The Good Witch of the West

The title made me think of the Oz series straightaway tho there is no relation and the good witch in Oz was usually referring to Glinda of Oz of the South in most of the books.

Anyway, I was not very attracted to the art and therefore I think I've passed this over a few times. But it surprised me when I got hooked onto it. The only problem is, that before you start, you ought to know that Tokyopop has not printed volume 7 for ages and despite me visiting their website and all I'm still none the wiser if they are have dropped this series altogether due in part to the economic downturn and decrease in demand.

I guess if you've read the synopsis you would not be wrong to have assumed it's another pauper becomes a princess fairytale (every girl's dream come true, uh) and in a way it is, but it's not all that cliched because actually the girl wasn't really suffering or unhappy living a simple country life and the royal life ahead of her isn't exactly peaches and cream. Despite it being "fantasy" there really isn't that much in terms of magic or the supernatural and it instead focuses on the court politics (and strangely there are the catty jealous girls you see in most school life shojo, tho' presented in a different era). Sad to say, despite the girl being non irritable most of the time and not falling over this or that, she is rather unrealistic and sometimes more like a fluffy cottony personality rather than a capable intelligent young lady. I'm really glad that it was not too angsty or back and forth like with her love interest.

Halfway through reading this, I realised that I started thinking of Rune, her tormented childhood friend as very like Zero, and Eusis, the cool and sophisticated queen's knight as Kaname. However, in this story, I don't feel so distracted by this triangle as it isn't set up with too much wrenching emotion as was VK's. It's also settled about half way through so there's only the girl and her love interest's problems to seriously worry about (as if that wasn't enough). And, strangely, there is also a bit of shojo ai. Looking at the covers it seems to have gotten darker from volume one to six.

My Rating:
Story: B, a bit more exciting, with different elements of politics, intrigue, etc.
Art: B ok, a bit old style and the characters weren't like really bishie or anything.
Recommended? Ok, but seems also abandoned by publisher so how...??