Maria Holic

Brief Summary: Girl enrolls in mission school looking for love...amongst the all female intake. She meets with rude crossdressing Maria and realises soon enough that she is a he.

All this while I was wondering why the female (erm, male) protag looked so familiar and after googling a bit have found out the mangaka, Minari Endo is the same as that for Dazzle/Hatenko Yugi. And just like Dazzle, it has also been made into an anime, although hopefully it won't turn out like the former, leaving the storyline hanging halfway with no further seasons (what were they thinking with that one?).

I don't know if this is actually supposed to be a shojo ai/yuri manga, as it's usually labelled "romance". However, so far the overtones have been quite strong. I'm not into that genre so I'm only sticking around to see what the mangaka's doing with the two protags and curious about the reason why the male protag has to cross dress.

However, having gone through some more of it, I'm not sure it's for me. The storyline is getting stranger and stranger and there are elements I just don't get. I will put it aside. I was hoping for something better than Dazzle, which I think I'll abandon too.

Fantastic Detective Labyrinth

Ongoing anime and manga

Brief Summary: At the start of the story, 30 years have passed since a huge earthquake destroyed Tokyo. Only a few people remain in the old city and crime is rampant, some of which are unsolvable by the police and are termed phantom cases. Enter the young detective, seemingly rich cute and innocent little Mayuki, who manages to solve the crimes the police cannot.

I do seem to have a soft spot for detective/crime/mystery type stories, although for episodic ones like this I really focus on the background linking storyline as well. This one is pretty interesting and I tried to check out the full story on it on wiki but there just wasn't much. Surprised that even the episode guides haven't been filled out. Usually fans are more diligent! :) Or, maybe there just aren't that many fans of this?

The characters are cute and well, they are school kids so I guess characterization doesn't get too complicated; however, it's the same thing for the adults as well - there isn't much background on their motivations or personalities. Maybe we'll get to that later. For the children, the twin brothers are very easy to tell apart, something I realised from the beginning as they are quite different. Perhaps that was intentional or else we'd be lost half the time. The main character is cute (shotacon?) and the center of many females' affections. There seems to be a bit of fanservice going on here, with at least two of the women's breasts bigger than reasonable. None of the characters are particularly irritating, which is good. :) The main character is really overly saccharine sometimes until one feels it's unbelieveable and unrealistic. Very girly too for a boy, and I've read some commenters say the voice talent was so obviously a lady.

The one thing that kept cropping up in my mind is that it had some pretty similar elements to Kuroshitsuji - there is the young boy (with blue eyes no less), the cool looking able butler, and the "bumbling" maid, etc. But of course, that one is a darker and I would say the boy there is a lot more cool.

My Rating:
Story: B
Art: B
Recommended? Interesting so far and rather well done.

Similar to:
Has been compared to Matantei Loki Ragnarok, as there is also a young boy who is the detective.

I also see similarities between this and Kuroshitsuji.

Full House Kiss

Ongoing Manga
Author: Yuwa Shiori

This is the somewhat common formula of having the girl become an orphan and coming to stay with some handsome guy (or guys in this case) due to some dire consequences (I think we've read one or two like this?). The only thing that stands out is that there is some underlying mystery concerning the deaths of her parents and the disappearance of her sister.

The guys are all different and the girl is so far not that silly but she is not that smart either.

Strangely this is based on/related to ? some game which I've never seen before but the description I read on wiki was quite funny and strange (and a bit ambiguous).

My Rating:
Story: B-
Art: B-
Recommended: Interesting, but besides the mystery it's also quite typical.
Similar to: I saw quite a few comments that this is very similar to Fruits Basket, but I've not read that so I can't say. I haven't really gone through Wallflower but in essence there is a similarity, though I would say the emphasis for that one is really quite different.

More info:
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