ARISA

Arisa and Tsubasa

Konbanwa~

Today I’ll be reviewing the shoujo manga ARISA by Ando Natsumi. The manga is 12 volumes in Japan and has been completely scanlated. Lets begin:

The heroine of this mystery story is the bold, brash, and tomboyish Tsubasa whose often mistaken for a delinquent because of bleached blonde hair and tough attitude. Poor Tsubasa died her hair because she thought it be cute and dreams of being a normal school girls who goes to cute little shops with her friends. Anyway, her parents divorced when she was rather young and she was separated from her twin sister Arisa, who went to live with their mom while Tsubasa stayed with their father. They communicate through letters and one day, Arisa invites her sister to come sleep over. Things seem to be going well, until Tsubasa witnesses Arisa’s sudden suicide attempt. She is shocked, having formed this idea that her gentler sister led a joyful and peaceful school life. She wants to know what drove her sister’s desire to end her life, but since she’s in a coma, Tsubasa decides to take her place at school and find out for herself. She soon discovers that on Friday, during free period, Arisa’s class send their wishes to a mysterious figure known as KING.  The mighty KING will only grant one wish weekly and often uses violence to grant it. Also, if someone angers the KING, the class will make sure to erase their existence; ignoring them, throwing garbage on their desks, and other vicious forms of bullying until they finally leave school.. Tsubasa becomes determined to stop the KING and find out who it is, hoping that this will save Arisa since he may be the reason of her attempted suicide. She soon partner ups with one of Arisa’s classmates, Akira Manabe, who also wants to stop the KING and their violent, unjust methods.

The KING manipulates the class, is able to use others as a chess piece to get what it wants, them easily tosses them aside. And the psychological effects they have on the class is frightening.

The story overall doesn’t have much romance, but there is some here and there. The mystery and action itself

Manabe

is entertaining. Even when you know who the KING is, its difficult to understand their motives, goal, and plan. And though Tsubasa isn’t the smartest, she makes progress following her instincts and is brave to face the cruel KING, is determined enough to protect others. Sure sometimes she does fall into the KING’s trap, but she always manages to make up for it, to learn her lesson so that it doesn’t happen again. Something I particularly liked about this manga is the psychological aspect, how the KING affects the class, why characters do what they do. Inferiority complexes, loneliness, twisted love: the mangaka shows you how it developed inside a character and in some cases, how it drove them to near madness. There isn’t much romance in the manga, though Tsubasa does “fall in love” it was more like she was being manipulated. I do enjoy the relationship between Tsubasa and Manabe: they’re partners who take care of each and watch each other’s back. It’s a wonderful friendship and probably could’ve been a great romance, but they never get to that point. Its implied that Manabe has feelings for Tsubasa, but we don’t really know how she feels. I wouldn’t really call it a romance manga, its more about the malpratices of the KING and how Tsubasa wants to stop them. So I recommend reading this manga and seeing Tsubasa’s battle against the cunning and twisted KING.

~Nadeshiko-chan