From the publisher The mysterious Medical Mechanica plant in the city of Mabase looks like a giant steam iron, belching steam or smoke at irregular intervals. It is somehow emblematic of the confusion, ennui, and hyperkinetic chaos that characterizes teenaged life in Mabase.

Enter Haruko, a self-professed guitar-wielding alien,who guns her Vespa toward our hero, an unsuspecting Naota. Their first meeting is disastrous, and it turns Naota's life upside-down.

After this painful first encounter, Naota is shocked to find that Haruko has moved into his house, invited there by his father as a live-in maid. She is immediately in his face, on his case, and pawing other places in a most unseemly manner ...