Divine Melody

Hahah...realised I had the title of this spelled wrongly earlier.

Was recommended this manga by the salesperson when (once again am on this) I couldn't find Ichigo Jikan (maybe I should just stop searching for it for now). At first had no interest in it, cos I'm not interested in animal+human love, just doesn't appeal to me at all. The cover picture also gave me a so so feeling, cos it looked really cheena. ;p Finally decided to try it when I got bored and there are already 8 volumes out so I can be entertained for a while (in fantizhi/Taiwanese Chinese I mean, in English there are two volumes with the third out soon).

The main protagonist, Cai Sheng, is supposed to be a fox spirit (but yet different "super" type - ??) and the story tells of her relationship with the boy and girl who saved her life. Strangely (or more interestingly?) she can completely change her gender from male to female and vice versa, at will, although she has grown up and lived most of her life as a female. The story delves a lot into how Cai Sheng matures in thinking, esp when it comes to love, particularly human love. It also deals with the clashes in her wants and her duties, as seen/desired by others and being caught in between her love for humans and fox spirits, which are in an antagonist relationship with each other (humans seeing fox spirits as evil and to be destroyed and fox spirits making use of humans for their own ends).

I think the relationships and how they evolve, and relatively good (though not fantastic) characterisation pulls the story through. The drawing turned out to be better than I expected. Cai Sheng doesn't look half bad as a male. Even better than her as a female! ;p

My Rating:

Story: B
Art: B
Recommended? All right reading with an interesting storyline mostly concentrated on the relationships between the characters, but it can get a bit repetitive in some ways.