Cynthia the Mission

is a terrible, terrible manga.  I remember exactly what compelled me to read it.  I saw this image:

Kinda reminds me of Ichi the Killer.

I had to know what events in the plot would lead up to this, so that was my hook.  If I had to describe Cynthia the Mission, it's like a really silly version of Kill Bill, where a girl is trying to escape her assassin heritage.  Except that in this case, this girl is just starting high school and is bald.  This girl, who is named Cynthia, is a master martial artist and has several friends in her school...  who are also amazing martial artists.  The manga is really violent and there are a lot of different fighting styles displayed.

Anywho, Cynthia the Mission has that shonen manga problem where characters have constant flashbacks of their past when fighting.  Along with flashbacks, there's also long explanations of their fighting styles: if a character hits his opponent with a new move, he must spend the next 10 pages explaining the origin of the attack and how it works!  Characters frequently break the fourth wall and make really silly facial expressions when fighting.  There's also a HILARIOUS set of chapters about a girl with hypnotic power attempting to assassinate George W. Bush.  So I'm guessing the author wanted to let the readers know that it wasn't intended to be read seriously but that doesn't make it any less terrible.

However!  Even though this manga is so awful I read it in ernest and ended up finishing the whole thing this weekend because there is a really great character in this mess of a story.  It's Cybele Rou, who is Cynthia's older sister.  As you might guess, she's a master martial artist and assassin.  She's the main antagonist of the story, as she is the one who wants Cynthia to be a master assassin.

Anyway, Cybele is amazing.  She's easily one of my favorite manga characters, as she's pretty much everything I want in a strong female character.  She also likes cosplaying while fighting: off the top of my head, I remember her wearing a maid outfit, a teacher's uniform, lingerie, cheongsam, and a bunnygirl outfit.  It's most likely fanservice, but I like to think of it as being so confident that she just wears whatever she wants, haha.

Cynthia the Mission is pretty obscure, but I guess Cybele was popular enough to get her own figure!

On the left, Cybele in bunnygirl costume during the Tournament arc.  On the right, Akiha lookalike Araya Kuga.

It kind of threw me off to see her with green hair.  I kept thinking of her as a blonde in the manga, especially since Cynthia is a blonde too.