skygiants: Princess Tutu, facing darkness with a green light in the distance (pwnage: kyouya)
skygiants ([personal profile] skygiants) wrote2010-12-16 10:57 am

(no subject)

[livejournal.com profile] ojuzu asked me to list my top five shoujo manga.

Which, as with the top five Magical Girls question, is difficult because - while I've seen a fair amount of shoujo anime - I don't think I've actually read five shoujo series. You guys keep exposing my ignorance! I have been reading and loving lots more manga this year, but most of it has been shonen (FMA, Pumpkin Scissors), seinen (everything Urasawa and, weirdly, Emma and Yotsuba&!, both of which I thought might be shoujo but apparently not) or josei (Gokusen, apparently, which I would have thought was shonen or seinen. SHOWS WHAT I KNOW).

So you guys are going to get my top three shoujo series, which are also my only three shoujo series (discounting After School Nightmare, which I can't really judge yet on the basis of one volume).


1.

Still reading my way through the manga version of Ouran! STILL LOVING IT. For anyone who does not know, Ouran focuses on Haruhi Fujioki, a sort of accidental cross-dressing girl who also happens to be the only middle-class student in a super-elite high school. Through a series of wacky mishaps, she ends up posing as a guy and joining a group of extravagantly posturing bishonen as a member of their host club. HIJINKS ENSUE.

My favorite thing about Ouran is the way the series is constantly playing up, lampshading, and subverting ALL THE TROPES. All the characters except for Haruhi are thoroughly self-aware caricatures of their "type" who gradually get developed into three-dimensional people; meanwhile, Haruhi herself is one of the most amazingly unflappable and long-suffering heroines I have ever encountered. Also, it is so hyperactively enjoyable that even when it does something that would be annoying in any other manga, you just can't stay mad at it! (At least up through volume 10 or so, I can't speak for the rest yet.)

2.

Angel Sanctuary was actually the very first manga I read all the way through. THANKS SHATI. ([livejournal.com profile] shati was also the reason that Utena was my very first anime. There may be a trend here.) On the bright side, everything after this seemed much easier to follow . . .

So Angel Sanctuary focuses on Setsuna, who is an Ordinary High School Boy, except actually he is a REBEL who is IN LOVE WITH HIS SISTER, except ACTUALLY he is the reincarnation of the rebel archangel Alexiel and everyone is really disappointed to find out he's a boy now, and then a whole bunch of angels and demons are after him to either kill him or make out with him OR BOTH, and then the world basically ends in Volume 3 and everyone spends the rest of the series making epic field trips to heaven and hell, and everyone is either a reincarnated angel or reincarnated sword or reincarnated Lucifer or ALL OF THE ABOVE, and some people turn into cannibalistic zombies and other people turn into tentacle monsters and still more people are killed by exploding cake and at some point there's a destructive rain of angry flying fetuses, and it's either amazing or terrifying OR BOTH. And I still have no idea what happened at the end. Maybe it's better that way.

3.

I enjoy Hana-Kimi, but it can't really compete with the joy that is Ouran or the glorious WTF that is Angel Sanctuary. It's still a lot of fun, though! Another cross-dressing manga, this one features Mizuki, a very determined girl who cross-dresses and goes undercover at an all-boy's boarding school in order to get closer to her idol, a basketball player who quit the game due to backstory angst. Cue the inevitable hijinks and gender and sexuality confusion!Hana-Kimi isn't anywhere near as subversive as Ouran, but it's clearly having so much fun with itself and its premise that you can't help but have fun with it too - at least as far as the first four volumes go, which are all I have read because [livejournal.com profile] jothra has yet to live up to her promise to visit and bring me more.

SO, you know what is coming next: guys, rec me shoujo manga!

You probably have a pretty good idea of my tastes already, but for the record, some things I like: cross-dressing and more general gender-role subversion, awesome ladies who are recognized as awesome, cracktastic plots, general hilarity! Some things I do not like: jerktastic alpha male heroes, endless pointless love triangles, everyone dying in the end from cancer. (If everyone dies from a rain of flying angel fetuses I'm probably okay with that.)

[identity profile] mekosuchinae.livejournal.com 2010-12-16 08:35 pm (UTC)(link)
(I forgot more than one.)

  • Petshop of Horrors | mangaka: Matsuri Akino | genre: horror/drama(/slice-of-life) | In Chinatown, there exists a strange pet shop where the seller, a gentleman known only as Count D, offers prospective customers their heart's desire in the guise of strange and sometimes mythical animals. But if the customer were to break the contract signed upon purchase--to neglect a rule to which they agreed--a terrible judgment may fall upon them. The first couple stories are standard fare, and it isn't until the introduction of Detective Leon Orcot--who knows Count D is up to no good and by God, he won't rest until he can prove it--as a main character late in the first volume that the series gets moving. The struggle between D and Leon and their growing friendship (haha, Count D winds up taking care of Leon's baby brother, BECAUSE D AND LEON ARE MARRIED) forms the heart of PSoH and drives the climactic conflict of the last two volumes. Very episodic but for a few occasional arcs and the character relationships, and occasionally heavy-handed and often bitterswet, but also frequently beautiful and uplifting. CAVEAT: I imprinted super hard on this manga when I was in a particular low point in my life, so it might not be as meaningful as it is to me, haha.

  • Silver Diamond | mangaka: Shiho Sugiura | genre: fantasy/action/romance | Rakan is a kind teenage boy (slash total homebody) who lives on his own in a house with a magnificent and overgrown garden. His mother and adoptive grandfather are both dead, and though he is well-liked at school, he is alone--until a strange man bursts into his garden from another world. Chigusa is an immortal outlaw who believes Rakan is a long-missing prince of his world, a desert wasteland ruled by a cruel monster disguised as a boy who is the mirror image of Rakan; and Chigusa intends to take Rakan back and to raise him as the true ruler, whatever the cost. I wavered back and forth about reccing this as technically Silver Diamond is shoujo BL and idk your feelings on BL? FWIW, Silver Diamond is the only BL title I'm following because it is very unlike any other title I can think of on the market: there is a romance (Rakan and Chigusa, dkfmjlk) but it develops v-e-r-y slowly and with great sensitivity, and it takes second place to the overarching plot, which is concerned with the salvation of the fantasy world and the deposition of the false king. The characterization is lovely and delicate, and the relationships between the characters are both understated and achingly genuine. Adore it. CAVEAT: so many dudes wtf. I desperately wish at least one of the main dudes was a lady.

  • Monkey High | mangaka: Shouko Akira | genre: romance/comedy/slice-of-life | After a political scandal potentially wrecks her dad's career, Haruna Aizawa transfers to a new school. Jaded, emotionally distant, and poor at expressing herself, Haruna is resigned to being alone--until Macharu, an energetic, goofy, sweet guy in her class sweeps into her life. Suddenly she finds herself not just with new friends who like and support her even as they tease her and each other, but falling for this boy everyone calls baby monkey. A very sweet, very slow, very kind manga that a) doesn't punish Haruna for being emotionally closed off or occasionally harsh and b) recognizes and supports her own desires. And I looooove the romance, because klsjdflk Macharu is SUPPORTIVE and GENTLE and he never does anything she doesn't want, and dfkgjlk omgggggg, why can't Viz license more shoujo like this? You know, as opposed to crap like Black Bird, ugh.

[identity profile] mekosuchinae.livejournal.com 2010-12-16 08:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, and I forgot! One caveat re: Monkey High: there are a number of fat jokes centered around one of the supporting characters, which are, as you may expect, aggravating, unfunny, and unnecessary.