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Kareshi Kanojo no Jijo
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Design - 7.7 |
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Story - 8.3 |
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Character - 9.0 |
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Value - 8.7 |
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Enjoyment - 8.7 |
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Average - 8.5 |
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| Average |
8.6 |
| Design |
8 |
| Story |
8 |
| Character |
9 |
| Value |
9 |
| Enjoyment |
9 |
| I'm a big fan of the Kare Kano the anime, but i'm not a huge fan of the manga version of it. I still think kare kano manga should be considered as the better part of the ocean of shoujo mangas out there, but let's face it - this manga just get way to whiny towards the end with way too much with teenage angst.
Kare Kano is clearly a manga driven more by characters. Thus for this manga to suceed, it is imperative that this manga has a set of characters that really grabs our attention. Definitely Miyazawa Yukino initially does grab out attention as the queen of vanity. Her tranformation through the manga is probably one of the most insightful thing you will readin shoujo manga. She is a fun and understandable character without going over the top.
Souichiro Arima on the other hand is a youth heavily troubled by his past, and acts too much like it. He is conflicted with his inner evil and hides that evil in his heart so that Yukino won't see it. This supression of his anger and fear drives him madness. Although this conflict is good in scheme, it goes a bit over the top in the middle volumes. fortunately for the series it does recover from its long way to dragged out angsty souichiro arc and introduces another character from souichiros cast to finally enliven the storyline around volume 18 i believe.
Beside the two main characters there tons more in the story. Tsubasa, Kazuma, Hideaki, Tonami, Sakura, and whole bunch more. And all these characters have their own little issues and problems. Out of all of them, Tsubasa and Hideaki is the only ones worth mentioning. Although I saw the whole Tsubasa thing coming, I didn't see what will happen to Hideaki in the volume 21.
There is one thing that I never got around in the characters and that is blushing. They all blush way too much. I mean I don't necessarily have problem with shounen-ai stuff, but blushing way too much just got me a little annoyed. I mean gimme a break! They are blushing at technically nothing sometimes. They have too much blood in their face or something...
Another thing that Ifound disturbing is the elitism. All the maincharacters are above the normal crowd and they shut off the normal crowd off from them. This I found very annoying, but in a way it is true of teenage life. Coolpeople hang out with their own crowd, while the normal people hang out on their own. This manga intentionally or unintentionally draws out this line where the cool crowd and the normal ones divide. Anybody who went to highschool or even jrhigh would understand this. This manga by portraying the elites only seems to support this elitest notion of personhood although they may have their own problems.
Story itself is not all that importantn because this manga is soomuch character driven. As newpeople appears a person's past get revealed and dealt with. That how the story progresses.
The design sometimes is sloppy but in generalitis nicely drawn. They are all bit too pretty boy type, but isn'tall shoujo like that?
All and in all this work should be read with serious intent. There is a lot of things here that one can unpack as one read. This manga with blend of comedy, angst, and deep characters built a long but intestresting life of many teenagers. It is a worthy read for any and all shoujo fans.
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| Average |
8.2 |
| Design |
8 |
| Story |
8 |
| Character |
9 |
| Value |
8 |
| Enjoyment |
8 |
| (scanlations and official Tokyopop version, plus the Japanese raw for the last two volumes, though I dont know Japanese, just wanted to admire the artwork)
Since I'm planning to watch the anime version of Kare Kano, it would be a shame not to have read the much acclaimed manga as well. I only had reservations because it was shoujo and over 20 volumes. I had prior experience with Fruits Basket and thought it would turn boring in the second half.
Fortunately -excluding volumes 11,12 and 13- the rest of the manga was very good and perhaps one of the best post-90's shoujo mangas ever. From volume 14 it becomes darker and the comedy elements of the previous volumes are cast aside. Instead the painfull past of Arima and his family is examined.
In a way Kare Kano resembles Fruits Basket a lot but it is much better represented with more mature characters and better design and presentation. Only drawback was that the short spaces devoted to the mangaka's ramblings get quite tedious after a while (though the books, movies and theatres she mentions are not to be ignored, since they provide a lot of cultural info on Japan and other countries as well)
The characters are outstanding and there is plenty of room for everyone's story. I wasnt interested in all of them and many of their stories are repeated countless times in many mangas but where kare Kano excells is combining all of them together. Even at times when the story seems out of pace and there is useless chatter typical in shoujo the mangaka manages to add new twists and immediately recatch the readers attention. Not many shoujo mangas can do that effectively.
The design is overall good. Sometimes it manages to convey the characters feelings perfectly, other times it gets very funny, especially the chibi versions and others it gets boring, as in most shoujo mangas read by a male audience.
But overall it is a worthy purchase and since I dont have the eagerness anymore to read mangas as an introduction to the genre, thus adding more points, this is the best shoujo I've read.
Note also that the mangaka, even at her interview with Tokyopop, never mentions the anime adaptation. She was against it from the start. Lets see how Gainax adapted the manga.
Off to watch the anime!
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| Average |
8.6 |
| Design |
7 |
| Story |
9 |
| Character |
9 |
| Value |
9 |
| Enjoyment |
9 |
| It is easy to believe that Kare Kano was created and published over the course of years.. because with each volume, there is a sense of growth and change to the series and characters that becomes more and more evident until the first is so different from the fifteenth you're just blown away. (Kind of like how a one year-old person has changed so much when they become 15 :3 me and my dumb metaphors..) To get to the point, Kare Kano is about life. Or rather those few wonderfully whimsical and scary years of highschool. There are two main characters at the helm of the main story, and tons of great side characters that get some substantial time in the spotlight now and then.
While the central theme may seem like first love, I felt it was more about psychological change and growth that one undergoes from their youth to their adulthood. On one hand it's a slife-of-life story, following the teens' experiences from the carefree days of culture festivals, school trips, and precious best friends- to peer pressure and ignorance, the pressure to the be the best and mask our faults, the pressure to succumb to vengeful desires (you didn't expect that last one! ^__^)
The series has alot of crazy and fun humour.. but also at the other end of the spectrum, the most dark and malicious aspects of human nature can rear its head every now and then. The writing is clever and endears the many characters, and the romance is quite striking without being too sappy to be realistic. That is Kare Kano's strongpoint- it manages to evolve considerably across 15 volumes without losing focus, and providing some stirring character reflections that one can easily parallel with one's own life and experiences.
So I think it's pretty clear.. I love Kare Kano! ^o^ I highly reccomend it to shoujo fans. One last note- I didn't like the first five volumes. I could have very well disliked them. It was because I saw the first 15 episodes of the anime (which I absolutely loved..) so I knew everything that was going to happen and it marred the experience by default.
But from volume six everything really solidifies.. even the artwork becomes more beautiful, the writing as well, more headstrong and varied plotlines (like that crazy school play! and poor Arima's ugly past comes to haunt him.. and the diverse lives of the side characters get some distinct attention) often altering the tone of the series, things stay fresh even with the excessive monologues
Now for drawbacks. I always leave these for last huh. Anyway the art starts off really sub-par, like maybe a 6 and gradually grows into a 9. If the two complicated main characters don't grow on you in time, it might not be easy to love this series. Now the biggest thing.. it's not a drawback, it's more the price of evolution. I can kinda see why the director of the Kare Kano anime series (head of Gainax ^^) lost interest and decided not to take KK any further. Across the exspanse of the series, the tones change so dramatically. I adapted to these and ended up liking the series even more, but it can be upsetting for some readers because the characters and content mature.. and the both writing, story, and mood can alter drastically.
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