The early 2000s were an interesting time to be a manga fan. Alongside the big-name series were smaller, more obscure titles that unless you knew someone who had them, you probably wouldn't have even known they existed. Many of these titles have been lost over time, especially once Tokyopop had initially shut down. Some licenses were not transferred over to other publishing companies, resulting in many series fading into the annals of time. One of those titles was Zodiac P.I.

The story followed 13-year-old Lili Hoshizawa, a teenage girl who had a love of astrology. She received this love from her mother, who went missing at some point. Before this, her mother ran a fortune-telling business that Lili took over while her father worked as a detective. Not only had she inherited her mother's love of the stars, but she also inherited a special ring.

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This Star Ring allowed the wearer to commune with astrological spirits and receive the horoscope of whomever the wearer wanted. All they needed was a name and a birthday. Over the course of its four volumes, Lili moonlighted as Detective Spica, a title once used by her mother. She is assisted by childhood friend Hiromi Oikawa, a young man who studied criminal psychology in America and had an allergy to women.

Characters from Zodiac PI

The series was written and illustrated by Natsumi Ando, who also worked on the series Kitchen Princess. It was originally published in the shojo magazine Nakayoshi from April 2001 to January 2003 before being sold in volumes by Kodansha. In 2003, the first volume was distributed by Tokyopop and received mainly positive reviews at the time. Unfortunately, when Tokyopop went out of business in 2011, the translation went out of print and hasn't been picked back up since. There was never an anime adaptation.

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It's was a charming mystery-romance with magical girl elements. Each of the astrological spirits presented themselves as small, chibi-esque characters with names that reference the original legends their star sign originated from. The spirits of Gemini, for example, are named Castor and Pollux, twin sons of Leda with different fathers. Castor died in battle and Pollux begged his father Zeus to bring him back, to which Zeus agreed on the condition that they spend half of their life in the heavens and half on earth. The brothers then became immortalized in the stars as the constellation Gemini.

Castor and Pollux Gemini Spirits Zodiac PI

Zodiac P.I. is available through Amazon, though at an elevated price due to being out of print. At the time of writing, the first two volumes are available on the secondhand book site Thriftbooks for a fairly reasonable $8 USD. Until someone picks up the distribution rights, this series may be hard to come by unless someone is actively looking for it, but it's a great addition to any shojo collection.

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