Pearl Pink Vol 2

[meganbmoore]

Oh Meca Tanaka, I’m so very happy that you seem to be making this one of those shoujos that covers a few years. Because as soon as I calm down from "cracktastic badass monkey love!" I slip into "but she’s only 13!" mode. This volume featured the highly manipulative shoujo tropes of Our Heroine being left home alone on Christmas and everyone rushing home to make her happy and of Our Heroine working up the courage to give her crush chocolate on Valentines Day, but in an amazing way that probably only this series could do. Like having Our Heroine dress in a monkey suit and sing karaoke when she’s left alone on Christmas and then take out supposed burglars with impromptu shuriken maracas, or by having Our Very Fashion Sensistive Hero declare her tomboyish attempt at giving him chocolate to be a failure, dress her up and coach her to be a "real girl," and then fall for his own "creation."

Also, it was pointed out to me in my post on the last volume that I forgot to mention that this manga has parents who scale walls and crawl around in ceilings like ninjas, and grandmothers who stab said ceilings with…uhm…those pole things with scimitar-like blades at the end (I can’t believe I can’t remember what they’re called…) I think I also forgot to mention that Kanji acts all stiff and serious and proper, but he turns into an obsessive maniac at the chance to dress someone up like a pretty girl. Since Tamako looks like a 10-year-old boy most of the times, this means they’re perfect for each other. Then there’s the parents. They can flip flop from "oh, Tamako, you can do anything you want to get Kanji as long as you don’t get pregnant" to "oh? You’re both going into show business?" (You knew it was happening from the first chapter…) "well, no fraternization within the company, kids." Oh, this will have special angst.

I feel I should talk about Raizo’s band, Rain, and how fun they are with the extremely chibi Hisame and Yukino, the ultimate defender of women who has essentially declared himself to be Tamako’s human shield, or about Momoko’s show and how the mangaka desperately needs to do a oneshot of Idol Momoko and Thief Handsome and their amazing seeming "courtship," but I’m a little distracted by the second of the two short stories in the back of the book, one of which has the characters Kanji and Tamako are apparently based on, who…are a girl and her (only 10 years older and widowed) step-father. Who have a restaurant full of shippers. OH MECA TANAKA!!!! When I start exploring more of your works, will I learn that you have no limits to your awesome and borderline questionable crack? I will, won’t I?

On day, I will speak intelligently about manga again. That day, I fear, is not today. 

Comments

[anime-heart.livejournal.com]

OH MECA TANAKA!!!! When I start exploring more of your works, will I learn that you have no limits to your awesome and borderline questionable crack?

I believe so, yes ...

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Oh man...I thought s/he was pushing it by making the leads be a 13 year old girl who looks like a 10 year old boy and a 16 year old who lives to make everyone look like a pretty girl, and then s/he went and made me go "well, of course it's only natural that the 15 year old girl is goingt o grow up to marry her 25 year old stepfather..."

[anime-heart.livejournal.com]

I think meca tanaka is a guy, actually ...

the other manga I've seen in English is about shinigami in bunny suits.

http://www.amazon.com/Omukae-Desu-1/dp/140121116X/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211058325&sr=8-4

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Aye, I have the first volume of that.

[salimbol.livejournal.com]

Ah,'Omukae desu'; I remember that being pretty funny. The premise alone is enough to make it worth checking out, of course. I liked their various shinigami theme days! The story never really went anywhere in the three volumes that I read, but it was fun reading them anyway. And I think you're right, anime_heart; I'm sure Meca Tanaka mentioned that he was a guy somewhere in that series.
I now must add Pearl Pink to the ever-growing to-read list (honestly, I think I'm slowly but surely whittling it down, and then people go and talk about other cool books and it's a lost cause...)
Megan, are the pole things you're talking about naginatas?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

yes, nagitanas, thank you.

I hear you on the "whittling down" thing. every time it starts to shrink...

[salimbol.livejournal.com]

Naginatas are a seriously cool weapon, and I would be hard pressed to choose between them and a sword if presented with the choice. (And if I were not a terrible klutz who would put myself and everyone around me in mortal danger by so much as looking at a weapon, but that is another story.)
To think that about a year ago, I was thinking "Hmm, a few more months and I'll probably have everything I want to collect". Ha! The naivite!