is a three-volume shōjo

Shojo

The term refers to manga marketed to a female audience roughly between the ages of 10-18. The name romanizes the Japanese 少女 , literally: "little female". Shōjo manga covers many subjects in a variety of narrative and graphic styles, from historical drama to science fiction — often with a strong...

 manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 series by Ai Yazawa

Ai Yazawa

is a Japanese manga author. Her pen name comes from Japanese singer Eikichi Yazawa, of whom she is a fan.-Biography:Yazawa started her manga publishing life in 1985. She studied in a fashion school but later dropped out. Throughout her 15 years of publishing, she wrote over 10 series in Ribon...

. It was first published in Ribon

Ribon

is a monthly Japanese shōjo manga magazine published by Shueisha. First issued in August 1955, its rivals are Nakayoshi and Ciao. Its target audience is young girls roughly 9–13 years old. In 2009, the magazine's circulation was 274,167, down from the previous year's circulation numbers of 330,000...

, a manga magazine primarily read by teenaged girls.

In 2004 it was adapted into a live-action movie

Kagen no tsuki (film)

Kagen no Tsuki ~Last Quarter is a 2004 Japanese film directed by Ken Nakai, based on Ai Yazawa's manga of the same name.-Synopsis:...

. The film has been released in the USA by Geneon Entertainment, but as yet the manga has no official English translation.

Plot

Mizuki Mochizuki is a high school student that one day meets a man by the name Adam. In the two weeks they are together, she falls in love with him, and the day he is to leave, she decides to follow him. Bringing her passport and a bag, she crosses one of Shibuya's many streets, on a red light, to follow after him. Only, when her ex-boyfriend calls out her name, she turns around, in the middle of the street, to see him running after her. While standing there, she is hit by a car.

Some time later, a girl named Hotaru, who has lost her cat, mistakes a stray as her own. The cat wanders into an abandoned home, and she squeezes through the bars to follow after the cat. When realizing that the cat isn't hers, she decides to leave, but is drawn in by a beautiful melody. She makes her way to where the sound is coming from, and discovers a girl playing a piano. After telling her friends about the girl, they all leave to check out the scene. When they go there, they cannot see the girl, but knows she is real when Hotaru hands her a notebook, and she takes it from Hotaru's hands. They have no idea who this girl is, but they are determined to find out just who she is and why she is there. The rest of the story follows their discoveries of the ghost they call Eve.

Characters

A 17-year-old high school student. She was in a car accident and ended up in a coma

Coma

In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...

. When she wakes up at the end, she has no memories of what happened in her days as Eve, the four kids, Adam, or anything that had happened during the 2 weeks while she was away, other than the fact that she had broken up with her boyfriend.

The protagonist of the story, a young girl who met Mizuki when they were both in comas from separate car accidents. When she found Mizuki's ghost (Eve), she became committed to helping Mizuki. At the beginning of the manga, Hotaru says that she has a crush on Miura, but at the end, when she apologizes to Sae (her best friend who also had feelings for Miura), she admits that she has a new crush on Sugisaki.

The identity of Mizuki's ghost when she was in a coma. Eve had no recollections of who she was, but remembered that Adam was her lover, and that she must find him. She eventually started to remember little memories of being Sayaka Kamijou which confuses the 4 children as they knew that Eve was actually Mizuki. It is Sayaka who in a way possessed Mizuki's body. Only Hotaru could see her.

The lead singer of the band Evil Eye. It is implied that he committed suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 at 20 years old, after his girlfriend died of an illness.

Hotaru's best friend. She is sensible and loyal to her friends, and tried her best to help Eve. As the story progresses, Sae finds that she is starting to like Miura but continues to deny it since she knows that Hotaru had always had a particular interest in him. However, near the very end of the manga, when Hotaru apologizes to Sae and asks her if she liked Miura, she denies it.

Hotaru's schoolmate and the son of the doctor who took care of Hotaru when she was in a coma. He became involved in the quest to help Eve as well. It seems that later on in the story, he develops an obvious crush on Hotaru although it seems that she is oblivious to it.

Tetsu's best friend. His parents are divorced celebrities, and he lives with his father, who is always away at work. Although he sometimes makes tactless comments, he sincerely wants to help Eve. In the movie, he is portrayed as wearing glasses and follows Hotaru into the house the first time she goes in. When he first met Hotaru, he comments that he thinks she is cute. It is hinted that he may have a slight interest in Sae later on.

Mizuki's ex-boyfriend. She put up with his infidelity

Infidelity

In many intimate relationships in many cultures there is usually an express or implied expectation of exclusivity, especially in sexual matters. Infidelity most commonly refers to a breach of the expectation of sexual exclusivity.Infidelity can occur in relation to physical intimacy and/or...

 until he cheated on her with her best friend. After they broke up, he wanted to apologize to her, but she was involved in an accident before he could do so. While Mizuki is in a coma, it becomes apparent that he really cares for and loves her, and that he regrets doing such things that had hurt her, remembering their past together and how they had first started dating.

Adam's beloved girlfriend. She was studying in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

when she met him. Unfortunately, she died of a disease at about 17 years old.

External links

• Japanese official site of the movie