| Average |
9.6 |
| Design |
10 |
| Story |
10 |
| Character |
9 |
| Value |
9 |
| Enjoyment |
10 |
| The Kamiakaze Kaitou Jeanne manga is, in my opinion, everything I like about Tanemura Arina's work combined into one package.
Strong-willed heroines. Maron is neither a damsel in distress or a violent wench. She is, however, very insecure, and at the beginning of the series that could get quite annoying for someone who's never seen anything KKJ related ever before. But Maron's personality, as a whole, changes in literally a few chapters, and for the better. By the end of the series I was rooting her on and wishing her good luck in anything she did. I've almost never seen a single other manga I've ever liked enough to get into an entire series of manga just because of one character I really liked.
Beautiful art. The city landscapes are not your typical Japanese ones like in every other Ribon series out there. This city is like a mishmash of America and Europe city settings, but manages to still be realistic enough in its setting to be believably Japan. As for actual art: the attention is in the details. Even rooms look diverse and are fun to look at with Tanemura Arina's art style. Her character designs are also very cute, if not similar from manga to manga (Full Moon, most noticeably). Still, there's not enough variety in the clothes the characters wear to tell them apart. Kaitou Jeanne's outfit manages to be cute without looking gaudy, unlike a certain 10-year old cardcaptor I can name..
Plot twists. When I first read Kaitou Jeanne, I thought it was going to be a story about a girl theif who steals stuff, meets a guy, falls from him, stops stealing, something bad happens, they stop it together, and they live happily ever after. There's quite a bit more to it than that. I won't spoil it for you, but it involves betrayal and time travel. There's also a final battle in the last chapter that isn't your typical final battle in a manga series. It works realy well considering Maron's character.
Humor. Tanemura Arina is a very amusing person. If you've ever read any of her stories in volume form, you would know all about her and her weirdo assisstants and the miscellaneous things they run into. This carries over to her manga as well: chibis are often used at times to break up the tension, as is some truly far-fecthed setups (one later chapter has Maron thinking that a bratty boy treating her like crap can only be explained by his having a demon insisde of him). The humor is funny not because it contains social commentary or satire, but because the humor is character driven. Any manga can have the characters say random pop culture references and be funny, though shallow. But then there are series like Azumanga Daioh and KKJ whose humor relies on knowing the cast.
If there's anything bad I can say about this manga, it's the mascot. Fin Fish has to be the single most annoying magical girl mascot I've ever seen (a problem that stil continued in Arina's next work, Time Stranger Kyoko, with its Digi Charat knockoff character Chocola). Another problem is that she's also the cause of much of the grief of the final three volumes, but seldom appears save to cause more grief. She's one of those kinds of characters you wish she would get what's coming ot her (and believe me, when you read volume 5, you WILL wish that), only to find out she doesn't. I also have a problem with Miyako, Maron's "childhood friend", who often treats her like crap and only is selfless and helpful when the manga needs her to be. She doesn't become a sympatehtic character until the final volumes, and considering how much of the series she's in (she's trying to catch Kaitou Jeanne after all), I figured Arina would've developed her more beyond that of a traditional tomboy best friend. Oh well.
Even with a couple of annoying characters and the disturing truth of how almost every male in this manga looks the same, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne is far and beyond my favorite Tanemura Arinam, and probably my favorite shoujo. I can high recommendations of it, and I'm glad CMX give it a great translation (even if it took them quite a while to finally release it).
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