Crown - originally written on 16 Jan, updated 12 May

Brief Storyline: An orphan girl is suddenly grabbed from her part time job by her long lost brother, Ren, who, with his good friend, Jake, has come to protect her. Apparently they are royalty and targets of a deadly plot to obtain the throne.

The guys are of course bishi (first things first eh? ;p) and I'm pretty sure those who loved Gakuen Heaven would have a field day with this one too (it being by the same artist). The drawing overall is good, although there are some unfilled in eyes and other parts in scenes here and there. In the action scenes, the backgrounds are drawn in rather more detail to help in understanding what is happening. The guys all look rather different so it is easy to tell them apart.

The author and the artist are different and of opposite sexes. Interesting. So, I'm not sure if that colors my judgement that it is not as girly girl as other shojo, besides the "hot guys" (quoted from the author's words) and silly shojo girl. The last few pages give a tiny bit of entertaining insight into this collaboration.

The girl is, as mentioned, somewhat silly, and a bit too sweet, naive and is more like a little pet or elementary school child than a high schooler. Some of her expressions are rather dramatic and cringeworthy. The guys hold much of the story with their skill and action as mercenary soldiers, in protecting the girl from danger but the girl also has a special natural "talent".

A bit bloodthirsty as quite a few people lose their lives. Not as innocent in this respect as most shojo. The two are really merciless. I suppose it is a life or death fight, but still, a more sanitized storyline would have them solve it another way I suppose, but then again, not everything can be sanitized.

The characters have chemistry and there are a few humourous moments in between killings. :) Ok, ok, it is after all a shojo so one isn't expecting fantastic violence or gore and I believe the creators were going after a comedic feel as well. Thus, there are some really cheesy moments played out and some strange scenes. There are also some OTT emotional moments that don't seem to quite gel with the merciless bloodthirsty atmosphere but probably help to make it more shojo than shonen.


Possible Spoiler
The relationship between the brother and sister is ambiguous, and from comments I've read it seems I'm not the only one to get the insinuations. Some feel it's an incest tease but a few predict that there may be a twist there although in volume two there is not much further indication/development of this, especially if you see the first few pages (the weird scene I was referring to).

The guys' relationship also have slight shonen ai overtones in some of the scenes, although I would say that it is rather minor (well, the artist does do this genre). The story is also starting to develop a slight very much reverse harem feeling at the end, with the two bodyguards already (Jake and Ren, her brother) and now another guy, Chrondrite Condor (interesting name yeah?) probably interested in Mahiro. At the end of volume two, there's another guy to join the harem!

I find Mahiro even more unbelievable when this cute little supposedly sweet silly girl sees her Jake and Ren killing people and things blowing up and she is completely unfazed. Nor is she fazed when she is almost killed. Strange.

An aside - the volume one in my hand is this yellow cover one. Is there really a blue colored cover?

My Rating:
Story: B
Art: B
Recommended? Eye candy - quite a few cool bishies. Storyline is atypical and rather fast paced, action orientated, with bits of comedy and unexpected twists.

Licensed by Go!Comi

King of the Lamp, Tenshi Ja Nai and Ultimate Venus

King of the Lamp

Manga: Complete at one volume

Brief Summary: Five oneshots in one volume, with three on the same premise of a genie helping girls find love. The fourth and fifth ones have light supernatural themes building up to a romance.

Got this as I liked Ultimate Venus and I like the mangaka's drawings overall, for its clean and neat appeal. However, as mentioned below, once again the characters look exactly like her previous ones. For one of the stories, you would not be wrong to think the female protag was the one in Ultimate Venus and wonder if it was an extra/side story of sorts to that.

The first three are rather typical boy meets girl or vice versa and girl falls for him, tries to get his attention/affection. So fortunate there is a genie around the corner that is actually a womanising king that has been given the punishment of helping at least 1000 girls fulfil their love requests. Rather simple stories.

The fourth one seemed a bit different from any that I've read from her so far and it was the most interesting to me, although the ending was again predictable and came a bit too abruptly (mainly cos it's a oneshot I suppose so it couldn't be helped).

