Pink Innocent Volume 1

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By Kotori Momoyuki. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Nakayoshi. Released in North America by Del Rey.

Sometimes, when reading a new title by a publisher, you have to try to put yourself into the shoes of the people who work there. What made this title stand out, what made Del Rey feel that this would be a good addition to their shoujo line, a manga that both teens and adults would like? (The manga was written for Japanese girls age 6-12, but is rated 13+ here because… well, actually, I dunno why. Possibly the fetishey outfit her best friend is seen in at some point, but that’s about it.) What made Del Rey think that Pink Innocent would be *it*?

After reading the first volume, I’m pretty sure I have the answer: they knew that people would buy volumes 2 and 3 to see if the cast finally snaps and kills the heroine.

Even by the standards of Nakayoshi, a magazine that specializes in overbearingly perky girls going after uninterested guys, this one really goes above and beyond the call of duty. You can’t even argue this time that the heroine is supposed to be a reader stand-in – she’s shown to be one of the richest girls in Japan, and habitually goes to school walking on a red carpet. She is appallingly naive to the point of utter stupidity, and spends the entire volume either living in magical happy shoujo fantasy land that only exists in her head, or in the depths of despair as her brain attempts to shriek at her that she’s appalling.

Into this mix comes the lead guy. He’s an emotionally repressed blond loner (in Nakayoshi? You jest!), and he also loves to work on computers. Four of which are broken by the heroine. In this manga’s four chapters. See, cause it’s funny! Oh yes, and she also BURNS HIS APARTMENT DOWN. By accident, I grant you. She has the rest of her class (all of whom are strangely agreeable) do Romeo and Juliet so that he can declare his love to her in a play. She dresses up as a miniskirted nun because he asks her to. (This last one is actually his perverted brother disguising himself as the hero – our hero would not be nearly that interesting.)

Despite this, Renji (the guy) is shown to slowly be falling for Kokona (the girl). He first decides she’s interesting when she leaps out of a helicopter at about 50 feet (and lands unharmed, I might add) to get his attention. Then at Christmas he buys her the charm she wanted, admitting that he likes her because she’s insane. Well, at least he’s honest. The final chapter has us meeting his weird family, and is probably the weakest for me, in that it’s the most normal. Yes, she destroys another computer, but that’s not enough anymore.

All of this is served up with very Nakayoshi-esque art. If you hear people talking about manga as being girls with huge eyes that take up their entire face, they mean either a title from this magazine, or from its competitors for young girls, Ribon and Ciao. And sure enough, Kokona is supposed to be 16 but looks about 6. Those impossible-in-real-life princess curls don’t help. It’s especially jarring when you see her best friend, Aery, drawn as a normal high-school shoujo student. It’s as if she wandered over from Betsufure (Kodansha’s magazine for teen girls, basically the next step up after Nakayoshi). Speaking of the best friend, we get occasional glimpses of her life, as she works hard as a part-time model. I wish we’d had more of that plotline instead.

This manga is bad. But it’s bad in a very entertaining and funny way. Your jaw will drop when you read about Kokona’s antics, and I suspect that you too will at least flip through the next 2 volumes (as least it’s a short series) to see if it ends with Renji finally snapping and burying her body behind the forge. I’m not sure what Del Rey was looking for when they started licensing tons of shoujo to find the next Kitchen Princess, but I’m pretty sure this wasn’t it. Still, recommended for those with twisted sensibilities. Like myself.

Happy Cafe Volume 2

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By Kou Matsuzuki. Released in Japan as “Shiawase Kissa Sanchoume” by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Tokyopop.

I’ll freely admit this volume was not as good as the first. This series is basically like candy or fast food – light and enjoyable, but you can’t remember a thing about it an hour later. Still, candy and fast food are insanely popular despite this.

Most of this volume is devoted to a rivalry with another sweet shop that specializes in Japanese desserts. You would think that would not really be that much of a threat to a Western-style cake shop, but there’s more going on here than meets the eye. The staff of the Japanese shop seem to have a grudge against our heroes, and are out to try to ruin their business.

