Manga Thoughts: Secret of the Princess
When deciding to take a chance at last on beginning to read Milk Morinaga's "Gakuen Polizi" manga (only to surprise myself discovering it really was complete in two volumes), it's at least possible I was thinking ahead to news another one of her "girls' love" titles was going to be published in English. I did understood "Secret of the Princess" was complete in one volume (with a larger page size than normal), but perhaps I was still wondering how this one would turn out.
"Secret of the Princess," though, did wind up having one important advantage over "Gakuen Polizi" in that it seemed focused on being a romance. It starts off with Miu, who always tries to be "cute and girly" on her mother's advice to be ready to snag a husband, happening to see the much taller and athletic Fujiwara accidentally breaking an expensive vase at school. Fujiwara's plea that "I'll do anything if you won't tell" gets Miu to propose they become a "pretend couple" so she can get some practice at her all-girls' school for her future, but as this manga is neither criticizing "old-fashioned attitudes" nor dealing with the "psychological thriller" possibilities of blackmail, specific unintended consequences soon develop...
Morinaga's artwork keeps adding to a "cute and fluffy" impression, and the story's complete-in-one-volume nature offers a directness of development without much of a sense of things being dragged out through misunderstandings and hesitations. I did notice two characters introduced along the way who just might have amounted to "rivals" but in the space allowed turn out to be more just "people to talk to." I did take about the same notice of Fujiwara turning out to live in a great big house with domestic servants as I do of any of the many other anime or manga that also include that; I did use to wonder about just what this could be taken to say about the society they're produced in before happening to think that so far as American comics go "Archie" has Veronica Lodge.
After the pleasant and definite conclusion, there's a short-short "bonus chapter" with different characters set in a high school chemistry lab, different enough in general to get my attention. Thinking ahead from this manga, though, I am contemplating that Seven Seas has already started publishing yet another new Milk Morinaga series, which I've already bought the first volume of...
This entry was originally posted at http://krpalmer.dreamwidth.org/277347.html. Comment here or there (using OpenID) as you please.
"Secret of the Princess," though, did wind up having one important advantage over "Gakuen Polizi" in that it seemed focused on being a romance. It starts off with Miu, who always tries to be "cute and girly" on her mother's advice to be ready to snag a husband, happening to see the much taller and athletic Fujiwara accidentally breaking an expensive vase at school. Fujiwara's plea that "I'll do anything if you won't tell" gets Miu to propose they become a "pretend couple" so she can get some practice at her all-girls' school for her future, but as this manga is neither criticizing "old-fashioned attitudes" nor dealing with the "psychological thriller" possibilities of blackmail, specific unintended consequences soon develop...
Morinaga's artwork keeps adding to a "cute and fluffy" impression, and the story's complete-in-one-volume nature offers a directness of development without much of a sense of things being dragged out through misunderstandings and hesitations. I did notice two characters introduced along the way who just might have amounted to "rivals" but in the space allowed turn out to be more just "people to talk to." I did take about the same notice of Fujiwara turning out to live in a great big house with domestic servants as I do of any of the many other anime or manga that also include that; I did use to wonder about just what this could be taken to say about the society they're produced in before happening to think that so far as American comics go "Archie" has Veronica Lodge.
After the pleasant and definite conclusion, there's a short-short "bonus chapter" with different characters set in a high school chemistry lab, different enough in general to get my attention. Thinking ahead from this manga, though, I am contemplating that Seven Seas has already started publishing yet another new Milk Morinaga series, which I've already bought the first volume of...
This entry was originally posted at http://krpalmer.dreamwidth.org/277347.html. Comment here or there (using OpenID) as you please.