spot manga reviews
May. 26th, 2008 12:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreSince I seem to be in one of my shoujo phases*, I decided to use rightstuf's sale to check out some of Viz's latest offerings. As I try to read at least a bit of new manga before getting it, I have spent much of today reading bits of manga. And so:
High School Debut: A former tomboy who loves shoujo manga and spent all of junior high playing sports decides to become more girly and get a boyfriend in High School, except she completely sucks at being girly, so she asks Yoh, a guy who clearly hates being a bishounen, to help her because he has great fashion sense, and he agreesbecause she's like a helpless puppy who wants love and affection as long as she doesn't fall in love with him. I was a goner when she said she was confused when she got to HS, because all the fiction she reads told her you got a boyfriend when you turned 15 and entered HS. I completely understand this misunderstanding.
Special A: Girl has been second place tyo a boy in her class since they were 5~, and has been trying to beat him in anything ever since. He blatantly has a massive crush on her, but seems to show it by being a verbal pigtail puller, while she seems solely focused on competing. I suspect this will be one of those where he does everything in his power except use actual words to get her to notice he likes her, and she remains dense as can be about it, but we'll see.
Kaze Hikaru: Girl disguises self as boy and joins the Shinsengumi, where she falls in love with Okita Souji. I actually checked this out when it first came out, and thought it was nice but nothing special, and I was being choosy at the time. But it's been recced to me a few times lately, so I read the first couple chapters again and it seems worth giving a second chance.
Haruko Beyond the Stream of Time: I actually looked at this at the store on Weds and not for long, but I like Heian era stories, and I haven't read a shoujo "girl in another time/world" series in a while.
Monkey High and Love Com I might check out at a later date(probably will, actually.) Both look very cute, but didn't immediately grab me(which could be affected by the fact that I read them last), and I'm already adding enough titles to my reading list as it is.
Also, not shoujo, but I checked out Record of the Fallen Vampire. The first 50 or so pages were kinda giggle worthy bad, but then we had things like
*This translates as a phase I go through at least once a year when mycompletely not secret need for a bit of mush and sap and cuteness wins out over all else and I start reading a bunch of new shoujo titles. A couple volumes later, all the tropes I hate start jumping out at me and I want to strangle characters, and I remember why I tend to prefer shounen and drop all but a couple of the shoujo titles. As these phases have resulted in Wallflower, W Juliet and Skip-Beat (Basara, Fruits Basket, Mars, and Yuu Watase stuff predates when shoujo started annoying me), I actually have no complaints...
Also, Kyoko, stop with this "eye level with Ren's chest" thing. Do you know how hard that is to icon? With most pictures, if I get you in the frame, then he has no head. I get him in the frame and you're a forehead. Height difference icons aside, it makes a girl shake her fist. It's as bad as iconning Trick. Go find a stool to stand on. Cursed catered-to kinks being inconvenient. You and Rukia should go bond over being kickass heroines who can fit in people's pockets while Ren and Renji bond over having massive crushes on girls half their size who seem oblivious to said crushes.
High School Debut: A former tomboy who loves shoujo manga and spent all of junior high playing sports decides to become more girly and get a boyfriend in High School, except she completely sucks at being girly, so she asks Yoh, a guy who clearly hates being a bishounen, to help her because he has great fashion sense, and he agrees
Special A: Girl has been second place tyo a boy in her class since they were 5~, and has been trying to beat him in anything ever since. He blatantly has a massive crush on her, but seems to show it by being a verbal pigtail puller, while she seems solely focused on competing. I suspect this will be one of those where he does everything in his power except use actual words to get her to notice he likes her, and she remains dense as can be about it, but we'll see.
Kaze Hikaru: Girl disguises self as boy and joins the Shinsengumi, where she falls in love with Okita Souji. I actually checked this out when it first came out, and thought it was nice but nothing special, and I was being choosy at the time. But it's been recced to me a few times lately, so I read the first couple chapters again and it seems worth giving a second chance.
Haruko Beyond the Stream of Time: I actually looked at this at the store on Weds and not for long, but I like Heian era stories, and I haven't read a shoujo "girl in another time/world" series in a while.
Monkey High and Love Com I might check out at a later date(probably will, actually.) Both look very cute, but didn't immediately grab me(which could be affected by the fact that I read them last), and I'm already adding enough titles to my reading list as it is.
Also, not shoujo, but I checked out Record of the Fallen Vampire. The first 50 or so pages were kinda giggle worthy bad, but then we had things like
Male B clutching his True Love's body and swearing vengeance on Male A, who is the main character and the vampire lord, and who killed True Love because she is her universe's version of the slayer and was out to kill him(btw, Male A killed True Love with Male B's swords, just for added angst.) We then cut to 50 years later and Males A and B still look young and bishounen and the new Slayer-girl shows up and declares that she will defend Male A, and when Male B vows to kill them both, she takes off her mask and is revealed to be identical to True Love. WWAAAAANNNNGGGGSSSSSTTTT!!!!
Oh, and the vampire lord has spent a thousand years searching for his own True Love, who was sealed away somewhere, and he keeps finding fake tombs. For added kicks, the vampire lord tries to do the tall, dark and dangerous thing, but his image is completely ruined because he travels with this teeny girl who looks about 7 but is actually 70~(please, manga, do not make her the reincarnation of his True Love and go to the loli place) who he has trained to be a sniper, and she's always hanging on him and stuffing kittens in his cloak and ruining his image. I have no idea how good this is, but once I got near the end of the first chapter, it was quite fun.*This translates as a phase I go through at least once a year when my
Also, Kyoko, stop with this "eye level with Ren's chest" thing. Do you know how hard that is to icon? With most pictures, if I get you in the frame, then he has no head. I get him in the frame and you're a forehead. Height difference icons aside, it makes a girl shake her fist. It's as bad as iconning Trick. Go find a stool to stand on. Cursed catered-to kinks being inconvenient. You and Rukia should go bond over being kickass heroines who can fit in people's pockets while Ren and Renji bond over having massive crushes on girls half their size who seem oblivious to said crushes.