The January issue of Shojo Beat wasn’t really anything exciting. The preview of Be With You didn’t do anything for me. Haruka felt kind of disjointed, like panels were missing as the characters made huge leaps in time and space. On the plus side, Absolute Boyfriend is on it’s last chapters, so with the end of that comes some relief. But I am still stuck with Vampire Knight, which was as predictable as ever. I’m liking Crimson Hero as long as they say on the game and Norbara’s continued development. Honey and Clover had the obligatory Christmas chapters, and Sand Chronicles didn’t make me cry this time. I did like the fortune telling feature. That was fun to check out. And the featurette on Japanese disaster movies. I really like those kinds of movies, and will have to try and find some of them such as the new Japan Sinks! The February issue was a lot better. I loved the preview of Monkey High! Give me those snarky shojo protagonists! I liked Haruna, and Macharu is cute. I can’t wait to read the whole volume! My faith in Haruka is restored after a moment of doubt with the last chapter….
Warning: The following contain spoilers for Nana Volume 8. This last week I posted a review at Manga Village of Nana Volume 8. In it, I wrote that I wished Viz had waited until after this volume to move Nana to a Mature rating. The manga started serialization in Shojo Beat, and was rated Older Teen (16 and +) to match the magazine’s rating. After 7 volumes, Nana was “graduated” from Shojo Beat to be published straight to graphic novel with the higher Mature rating. Dirk Deppey of Journalista in his Feb. 8, 2008 blog entry was quick to point to a love scene as the reason, which other than one frame, was identical to every other love scene in the previous 7 volumes. Sorry. That doesn’t cut it for me. There has to be more to it than just one frame. I believe the reasons it was taken out was for the very reasons I think I should have stayed in; the subject matter. With this volume, Nana starts to get into some serious subjects; pregnancy, abortion, having a child out of wedlock and marriage for convenience instead of love. Everything starts out as usual. NanaK. has broken up…
I’m not much of a shojo/romance kind of gal. My first forays into manga was through the Shonen Jump action titles. When my Animerica subscription got converted (after two issues) to Shojo Beat, I was sure there wasn’t going to be anything in there for me. Almost 2 years later, I’ve changed my tune, but that’s because shojo isn’t afraid to have romantic leads with bite! (And I don’t mean vampires…) In honor of Valentine’s Day, here are some shojo manga where the leads are anything but romantic!
Shojo Beat, the sister anthology magazine to Shonen Jump has been going through a lot of changes lately. Of the six manga that started the magazine, only two remain. The rest were graduated out for one reason or another. But, with the line up they’ve got now, I think the magazine has finally found a good balance of titles that really make it shine. To start off the December issue of Shojo Beat, we are treated to a preview of a new manga; High School Debut. Reading the short description didn’t enthuse me to the title. A girl just starting in high school wants to get a boyfriend, so she finds another guy to coach her. Blah. I really wasn’t interested in another “girl wants boyfriend like in manga” story. But, as usual, I read the preview anyway, and was pleasantly surprised. Haruna, the heroine, wasn’t too annoying in her pursuit to bag a boy. But it was Yoh, the boy who knows just what a boy will like in a girl, that really endeared me to this preview. He has a sharp tongue and really doesn’t care what people think. He reminds me a lot of Kiri from Beauty…