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

Last Game

Kujou and Yanagi

Konnichiwa~

Today I'm going to review Last Game by Amano Shinobu, a rather new manga that came out in 2011. Well I guess that isn't too new, but it feelings new since its ongoing and only on volume 4 in Japan. Its been scanlated to chapter 16. Anyway, lets begin:

It begins with the protagonist Hisato Yanagi in elementary school. He's smart, popular, and rich, the center of attention at school and number 1 at everything. That is, until one day Mikoto Kujou transfers and beats him in both in academics and sports. What angers him even more is that she’s quiet, plain, and poor. He soon becomes obsessed with beating her, becoming so desperate he even comes up with a plan to make her fall in love with him; if she does, he’ll consider it a victory. But in his attempts to get closer to her, he falls in love with her. And when falls, he falls hard head-over heals for her. Unfortunately  Kujou has spent most of her life helping and supporting her mother, her only family, so is rather dense when it comes to any type of relationship, even friendship is something unfamiliar to her. The manga skips to them in college: Kujou finally realizes how important Yanagi is to her, how his always been by her side. Though she doesn't realize what she’s in love with him, her social skills are improving. She begins dealing with these new feelings for him that appear. At first she  worries that Yanagi might get annoyed with her and come to hate her and avoids him. But at some point she decides to stay by him and try figure theses new feelings out. That's a good amount of progress for someone as dense as her. There aren’t too many chapters out, so it shouldn’t take long to catch up and start waiting for the new releases.

Now, Yanagi is definitely a tsundere, getting angry whenever he becomes flustered and embarrassed; at first he doesn’t want to admit he has feelings for Kujou and even says that he went out with other girls in a futile attempt to forget her. He’s stopped doing such things and is currently focusing on his feelings for Kujou, looking

Yanagi really cares for Kujou,
its only a matter of time until she
realizes why her hearts racing

out for her and trying to get her to fall for him. He truly cherishes her and enjoys ever moment he can be with her. He's really cute, once they fell asleep next to each other and he held her hand, when he woke up he adorably apologized for taking advantage of her. He’s so cute that you can’t help but root for him. Then there’s Kujou; quiet, studious, and cool. I typically dislike female leads that are dense, but I can’t really hate Kujou who’s spent so much of her life trying to take care of her mother. She’s hardworking in all aspects of life, even when it comes to making new friends. After realizing how important Yanagi is to her, she begins wanting to make friends and experience life a bit more, trying to do things beside housework and studying. And despite not understanding her feelings for Yanagi, its obvious that she cares about him.

The art is lovely as well, very clean and smooth; though the ink lines seem a bit thick at times, it’s overall very charming; the eyes aren’t too big and they look about their age. Though the romance looks like its going to be rather slow, I think its building up to something great and worth-while. 

~Nadeshiko-chan

Blue Spring Ride

Kou and Futaba: Their love seen to be cursed,
something always getting in the way

Konnichiwa~

Nadeshiko-chan here and I forgot to post yesterday. I’m a little late, but anyway I’ll be reviewing Ao Haru Ride by Sakisaka Io on this fine winter day. The ongoing series begins with the heroine, Yoshioka Futaba, in middle school; she’s a timid, cute, and feminine girl who dislikes boys, since she finds them loud and obnoxious. Well, except for Tanaka Kou, a gentle and rather quiet boy, that also has feelings for her. They decide to go to the festival together, but because of a series of misunderstand and mishaps, he stands her up. She wants to confront him and work things out, but when she goes to school she finds out he’s transferred to another school, thus she’s left without closure. Then she begins gaining the attention of other boys because of her cute, girly attitude, causing her female “friends” to ostracize her.

The story then skips to her first year in high school, Futaba working hard to reset her image, becoming a tomboy and making her large appetite known in order to keep boys away. She has very shallow relationships with her new “friends” that only like her because even though she’s cute, she’s too boyish to pose a threat to them. Towards the end of her 1^st year, she reunites with Tanaka, but like her self, he’s changed; first of all he goes under the name of Mabuchi Kou now and more his masculine and sarcastic. He tells her that he felt the same way as she did when they were younger, but that they can’t go back and she agrees, just happy to have closure. Her feelings for the past him are done, but she soon starts developing feelings for the present him, for Mabuchi Kou. Also, after she meets him, she befriends Yuuri Makita, who was ostracized by the girls because she’s cute and popular among boys like Futaba was in middle school. Though their friendship takes some time to develop, they soon become true friends that care about each other. Later, they become a trio with Shuuko Murao, the cool “lone wolf” of their class. Though it’s hard to tell whether she likes them at all at first, it soon becomes apparent that she cares about them and she steadily begins opening up to them.  Anyway, as Futaba stops worrying about what others think, her crush for Kou continue develops and her concern for him leads her to helping him deal with his family issues. After which, he also begins to fall for her once again, the only problem is he isn’t very honest with his feelings and someone from his past keeps distracting him. But he better hurry, because he’s not the only one interested in Futaba. I’ll end it at that, I don’t want to spoil too much.

Now the characters: I originally didn’t like Futaba as a heroine, trying to change herself just to make “friends”, but then I realized that it must have been traumatic for her after being abandoned by all those who she thought

Futaba; Kou; Yuuri
Youchi (Kou's older brother); Shuuko; Aya

were her friends. And after awhile I realized she was rather honest, always doing her best and putting in all her power when she’s determined about something. She’s got a lot of spunk and is working on another one of her major character faults: avoiding a problem instead of facing it head on. As you read you might notice this bad habit of hers and see moments where she’s able to over come it. Then there’s the male lead Kou, dishonest and distant Kou, keeping himself away from the rest of group. Originally Futaba simply reminded him of his happier days before his family turmoil, but he starts to developing feelings for the present Futaba as well. These feelings become more apparent after she helps him deal with some his family issues, but he doesn't feel it’s the appropriate time to act on his feelings. Overall he's very kind and looks out for her, he simply can’t be honest with his feelings. The only one whose aware of his situation and his feeelings for her are Aya so far, someone he meets because of Futaba and became best friends with. But the series is ongoing, so things might change. There are 29 chapters out so far and I highly recommend reading those and waiting for the next chapter in this love-fillled high school drama

~Nadeshiko-chan