The majority this arc relies on the character tropes we’ve already gotten to know after only one volume. Uru is hotheaded and impulsive, but also kind and has that smile that forces people to simply stare blushing at her. Shindo gets to be grumpy and blunt while still showing he’s essentially kind at heart. And Ichiro continues to merely exist until the inevitable future chapters that will give him backstory. Ah, the joys of walking ciphers…

There’s a slapstick humor to these stories as well, which I quite enjoy. Lots of cartoon violence and over the top reactions. Glad to see Uru’s insane strength is still being mentioned, and seeing her dragging Ichiro around was a hoot. Best of all is when Uru meets up with one of the rival store guys, and hears why he twitches whenever Ichiro is around. (Love Uru’s face when she first hears this… all women are yaoi fans deep down.)

There’s also a side-story here, dealing with a girl who looks much older than her age, and her encounters with her newspaper delivery man. It’s very much an ‘early one-shot’ sort of work that you traditionally see in Hakusensha shoujo around Volume 2 or so. And it creates a nice contrast to the main story because, as the author notes, the characters are nothing like the heroes of Happy Cafe.

This manga will never win any awards, and as shoujo goes it’s pretty much average. But it’s cute, and funny, and I think if you buy it you’ll like it a lot. And then probably put it on the shelf and forget all about it till the next volume, when you’ll pull it down to remind yourself who everyone is.

My Darling! Miss Bancho Volume 1

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By Mayu Fujikata. Released in Japan as “Ah! Itoshi no Bancho-sama” by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine LaLa. Released in North America by CMX.

I have to admit that I had different expectations going into this. I knew about the basic premise – a girl finds out that she’s the only female at an all-male Vo Tech, and through a series of wacky misunderstandings, ends up as the Bancho of the school. But I was sort of expecting the girl to be an ass-kicker. Similar to Sachie from Wild Ones, a manga not entirely dissimilar to this one.

Instead, Souka is pretty much a normal shoujo heroine. Happy but shy, easily stressed, and understandably upset that she’s being kowtowed to by a bunch of thugs. Now admittedly, the thugs are pretty nice once you get to know them. These are Shoujo gang members, and the one or two stereotypical guys are knocked off fairly quickly, leaving us with the main pretty boy and his pretty companions. It is amusing that, with all the teen gang shonen manga running for 47 volumes in magazines like Shonen Champion and Young King in Japan, we end up with this as our bancho title.

As other reviewers have indicated, given the basic incredibly silly premise, it’s best to treat this as goofily as possible. The early parts of the manga serve as setup, but are a bit too realistic, which just makes you feel bad for Souka. They do have a nice moment, however, where Souka is being threatened and gets half her hair hacked off. These little moments of “Souka reaches down and finds her inner ass-kicker” will be what drives the manga, I hope. We get an even better one at the end of the volume, which leads to the cast bowing down before her. No, seriously.

There is the guy as well, and I admit I haven’t really gotten a handle on him as much. Then again, this is Volume 1. Yuuji seems to be the ideal boyfriend type seen in so many of these manga, though it’s nice to see him get a few more flaws later on, such as his jealousy. His three cohorts, likewise, have had very little to do at the moment, but I expect that to change. I’m hoping the cast will get a little more well-rounded, but this is a comedic shoujo manga, so it may not happen.

The art is good, with CMX getting decent reproduction for once (this has been an issue for me with several past CMX titles). I liked the way that they handled the near-constant use of the term bancho, which is after all the main reason for the entire plot. Souka brings it up in her first line of dialogue (“Bancho?! You mean a gang leader?!”), and from then on it’s just used as if it was an English word.

This series is not going to go outside the norm, and likely will merely be ‘cute and fun’ the rest of its run. But cute and fun is enough sometimes, and the series is likeable, with a refreshing lack of long-term jerks. Another good mid-range title from the folks at CMX.