“From the creator of Dragon Ball Z!” proudly proclaims the blurb on the cover of Cowa!. Not being a DBZ fan, I wasn’t sure how much of a selling point this was going to be for me. But what a pleasure and a surprise—Cowa! (as in, maybe, “Cowabunga!”?) is a downright charming story, a single-volume standalone adventure that’s nothing like the work Akira Toriyama’s more famous for. It’s billed on the back cover as a “spooktacular manga for kids”, the sort of thing you can snap up as a Halloween-themed goodie, but this is one of those cases where all ages really does mean all ages. Adults who’re in the know can savor this one right along with the young ‘uns, and not feel guilty about it.

Cowa! reminded me a bit of the kind of cheerfully jumbled, mix-and-match mythology of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas—or, closer to home, Toriyama’s own good-natured and often royally funny series Dr. Slump, also for a relatively young audience. The story’s hero is Paifu, a kid who’s half-vampire and half-were-koala (yes, half-were-koala), whose hobbies include every conceivable variety of mischief. That includes everything from blowing off school to boosting neighbor’s watermelons to sneaking into un-haunted houses with his buddy José the ghost. They also end up making an enemy out of a grumpy human in the area, Mr. Maruyama—an ex-sumo wrestler with a troubled past, a cigarette always in his mouth and a perennially foul attitude, especially where children are involved. (I suspect a prerequisite for growing up in any culture is the presence of a Grouchy Neighbor Who Hates Kids.)