manga: Special A Vols 1-2

[meganbmoore]

When they were seven, Takishima Kei dealt Hanazono Hikari her first defeat.  Ever since then, Hikari has been trying to beat Kei at something.  Anything.  Unfortunately, Kei has a perfect photographic memory, and can remember every detail of a book and how to do anything after seeing it once.  Now they’re 15 and members of “Special A,” a class of the seven top students in their grade at a private academy.  They are, of course, the two highest ranked students, with Hikari always barely scoring lower than Kei.  They’ve been in the same class with the other five students in the class ever since elementary school, and everyone but Hikari knows that Kei is in love with her.

Even though she makes far too big a deal of everything, Hikari is adorable, especially as she applies herself to everything in life with as much energy as she does trying to beat Kei, and is utterly unaware of what enemies and ill will are.  The rest of the students in the Special A class are pretty fun, including a pair of fraternal twins from a family of gifted musicians, but whose own music is so bad it causes bad luck (and the girl, for unknown reasons, never speaks, but writes everything down on a notepad instead) their childhood friend, who’s almost their keeper, the school director’s wanderlust driven son, and a tea-obsessed girl who has a girlcrush on Hikari.  They’re a little flat, but it’s early yet.

But then there’s Kei. Kei is…aggravating. Granted, he’s supposed to be a little aggravating, but it’s a bit much. He isn’t just the best at academic and/or athletic pursuits, he’s the best at everything.  It isn’t that Hikari isn’t better at anything, it’s that she isn’t as good at anything, and it’s a serious imbalance that the series is based around. If they went fishing, he’d get more fish.  When they do something together as a team, he does it better.  And he makes sure she knows it.  Which is my main problem.  Every chance he gets, he drives it home, egging her on.  And he does it with an annoyingly superior attitude.  Though, to be honest, it’s not the attitude itself, but the why of the attitude.  For example, Ren in Skip-Beat arguably has a worse attitude in early volumes.  He, however, has the attitude because Kyoko is using his profession for revenge, and treats it with disrespect.  When Kyoko starts to take it seriously, he adjusts his attitude and helps her because then she was trying her best.

Kei’s superior attitude comes from the fact that Hikari is trying her hardest, and is used to make sure she never forgets that she’s “not as good as” he is.  He also tends to bring “because you’re a girl” into the equation at times.  (Granted, he has a point when she’s pushing herself too hard physically, but again, it’s how he does it.)  I know it’s the whole “pick on the girl you like” thing, but I think it’s taken a little too far.  The only time I really like him is when he gets angry (often violently so) when someone else indicates Hikari is second best, or not good enough, or seems to threaten her, or comes between him and the terrible food Hikari had to make for him after losing a bet.  I am very easy that way.  (One could actually argue that he has an abnormal fixation on Hikari, but given many of the things I like, I have no leg to stand on there.)  We’re obviously meant to sympathize with him for liking Hikari so much when she completely doesn’t “get it,” but, well, I’m not sure why she would. He pretty much digs his own grave.

Still, despite my aggravation with Kei (and really, the way his fixation tends to manifest does make up for a lot of it, much as it shames me to admit it) it is rather fun and cute, though not incredibly stand-out yet.  As long as the imbalance doesn’t get to me too much, I’ll stick with it.

Comments

[iamthemurderer.livejournal.com]

Hm, never made it far through the anime myself. It was... ok. But I fully agree on Kei.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

It's like...I want to like him. Adore him, even. But his "oh, you try so hard but let me make sure you understand you're only second best every chance I get but no one else can say it" thing is a bit much. Maybe if it were a NO SOCIAL SKILLS EXIST!!! thing, it could work, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

[iamthemurderer.livejournal.com]

Yeaaaah, that's not the best strategy for winning a girl's heart.

[bemysty.livejournal.com]

The anime started in the same season as Itazura na Kiss did. I HATED (http://bemysty.livejournal.com/702343.html) InK, but liked Special A, mostly because of the contrast and the fact that Hikari is portrayed as entirely capable herself. Kei pissed me off something severe, too, but I've grown accustomed to hating shoujo "heroes" by default, so that wasn't the deal breaker.

But of course then they threw in a cooking episode, Hikari sucks at cooking BLABLABLA. Never watched another ep.

I've become a lot less tolerant re: bullshit and cliched old plot devices in shoujo recently. Which is a shame, because it *does* bar me from roughly 85% of all shoujo, especially current titles.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Hikari's competence is the big thing here. She's always able to take care of herself, even if Kei (annoyingly) doesn't realize it, and the times she does actually need help, it's because he's pushed her into something.

The cooking chapter was ok here (Kei's annoying character traits were mostly absent, though there was the unnecessary bit where the mangaka had to point out that, unlike Hikari, Kei could wash rice) but I imagine it would annoy at a 25 minute ep.

When i get too annoyed at shoujo, I tend to turn to Skip-Beat, W Juliet (the hero is an angel), Wallflower, Basara, and now High School Debut.

[bemysty.livejournal.com]

The can't-cook stereotype is one of the ones I hate the most, so it's no real wonder I took it as a dealbreaker and fled the series.

