Mochiron!

A lot of my long shoujo manga I was reading ended(done being scanlated really) since we last saw each other. I’ve found myself with a limited selection. Isn’t that sad? But let’s get it over with.

Special A

God, what a retarded manga. All that challenging and beating lead to a very uneventful ending. Everybody getting involved with other peoples problems and drama. If you like that sort of thing, be onemanga’s guest. Read it. But I will say this, Minami Maki did a better job with ‘You’re my Girlfriend’ then with Special A. ‘You’re my Girlfriend’ just had four chapters. Special A was long, drawn out and completely boring at several points. If you like romantically numb girls that involve themselves too much in their friends’ business, than here you go. Eat all 99 chapters of this up. Now, I think personally, Minami’s art is beautiful. Her young men are exceptionally good looking, but this story… It should’ve been over in five volumes. But I will say that Hikari and Kei are a wonderful pair and I’m glad the other pairings worked out the way that they did. So I can’t be upset with anything other than, it was too much sidetracking and not enough romance.

Desire Climax

One manga that didn’t disappoint me was Desire Climax. It was smut, romance, intrigue, violence, homosexual prostitution of minors, maid costume, incestuous feelings, and general teenage angst. It ended well enough to me and didn’t keep me in suspense for like 80 billion chapters.  Oh yes, all that I needed in a manga at my current age (which is 27). I like reading shoujo for the drama because I do like the high school nonsense. And really reading about the human condition in such situations. And this really put it in perspective of what a real shoujo heroine has to deal with. It’s geared to teenage girls but doesn’t have any of the sugar coating. It’s raw and although it has drama that not all teenagers have to deal with, someone can step back and say “Dear god, I’m glad my life isn’t such a sewer.”

Koukou Debut

Koukou Debut, I think I will forever treasure and love this manga. And in case people think I’m a total pervert because of Desire Climax. Wrong! Not even a single amount of smut in this manga. Although sex is an issue in one chapter, it’s pretty wholesome. The art by Kawahara is lovely and even the side characters are delved into but for the most part, it stays the course focusing mostly on Haruna and Yoh. Haruna is slightly spastic and she actually makes progress like I would like to think a normal girl would. But this is manga, normal girls aren’t found here, are they? Nevertheless, it’s a charming tale. Nothing violent or overly-alarming, just a couple trying to cope with emotions and feelings they can’t really describe. Very cute and since it’s licensed by Viz, buy it. BUY IT! It even has an extra chapter called Enren Debut, if you wanna check it out. It gives us a little bit of closure because the end was just a bit sad for Haruna. God, that girl is way stronger than me.

All in all, two picks out of three. I’d suggest watching the Special A anime to save you some time. But that was horrible too. And that’s just the opening and ending songs that are pretty bad. The story itself… Well, let’s never bring this up again.