Title: Angel
Heart
Author/Artist: Tsukasa Hojo
Publisher: Bunch Comics
Style: Shonen -- Adventure/humor
# of Books: 1+
Rating: PG-13
Summary written by: Gloria Oliver
Main Characters:
Glass Heart 
Glass Heart is a 15 year old girl, who, when she was two, was kidnapped and thrown into a group of other children to be harshly trained by the Chinese Mafia to produce the ultimate assassin. Put through a harsh training regimen, any children not living up to expectations were killed. In a final contest to choose who the ultimate assassin would become, Glass Heart was forced to kill one of the other kids in the group in a "kill or be killed" exercise.
Since becoming Glass Heart, she has killed over 20 people, each time, a piece of her heart fracturing until it could take no more and she jumps from a building onto a spiked fence to kill herself. Unfortunately, Glass Heart is found right away and a heart is stolen to give her a transplant.
After being in a coma for a year, Glass Heart battles through some strange dreams in which she sees a woman she's never met and is comforted by the smile and warm arms of a mysterious man. Snapped from her coma by an intense desire to meet this man and the strange woman's prodding, Glass Heart dispatches of her captors and starts on a journey to go find the man in her dreams.
Kaori Makimura 
After years of beating up and saving other women from Ryo Saeba's ministrations, Kaori finally gives in and accepts the fact she has fallen in love with her partner. In total bliss when the two decide to marry, and even more so when Ryo grudgingly gives in and lets Kaori have her way about them dressing up in formal gown and tuxedo for the wedding, Kaori is on her way to a fitting when she spots a young girl out on the street about to get hit by a car.
Bravely throwing herself out into the street and saving the girl, Kaori is grievously injured and dies in the arms of her lover.
Kaori had signed a donor's card not long before, telling Ryo it was in case he was ever killed, she could offer her heart so he would live again, knowing she couldn't live without him. Ryo thinks her crazy for the sentiment, but promises he will not die, so she will never have a need of it.
Kaori's heart is taken after her death, and on the way to being delivered, it is stolen. This is the heart which is then grafted onto Glass Heart. Kaori is the strange woman sharing her memories with Glass Heart and trying desperately to get the girl to want to live. Kaori has unfinished business.
Ryo Saeba 
After the death of Kaori, Ryo puts on a brave front, but has basically stopped his services as a sweeper. Still teasing women wherever he goes, he doesn't make any serious dalliances. In some ways, the life has gone out of him. His friends worry about him, but there's little he can do. The only thing still keeping him going is the unresolved mystery of what's happened to Kaori's heart and his dead certainty Kaori will come back to him. Little does he suspect that Kaori's heart is now in the chest of a killer.
Story Summary
Though in book 1 all readers are told this story is set in a parallel world to City Hunter, probably to save themselves from getting mobbed by angry fans at Kaori's death, Hojo has in his hands another winner. Not only is Glass Heart an innocent tragic figure, she has never experienced the emotions Kaori is offering her. In confusion, Glass Heart returns to Shinjuku and with Kaori's clues tries to find Ryo. Matters are complicated as a man in the Chinese Mafia arranges for his boss to get assassinated and then places the blame on Glass Heart. So as Glass Heart searches for Ryo, the Chinese Mafia and the Japanese Mafia are out looking for her.
Using all the skills which have made Hojo such a long time favorite, Angel Heart has equal mixes of angst, humor, action, and more. I highly recommend it to any Hojo fan and definitely followers of City Hunter. As always, Hojo's art is crisp, clean, and beautiful, his text simple but very deep. Keep a hanky handy!