Lucha-Doll Mai - 3 volumes -Japan/China 1993
More pics after the jump break.
I found this one in London's Chinatown about 15 years ago and it's a Chinese translation of a Japanese manga. Since I can read neither Japanese nor Chinese I had to follow the pics and try and work out what is going on.
As near as I can work out, it goes like this: Mai is a teenage girl just moved to a new school. Shy, clumsy and gentle of nature, Mai has a boy she likes and who seems to feel something in return.
Problem is...
Mai and her older sister Ran are a fast-rising, wrestling tag-team. If word ever got out, life could get awfully complicated.
So while struggling with her school life, Mai also has to face a selection of bizarre opponents in the ring - wrestlers from rival promotions, teenage karate prodigies, lesbian catgirls and a quartet of grappling idol singers.
Considering the language barrier this is still a decent read. Yumiki Asuka has an odd art style but it mostly works, and there's some delightfully OTT facial expressions.
Grappling Gerie and Who Nellie! feature the sort of mat based wrestling/brawling you'd expect to see in the 80s. Mai and Ran go in for something a lot more exotic. As you'd guess from the name, they prefer the high-flying Lucha Libre style ramped up to ridiculous levels.
I should also warn you that there's a fair bit of fanservice. Mai's clothes have a habit of falling off at inconvenient moments, to her utter horror, and big sis Ran's schemes to get the team noticed usually involve skimpier and skimpier ring outfits.
Time for some scans. (So far as I know, this is the first time anything from this series has popped up on the Web. World exclusive right here, folks.)
Mai delivers one of her trademark "How the hell did she do that?" aerial attacks.
Ran shows off her latest costume idea. Mai is not too thrilled.
Volume one ends with our teenage luchadora battling a karate expert in a gimmick match.
The WWE hasn't done a lesbian tag team yet. Key word being: yet.
You don't need to be able to read Chinese to work out that Mai isn't happy
But gets her own back with a Flying Butt Attack.
Meanwhile Ran, annoyed at not being in more scans, puts the boot into a catgirl.
How easy is this to get hold of? A Chinese reprint of a Japanese manga most people have never heard of? Published 19 years ago? Yeah. Good luck with that.
That's all folks.
I ended up with more scans than I could fit into one post
Could you please post full scans for all three volumes please.
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