May 13, 2008

• shoujo

  So I’ve been reading shoujo lately. And I’ve gotta stop that.  I’m definitely more of a shonen guy and now I know why.  Because I’m a sap. Reading this shoujo stuff, it messes me up in the head. Makes me too emotional.  Makes me think weird thoguhts.

  Not that I don’t like Shoujo. I always have. The few I’ve seen or read I’ve enjoyed.  Like Kare Kano (His and Her Circumstances).  I thought that series was absolutely brilliant.  Fushigi Yuugi I thought was fascinating. Ayashi no Ceres interesting, though I hated the ending. I even don’t really mind Sailor Moon, though I wish I’d seen it subbed.

  But I actually don’t like many of the characters in those series. Yui was cool in Fushigi Yuugi but Miaka just annoyed me to no end.  And I can’t think of *any* character I was fond of in Ayashi no Ceres. And although I didn’t dislike any character in Kare Kano, for some reason none of them stuck with me to the point that I really remember them very well.

  No my favorite Shoujo isn’t shoujo at all really. It’s InuYasha!  Inuyasha is just a plain brilliant series. It’s more shonen than shoujo most would say… but… actually the shonen parts are pretty mediocre. It’s the parts where it sort of morphs into a shoujo series where it really becomes exceptional.  And it had a big effect on me back when I was in college. I became obsessed with it.  And it made me sort of emotionally unstable. Well ok, I can’t really blame that on the anime, but it certainly didn’t help any.

  So recently I’ve been reading Imadoki and Pretear. And I’m just starting MeruPuri. I finsihed Pretear just last night. And I think that caused me to wake up in a really weird mood this morning. Sort of irrationally upset over things I thought I’d put behind me.

  I’ll tell you my impressions.of Imadoki and Pretear now, but be warned I will give spoilers. Nothing huge, but you know how it is.

  Now the thing about Shoujo I’ve noticed is that they tend to live or die by their main character. A heroine generally. The extent to which I like them depends on the extent to which I like the heroine. But then maybe that’s just becuase I’m a guy.

  First Imadoki. This is probably my favorite shoujo after Inuyasha (which only partially counts). And really there’s only one reason for that. I really like the female protagonist of this story! Tanpopo. Basically there’s this scene in volume one where she’s like “No matter what, You are going to be my friend!!” The scene is really really cool.

  Yeah so after that Tanpopo could do no wrong in my book. She’s just awesome. And she doesn’t really disappoint me throughout the series.

  The other characters I’m less fond of. The male lead, “Scoop” as he is called, I find somewhat boring. I find his brother to be significantly more interesting and likable but even he gets on my nerves. The side characters are funny but not developed enough for you to really get into. Although, I will say the “Flippy” character is probably one of the most unique characters I’ve encountered in anime. He’s hilarious.

  The plot overall is simple but still very engrossing. It’s a basic high school drama story but with a weird flower theme going throughout. (Tanpopo means dandelion) I found it all thoroughly enjoyable. There were scenes in it that I found very touching. You can tell Yuu Watase is just an incredibly skilled story teller, and she’s gotten better as her works have progressed. I can’t wait to read her most recent works.

  Now, Pretear is another matter.  The plot of Pretear is a warped version of Snow White oddly mixed with Cinderella aspects. The strange thing is that instead of seven dwarves and a prince they have seven prince-like “Leaf Knights”. And each Leaf Knight controls an elemental power. And they all fight against the “Princess of Despair”. The only way the Leaf Kngihts can defeat the princess of despair is by calling upon the power of the Pretear (the heroine) and, I kid you not, “merging” with her.

  So my feelings on Pretear are mixed. I don’t know how much I like it or not. The first volume, I was sort of bored and bewildered by the oddity of it all. The second volume pissed me off. Really, I really didn’t like the heroine in this volume. She was driving me crazy the whole book long. I almost stopped reading. I couldn’t relate to her emotions very well.  I didn’t like how she was like “Oh I suck I shouldn’t have asked” when she found out the story of the past of the old pretear and breaks down crying. I didn’t get that. Of course she should have asked! And what’s the problem? In fact it was pretty easy to guess what had happened anyway. Big deal. Yeah no surprises in this manga. You can figure out who the Princess of Despair will be like in the first ten pages.

  But the thing that really bothered me about Himeno, that’s the heroine’s name, in this volume was the scene where Mawata, Himeno’s step sister asks her to go with her to see Sasame who is sick. Sasame is famous and Mawata obviously likes him and he happens to be the leaf knight of sound. And Himeno just tells her “no”! It’s sooo mean. And there’s no reason for it. Why not bring her sister? I didn’t get it. Presumably it’s to protect her “secret”, but she can always ask her questions in private. And then to make matters worse, Himeno, after denying her step sister, brings her best friend Yayoi along!  What the hell? How does that make sense?

  OK, so that’s why at that point I was thinking I didn’t like Himeno and I wasn’t going to like Pretear very much.

  So imagine my surprise when the manga managed to redeem itself in the last two volumes.

  Himeno is much more understandable to me in volume 3. I really felt I could relate to her concerns about being appreciated only because she was the pretear and feeling like people are sheltering her. I especially could relate to the idea of wondering if your friends are really your friends. Do you really matter to them? That idea that people aren’t seeing her for who she really is, so oft repeated in so many stories, was expressed very well here.

  Volume four the final volume ends the series in a very well done but fairly predictable climax. Himeno is quite enjoyable to watch in this part as she comes to grips with her feelings and that of everyone elses. There is even a part where she sort of admits her msitake with Mawaka and even explains it! I wasn’t expecting that at all. Overall it makes Himeno into a very real and understandable (though still somewhat annoying) character with natural flaws. I don’t like her nearly as much as I like Tanpopo, but I found myself fond of her characterization and in the end I liked the series.

  As for the other characters though, there are a lot but not a whole lot I like. Kei the light knight was interesting. I wanted to learn more about him. And I liked Mannen the knight of Ice quite a bit.  I thought Sasame Knight of Sound was going to turn into a surprise villain throughout the series, but that didn’t really happen, which disappointed me. So I ended up not liking him very much at all. He’s sort of annoying. And I think the main male lead, Hayate is just a jerk.

  Mawate is kind of interesting. The older sister, I forget her name is boring and cliche as is the mother. The father is fun and I love Himeno’s best frined Yayoi. She’s funny and has one cool scene where she has cool lines.

  Anyway,that’s pretty much it. Overall decent. The ending is sort of emotional, if predictable. And that’s what made me feel all weird last night and this morning. Made me think too much.

  As with ALL shoujo everything works out in the end and everyone lives happily ever after in both these series. Bleh. That’s one thing I don’t like about Shoujo so much. Still overall I have to say it was good stuff. At least to me.

  But too emotional. Too sappy. I like that stuff ,but it’s been too much of that at once. Now I need some good death and violence to snap me out of the Shoujo induced melancholy. Please, give me killing! Give me violence!  Give me wanton destruction!  I want mindless level building and random screaming and powering up. I want to be lost in lengthy battle scenes that take three volumes to describe and like 2 seasons to animate!  I want transformations into freakesh creatures accompanied by absurd inconceivable powers!  In short. I need me my classic Shonen Anime!  I’ve about had enough of Shoujo for a little while.

  • 11:48 pm
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