 has Damda revealing a cybernetic arm, and calling in the Nassau airfleet on Kenbi and Kakashi. But Dorothy has mastered a secret technique that helps send the enemies flying. She gets a jet broom, and is offically proclaimed Kakashi's WITCH partner. Kenbi reveals that the accessory they were looking for was a pair of special earrings stolen years ago by someone dressed like a rabbit. They let Damda go, and head off to Garrot Town to find the mysterious rabbit-masked thief. Once there, they run across the Wonder Family, a group of rebellious mobsters lead by the rambunctious Alice that want revenge against their rivals, the Rabbit Gang. It's reveled that their leader is Clock, Alice's long-lost brother who used the magical earrings with its special teleporting holepuncher abilities to take over the mafia families. Clock wastes most of Alice's gang, and takes Noil and Dorothy hostage.

Volume #5 has the suprise return of the Man Chicken Family and Tequilla who were coming to Alice's aid. They storm Clock's clocktower, and eventually rescue their friends. Alice manages to get a hold of the earrings and defeats Clock, but at the cost of his own life. Alice joins up with Kakashi and the other on their quest, which leads them to the kingdom of Rock Tic where they team up with Paisley and Red from WITCH to find another accessory. The king of this land is having a special talent contest, where the winning duo will recieve the accessory as the grand prize. Kakashi is reluctlantly paired with Kenbi, as each member of the cast is teamed up with another to come up with an act to win the competition. Dorothy gets help from the mysterious masked Mexican wrestler Chad, who is later shown to be Kakashi's father at the last minute, and makes his escape in a balloon. The story ends with Kakashi, Noil, Dorothy, Alice, and Kenbi continuing their journey.

Toto! was the basis for what creator Yu-Ko Osado used in his next manga series Tribal 12, which also deals with a magical land dominated by the existance of twelve magical items. This series is currently available as five seperate graphic novels from Del Rey Manga, but with the given trend to do "perfect collections" of manga in huge bible-sized books, but with the current rise of Oz-related media, its possible a collected edition of the entire series could happen.