A pretty girl…

… is just not to be found in Hitoshi Iwaaki’s almost entirely awesome Parasyte (Del Rey).

Don’t get me wrong. I love the series, I really do, and I’d put it in my all-time favorites category. But part of loving something is being able to recognize its imperfections and accept them, right? And in the case of Parasyte, one of those flaws is that Iwaaki draws young, female characters in ways that make them look haggard, dowdy, and… well… just plain weird, even when they aren’t supposed to inspire any of those adjectives.

Seriously, she’s supposed to be happy in that panel. On the other hand, it’s a tribute to Iwaaki’s gifts as a storyteller that he’s managed to have a successful, award-winning career in manga in spite of his seeming inability to draw cute girls.