Seiho 3 and Ceres
I recently read all of Ceres: Celestrial Legend, and really, think that Viz should give it the VizBig treatment. It's one of those dark plotty manga that I adore so much. Plot summary: On her 16th birthday, Aya learns that she has a dark side- a 'celestial maiden' named Ceres who is pissed about the theft of her 'celestial robes'. It takes all of Aya's cunning to keep Ceres from killing everyone she loves and keep one step ahead of her own family, which is desperate to kill or capture her. There's the requisite mooning over boring mysterious guy, but even that is pulled into the plot in a way that seems seamless and not forced at all.
Aya is my favorite character- gutsy and devoted to the ones she loves. I also like Yuhi, who despite playing second fiddle to boring mysterious Touya, manages to be gutsy and bold. This series, I should warn you, has much violence and some near rape scenes. There are some romantic sex scenes in which you can't really see anything, but some may be annoyed with the OMG, WE'RE DOING IT BECAUSE WE'RE SO IN LUUUURVE stuff. Series like this are why I'm always confused when people talk about shoujo being sweet. We don't generally think of shonen as sweet, even with a million Cute Girls: No Plot series around. In fact, when I read shoujo, I am not ever surprised if I end up reading about child abuse, rapist and rapee in love, or supernatrual forces tearing someone's body apart. I guess some people are socialized to think 'girl=sweet' and so they think shoujo is sweet, despite tons of evidence to the contrary.
I've been reading Seiho vol 3, which is a send up of some shoujo tropes. In this volume, there is "girl dresses up as guy" and "yaoi fan girl". The girl dresses up as guy story is fairly funny, and Miyagi is pretty genre savvy. The yaoi fan girl story is typical, but elicited some chuckles. I personally don't think having two girls named Erika in the same country is too big of a coincidence, but then again "Erica' is a common name here, so it's not shocking to me. The Nogami and Fuku story apparently was changed(author's side note). I bet the original ending was very cynical, and more funny than the sappy ending here, but I'm more of a fan of Nogami's assholeness than of romance.
Aya is my favorite character- gutsy and devoted to the ones she loves. I also like Yuhi, who despite playing second fiddle to boring mysterious Touya, manages to be gutsy and bold. This series, I should warn you, has much violence and some near rape scenes. There are some romantic sex scenes in which you can't really see anything, but some may be annoyed with the OMG, WE'RE DOING IT BECAUSE WE'RE SO IN LUUUURVE stuff. Series like this are why I'm always confused when people talk about shoujo being sweet. We don't generally think of shonen as sweet, even with a million Cute Girls: No Plot series around. In fact, when I read shoujo, I am not ever surprised if I end up reading about child abuse, rapist and rapee in love, or supernatrual forces tearing someone's body apart. I guess some people are socialized to think 'girl=sweet' and so they think shoujo is sweet, despite tons of evidence to the contrary.
I've been reading Seiho vol 3, which is a send up of some shoujo tropes. In this volume, there is "girl dresses up as guy" and "yaoi fan girl". The girl dresses up as guy story is fairly funny, and Miyagi is pretty genre savvy. The yaoi fan girl story is typical, but elicited some chuckles. I personally don't think having two girls named Erika in the same country is too big of a coincidence, but then again "Erica' is a common name here, so it's not shocking to me. The Nogami and Fuku story apparently was changed(author's side note). I bet the original ending was very cynical, and more funny than the sappy ending here, but I'm more of a fan of Nogami's assholeness than of romance.
Labels: manga reviews
1 Comments:
funnily enough,I have just bought the whole ceres on ebay. Yeah, its pretty damn awesome :)
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