Manga of the Month - July

I'm sad and yet happy that I can only vent out my manga enthusiasm on this blog, writing my opinions down allows me to improve the way I present them, instead of being overly zealous (which happens while I'm speaking so I look like I'm talking jack), this unfortunately tends to scare my audiences away, even so, only the most patient of people read my manga talks on this blog, and to them, I am grateful. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside :D

So, time for some manga, well, I'll be talking about a series that is relatively newly started and I only finished reading yesterday. I really enjoyed it as I could relate to some aspects of it (as I will be detailing later on), but let me tell you how I got into this manga and the mangaka's works (the manga writer).

*Ahem* well, I came along the series name 'Kimi ni Todoke' or 'Reaching you' in english,.I read the blurb and thought 'this is not something I'd read' but what brought me into reading it was not the artwork, or the storyline, but the covering picture, it was of the two main characters just looking into each others eyes.... Now this little scene has been overly replayed in shoujo (girl's) manga, but for some reason this paticular picture really grabbed my attention and it made me sort of sink into the picture too.

I decided then and there that I'd read it, so I clicked onto the link for the prologue and LO! There was an example of one of the best drawing styles I've seen, simple but bold, delicate but affective, and most of all, wonderfully variable! (you'll understand me if you read it, which you won't, because not many people even read my recommendations.. or listen to me for that matter).

Well, let me get to the plot of the story, It's about this girl called Sawako, but she's accidentally called 'Sadako' as the scray girl character from the film 'The ring' (originally japanese) was called Sadako. And due to her unfortunate stereotypical appearance of a 'Traditional Japanese ghost' she's feard by her entire school, this had been going on scince elementary school when a rhumour became fact by word of mouth. (I hate it when that happens). She therefore gains no social skills of communicative skills, and her kind intentions are always misinterpreted. Resulting in an accumulated classroom fear of Sawako and her isolation.

The humour of the situation is well described in the manga, but the sadness is not ignored. I could understand Sawako's situation slightly (not to say i'm some sort of rhumoured ghost) but in the respect that I too could only start speking with people when I was 14/15, I even had no personality until I was 17. So I could relate to the female protagonist alot and it made me empathise with her too.

A word on the themes of the story must be mentioned, I'm doing a disrespect by mentioning it so late, so i'll just start now :D The romance is really cute, it is slowly drawn out and develops gradually, from a respect to a care to a deep feeling, which I assume is what's supposed to happen rather than a 'love at first sight' crap? But the importance of the romance in the story I believe is overshadowed by the indispensability of friendship. The great focus in 'Kimi ni Todoke' is the journey Sawako makes to enhance her communication skills and aquire friends, something I too can relate too and respect its difficulty.

It is a Shoujo but it does not exclude the male audience, however if you're looking for bad ass awesome fight and action this is not for you, if you're looking for something that relates to human relationships and good comedy with subtlty but not overly thoughtful, then this is for you.

I hope someone out there gets affected by this >_< I really do love this manga and give it 9/10.