And the only titles I currently read are Skip Beat and Nana, both of which don't fit in with the stereotypes and plot devices I love to loathe.

(on that note, since our last exchange about Skip Beat I, obviously, caught up with the series at lightning speed. Holy frick! I missed out, didn't I? ._.)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Wallflower has a nice kick to the face on the "can't cook" trope: the heroine is the type who usually sucks at cooking, but she's an amazing cook. And she's a good cook not because of any angsty or touching backstory or a need to impress someone or be helpful: she likes to cook, so she cooks.

You're probably ahead of me on Skip-Beat, as I only follow the US releases...Reino only just showed up for me.

W Juliet, Basara and High School Debut are all complete. W Juliet scans are complete and pretty easy to find, Basara is a little older, but I think the whole thing is online. HSD only just finished, so the scans aren't quite through, but it's being actively scanslated.

Nana is weird for me: it's exactly what I want and ask for in shoujo, but I couldn't get into it,

[bemysty.livejournal.com]

I started with the German releases of Wallflower, but lost track a couple volumes in (mostly because my standard mode of operation is "flat out broke"), and I liked it a lot. Quick investigation shows a good load of chapters online, maybe I should make catching up with *that* my next project *g*

Reinou was *incredibly* annoying to me, and Sho's face heel turn didn't do much for me, but I like the current storyline well enough... of course I haven't followed a shoujo manga "live" for years, only ever shounen, so the projected one month wait makes me facepalm.

Basara I've read about half of in French, but again - got lost with the releases. I know it's also published in German, but I've heard the quality isn't exactly genius, so I'm reluctant to switch over to that release. W Juliet (as well as, for example, Fruits Basket) I used to follow in a monthly manga magazine here, but I never bothered to switch over to bound volumes when I dropped that magazine, so...

Dito KareKano, now that I think about it.

Yazawa's titles always take me a volume or two (or longer, in case of Nana) to get into them, but I've never regretted investing that time. I'm guessing Yazawa just isn't for everyone, since her drawing style and storytelling aren't exactly easy to digest. The flashforward cockteasing in Nana makes me want to cry sometimes :/

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I suspect Reino is there to make Sho look good, and hopefully to knock some sense into Ren. Possibly literally.

Well, that sounds like a lot of superior shoujo you could be catching up on...

(There's also Night of the Beasts. The hero's a bit of a jerk-though I'm fond of him-but not around a lot.)

[littlemoonhime.livejournal.com]

Oh, I *LOVE* this manga. I love the anime too, but not as much as the manga. I'm on the current English volume release on the manga. I always get excited when the next one comes out.

I love Kei (sorry) I think he's hilarious. He does pick on Hikari with the whole "number 2" thing, but the impression I got was that he was proud of her being number 2, not so much of like a "ha ha I'm so much better than you." It's because being awesome at everything was always easy for him and nobody was able to ever even touch him before he met Hikari. And while he beats out Hikari, he admires that she is so full of awesome by her hard-work and determination. He does usually *barely* beat her, but I think he makes sure he wins so that she doesn't lose her interest in him since she's made it her life goal to "beat Takashima!" You know?

The whole "number 2" taunting though is definitely a case of "pick on the girl you like to get her attention" though. That stuff doesn't really bother me though, it makes me laugh when guys do that type of stuff.

All I can say is the story gets better from here. I haven't been thrilled with some of the latest stuff because it's getting into the "dragging it out and giving complications to continue" phase of any well-selling anime/manga, but the basic story plot and characters I totally love.

I also really like the rest of the S.A. and I also really like...oh...what's his name. I want to say Yoshiro, but I'm not sure if that's right.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yahiro, I think. I don't dislike Kei and agree-in general terms-with what you've said, except that the manga seems to take it beyond that point. Kei may be making sure she doesn't lose interest, but he makes sure he keeps her interest by reminding her that she'll never be as good as he is.

[swanjun.livejournal.com]

I'd never purchased any volumes of this series and after reading Erin F.'s review (http://www.popcultureshock.com/manga/index.php/reviews/manga-reviews/sa-vols-2-6/) for Manga Recon, I decided that was for the best. Kei sounds positively infuriating, and I have loads of other things I could be reading that didn't tick me off. :)

Btw, I just started High School Debut and love it muchly.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

yeah, that review is pretty spot on. And yet, I want to read more. I think it's because, as the reviewer points out, you want Hikari to win, and to see it. There's enormous potential to the series, it just...isn't living up to it. I also have 3-5. We'll see how that goes. (High School Debut! Yay!)

[badtzphoto.livejournal.com]

I've read a couple of unfavorable reviews (on of Erin's listed above, another one is from sleepisfortheweak or something like that) on this series and decided to wait to see if it gets better. I'm able to check out High School Debut, Monkey High, and Sand Chronicle ... and I like them all so far. Another series I'm on the fence is Love*Com - it gets positive results, but it's almost double other series ...

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I have 3 more volumes that I'll likely read in the next week or two. But from what I've heard aboutfuture volumes, it doesn't look promising.

[badtzphoto.livejournal.com]

that's too bad, the drawing is really cute!

" it gets positive results ..."
I mean "reviews" ...