The fifth one, as I've also read on ANN, wasn't that good. I agree. It seemed a bit strange and fluffy. It was one of her earlier works.

This volume is a bit more "racy" (is that the word?) than the other series she's done (although nothing explicit). Think she was targetting a bit older readers (teens as opposed to tweens , although in this day and age...). I think I must add that a friend of mine who read this was a bit taken aback by it despite reading (and liking) Ultimate Venus. I would say it's not near smut but as mentioned, there are some intimate scenes. I must say that I wouldn't argue with my friend that we both hope it doesn't teach teenagers that it's a shame not to lose "it" and that sex equates to love, or that one needs to use sex to gain love from the man. Unfortunately, it might. And that's the worry.

My Rating:
Story: C
Art: B-

Recommended? An ok read, but nothing really out of the ordinary and each story is rather too short. A stronger linking background story (the part about the genie) would be have good for the first three stories. As it is the first three are rather disjointed and can be read in any order.

Tenshi Ja Nai

Manga: Completed at 8 Volumes.

Brief Summary: A guy pretends to be a girl and attends an all girl's school because he is in showbiz as a girl. A new student discovers his secret and...(you know where this is going)

This one is a break in the usual routine, being the opposite of the usual girl disguises as guy and gets into an all boys’ school (think Hana Kimi, Ouran High School Host Club and Girl Got Game). Instead, very strangely, it’s a boy that dresses and acts like a girl. Of course that provides the comedy and of course someone finds out early on. The whole premise thereafter becomes rather clichéd again but there are a few original twists and turns.

For one thing, I do appreciate that the girl is not so dotty, immature and ditzy as some others (really tired of the girl struggling with making chocolate for the boy – enough already, thankfully no such thing in this one). She usually has her head screwed on tight and doesn’t loose it to “love”. However, do feel she’s more like the guy in this series sometimes, as the guy is now a “girl”.

There is a bit of reverse harem as well, with at least three guys falling for the girl. There’s even a teacher-student element thrown in, together with blackmail and other side themes. There’s also a serious love rival with no big faults but I shall not give that away.

And then you must have the fangirls (I really wonder after reading all these whether Jap girls are really in any way like this - it’s really too exaggerated!). The guy, as a girl, also has a whole host of them. And fanboys too, obviously. So these cause the girl protagonist grief.

My Rating:
Story: B
Art: B-

Recommended? Interesting for the twist in concept, with many different other side stories thrown in. Not particularly wow, but readable.

Similar: All those others I mentioned above regarding the girl-boy disguises. Actually, it also reminds me of her new work, Ultimate Venus. The characters have you going deja vu!

Also someone mentioned Maria Holic was similar but there are more shojo ai overtones in that one (am not quite sure it is going to be "romance" boy girl style)

Ultimate Venus

Brief Summary: Orphaned girl gets adopted by super rich grandma.

The storyline is quite interesting, but still it is pretty much a Cinderella story where the poor girl realises she is actually a "princess" (I mean in the sense she is now super rich). There is some mystery behind the relationship between her mother and the grandmother that is still waiting to be hatched. There is also some ominous happenings when she's at school that is linked to her being the candidate to inheriting her grandma's companies (and thus wealth).

And then there are the bishi boys/men. There are two main contenders - the guy who is assigned to look after her bodyguard style and a classmate. Later there is another one but I won't give his role away. Their motivations are made a bit more clear in volumes 2 and 3, but the story is still quite slow going. Now after reading volume three, it's starting to develop into a reverse harem. :)

The girl follows the usual shojo school girl character somewhat - rather naive and ditzy, getting easily agitated. On the other hand, at least she's not too clumsy or stupid.

I must say that the characters look too similar to Tenshi Ja Nai, which was written by the same mangaka. Actually, in her extra story in vol 3, the characters look the same as the ones in the main story itself.

