This vibes like a loose tribute to Quentin Tarantino's True Romance, even including a climactic three-way standoff. It wants to be funny, offbeat and romantic, but the convoluted storytelling, stiff art and ugly coloring all bring the mood down.

And any book that feels obliged to include an article in back explaining why the white male writer is featuring a Japanese-American woman with albinism as his protagonist is admitting there may be a bigger problem here. It even includes an admission of the writer's previous mishandling of a yakuza storyline in another book and how he's trying to do better this time. Ummmm . . .

I have the next volume on hand from the library, so I'm going to read it, but only from completist compulsion at this point, not enthusiasm. ( )

An engaging story with great dialogue and pretty art -- though at times the colouring choices were so chaotic as to make it hard for me to follow, that thankfully didn't happen very often -- about a young, albino tattoo artist whose life is turned upside down when the Yakuza discovers she might be very good at killing people. ( )

Brian Michael Bendis is quite well known, so I picked this one up. Pearl Tanaka is an albino tattoo artist of Japanese background, living in San Francisco. She defends a guy she meets and becomes embroiled in a Yakuza plot. The artwork is painterly but the plot a bit pedestrian. We learn more about Pearl's skills as a killer than as a tattoo artist. She is a woman of mystery. ( )