The Tarot Café is one of the most unique series that TOKYOPOP publishes, and not just because of how amazingly beautiful the art is.

TOKYOPOP licensed volumes 1~4 from Korea and released them here to much love and acclaim. However, the Korean publisher halted publication before the series was completed and this led TOKYOPOP to put together a deal that allows us to complete it ourselves.

So all you fans who have been clamoring for the story of Pamela and her supernatural café to continue will be getting your wish in a major way. Volume 5 is out now and Volume 6 will be released in October. Fans of Sang-Sun Park are in for a big treat in the second half of 2007!

Be sure to check out Sang-Sun Park’s other TOKYOPOP series, Ark Angels, which was our first series created by a Korean manhwa-ga for first publication in English.

~Alexis Kirsch, Editor

The Tarot Cafe tells the paranormal tale of Pamela, a tarot card reader who is fated to help supernatural beings living in the human world. Welcoming all who walk through her door-from a love-stricken cat, to a vampire spending eternal life running from his one true love-Pamela deals with the problems of others, until she is ultimately forced to face a deep, dark secret of her own.

Meet Pamela, a tarot card reader who helps supernatural beings living in the human world. She'll help any one who happens to come into her café whether they be human or not.

This is turning into the type of story that I really like - tragic pasts that are slowly retold over the course of several chapters, by several intertwined characters.  Different viewpoints lead to misunderstandings, causing animosity that lasts for hundreds of years as some characters run from their pasts, and others hunt them down for explanations for prior acts.

Pamela, the owner of the Tarot Cafe, is gifted with the art of fortune telling.  She’s also cursed by her tragic past. As she tries to help her supernatural customers, she is also seeking a solution for her own problem, which is slowly fleshed out volume by volume.  Part of each volume delves into the problems of her customers, and the rest focuses on Pamela’s past.

I wasn’t too impressed with the episodic first volume, but I had already preordered the 2nd. I’m so glad I did!  The art is beautiful, very clean and detailed.  The character designs are wonderful; I wish everybody had hair so lush and full.  There’s not a lot of humor here, but what there is breaks the growing tension skillfully.  There’s just enough so the story isn’t weighed down by all this tragedy!

Grade:  A - Highly recommended