All in all, it sounds promising and hope the development gets better and not head down the hill of a routine shojo plot....even husband read it! ;p heeheh

My Rating:
Story: B
Art: B, the characters look alike mostly, and the drawing is clean but the scenes and characters are not very elaborately drawn or detailed. There is just enough to make the panes look pretty mostly.
Recommended? Sounds interesting so far.

More info:
Bakaupdates

Boku Wa Kiss de Uso o Tsuku

Ongoing manga

Summary: A girl finds herself kissed one day whilst asleep in the library. When she wakes up, she realises that there are four boys in the library and she has to figure out who did it by herself as no one is telling.

This is the best promotion for going to the library as any I've come across (and will likely!). Apparently, being a bookworm (bordering on nerdy?) and well read can get you plenty of attention. For the protagonist here, she is swatting away four contenders! There's the delinquent cassanova looking type, there's the studious one, the shotacon and the sporty (kinda reminds me of Ouran)! Nearly every bishie school shojo type is present. And, so the story goes, after the girl falls asleep in the library, one of them kisses her and it's up to her to shift through all the lies and the boys' shennanigans to find out just which of them it is. Really, a schoolgirl's fantasy to have such a wonderful harem of bishies...now now, just to find out who the kisser was...

Frankly, very unreal silly shojo. There is no real reason given on why the boys like the girl so things are a bit unrealistic and unlikely. :) Husband exclaimed after I told him briefly of the plot, "That can make a story??!!". Oh well.

My Rating:
Story: C
Art: B
Recommended? Very simple story. Eyecandy.

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:
Bakaupdates

It's Love

Manga: Complete at 7 volumes

Brief Summary: An orphan is taken in seven years before the manga starts, by a family with three boys. She is bullied by all three but they all have the same reason they don't want her as a sister - because they've all fallen for her!

Discovered this manga/manhwa quite by accident. The characters are rather beautifully drawn, and quite characterestic of Korean drawing style that I've seen so far in Goong and Bride of the Water God (is it just me or do they like to have two pigtails or buns?).

Basically this is a reverse harem, with the three guys being brothers, all different and successful in their own ways. It's a tormented sweet innocent story, but at least the girl is not the one that keeps working at the relationship. It's nice to see the guy (in this case, guys) working at it for once! ;P All the guys care for her in their own way and it's kind of sad to know that she can only have one of them! ;p

My Rating:
Story: B-
Art: B-
Recommended: Keeps you in suspense!

Ouran High School Host Club

Manga: Ongoing
Anime: Season one completed at 26 epis.

Wikipage

Ok, when I first heard about this, it didn't appeal to me, cos well, you know what host clubs are...decided to just have a look at the anime and the first thing was the song - oh my! If you've heard it you know what I mean (heard other reviewers sharing the same sentiments). A friend said she feels embarrassed playing it aloud! Hahahah. In any case, once you get over the theme song, the rest of the story is just as silly and cheesy sometimes, but the characters are quite unique and interesting. There was a review that said at least you can easily tell the difference between the characters (in the manga) and yes, they are very distinct from one another (usually artists tend to draw their characters quite similarly so you can get confused after a while cos there are only so many hairstyles ;p). As the characters are all bishonen (pretty boys) it’s quite easy for the gender bender part whereby the main female character is playing a boy in school.

And finally, we have a girl character who’s not too ditzy but still naïve and quite a block of wood sometimes (so perhaps it boils down to the same thing). She’s also supposed to be very smart. She also doesn’t fall into silliness at the sight of the cute guys.
The format of the manga is also rather easy to follow and the story moves rather easily, though there are a lot of chapters that seem to go off on a tangent, which makes the story now at 12 volumes and still no progress on the main characters' romance. This is yet another reverse harem type.

Personally, I started out not liking Kyoya (the vice prez of the club) very much but as the story progresses I think he’s my favorite character because despite his rather subdued and cold demeanor, he’s actually a very good person who cares deeply for his friends. His actions also bring a lot of balance to the group. Temaki (pres) on the other hand, keep sulking too much.

My Rating:

Story: B

Art: B

Recommended? Purely for entertainment.