Thanks to barnesandnoble.com for the image.

Dr. Slump follows the adventures of Arale, a cute girl-robot that is the creation of goofy inventor, Senbei Norimaki.  Arale turns out to be a handful – wide-eyed and so sweetly naïve – and seemingly as strong as Superman.  As Dr. Slump, Vol. 13 opens, Senbei’s rival, the villainous Dr. Mashirito, who wants to destroy Arale, believes he’s come up with the very thing that will do the deed.  He’s built a boy-robot – Caramel Man 004.  The robot is a sweet-natured boy, but underneath that innocent shell is a machine built to match Arale’s incredible strength and destroy her.  What Dr. Mashirito doesn’t count on is that his boy-robot becomes smitten with Norimaki’s girl-robot.

THE LOWDOWN:  The style that Akira Toriyama uses to draw Dr. Slump may put off readers familiar with his kinetic style of Dragon Ball.  Here, everything, both characters and objects, are built out of simple shapes – big circles, squares, cubes, cylinders, spheres, etc., and Toriyama draws all of it with an eye on cuteness.  The characters have big heads and big eyes, and they’re also oh-so-cute.

But it works!  It’s a playful vibe and nearly every page is infused with innocence.  Even the bad guy is a silly klutz.  And you can’t help but love a comic in which the villain lives in a house that exactly resembles Star Wars droid R2-D2’s dome head.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  Although part of VIZ Media’s “Shonen Jump” line, Dr. Slump is great for any manga reader who wants to give manga to a boy or girl reader under 10-years-old.

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