• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Comment Policy
    • Disclosures & Disclaimers
  • Resources
    • Links, Essays & Articles
    • Fandomology!
    • CLAMP Directory
    • BlogRoll
  • Features & Columns
    • 3 Things Thursday
    • Adventures in the Key of Shoujo
    • Bit & Blips (game reviews)
    • BL BOOKRACK
    • Bookshelf Briefs
    • Bringing the Drama
    • Comic Conversion
    • Fanservice Friday
    • Going Digital
    • It Came From the Sinosphere
    • License This!
    • Magazine no Mori
    • My Week in Manga
    • OFF THE SHELF
    • Not By Manga Alone
    • PICK OF THE WEEK
    • Subtitles & Sensibility
    • Weekly Shonen Jump Recaps
  • Manga Moveable Feast
    • MMF Full Archive
    • Yun Kouga
    • CLAMP
    • Shojo Beat
    • Osamu Tezuka
    • Sailor Moon
    • Fruits Basket
    • Takehiko Inoue
    • Wild Adapter
    • One Piece
    • After School Nightmare
    • Karakuri Odette
    • Paradise Kiss
    • The Color Trilogy
    • To Terra…
    • Sexy Voice & Robo
  • Browse by Author
    • Sean Gaffney
    • Anna Neatrour
    • Michelle Smith
    • Katherine Dacey
    • MJ
    • Brigid Alverson
    • Travis Anderson
    • Phillip Anthony
    • Derek Bown
    • Jaci Dahlvang
    • Angela Eastman
    • Erica Friedman
    • Sara K.
    • Megan Purdy
    • Emily Snodgrass
    • Nancy Thistlethwaite
    • Eva Volin
    • David Welsh
  • MB Blogs
    • A Case Suitable For Treatment
    • Experiments in Manga
    • MangaBlog
    • The Manga Critic
    • Manga Report
    • Soliloquy in Blue
    • Manga Curmudgeon (archive)

Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

high school debut

High School Debut, Volume 11

July 21, 2009 by MJ 10 Comments

High School Debut, Vol. 11
By Kazune Kawahara
Published by Viz Media

hsd11
Buy This Book

As this volume begins, Miyabi, the girl in Yoh’s prep class who was very obviously developing a thing for him in the previous volume, starts pushing herself between Yoh and Haruna. Though it is unclear in the beginning how much is intentional, as the volume goes on, she moves into bona fide psycho territory–sending fake messages from Yoh’s phone, blocking Haruna’s calls, and so on. Fortunately, just as this arc is becoming a bit too much to bear, things lighten up with a story in which Haruna’s lack of understanding about the significance of an overnight trip with Yoh runs them both around in circles, bringing the series back into its comfort zone (and me with it).

I won’t lie. I really disliked the first half of this volume. I have very little patience for the too-common portrayal of physically unattractive characters as obvious villains. I’ve long accepted that manga characters–especially shojo manga characters and always the romantic leads–are going to be uniformly beautiful people, even when they begin as ugly ducklings. The idea that people must be (or become) beautiful in order to be loved pervades all media, not just manga, and I’ve learned to clutch my Charlotte Brontë novels closely to my chest, deal with it, and move on.

It is really irksome, then, that in this rare instance in which a character with a plain face and unconventional body type is introduced, she is an angry, loathsome, seriously unbalanced stalker, threatening to steal the good-looking hero away from his cute, perky heroine. (Though even the heroine becomes overweight and unattractive while being kept away from her man–look what happens to a girl deprived of love!) I realize I’m ranting at this point, but I honestly found this story line to be pretty repugnant, especially in a series aimed at teen girls, many of whom may be seeing a young, female character who they can relate to physically for the first time ever in the manga they read, only to find her portrayed as a complete monster.

It is a real testament to the charm of this series, however, that by about ten pages into the next arc it had already won me back. Haruna is adorably innocent, Yoh is adorably devoted, and all is right with the world. I suspect most readers will not have the same extreme reaction to the beginning of volume as I had, but for those who might, take heart! Though the first half of this volume loses some of the fun inherent to this series, by the end it has returned to its usual, delightful self. High School Debut, I still love you.

Volume eleven of High School Debut will be available on September 1st, 2009. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Filed Under: MANGA REVIEWS Tagged With: high school debut, manga

High School Debut, Volumes 1-10

June 7, 2009 by MJ 22 Comments

High School Debut, Vols. 1-10
By Kazune Kawahara
Published by Viz Media

hsd1Haruna Nagashima is a former middle-school softball champ, determined to start off her freshman year of high school on a brand new foot by becoming attractive to boys and finding her first boyfriend. Despite her exceedingly diligent research of current styles and trends, her efforts to attract a boy seem hopeless until she meets Yoh Komiyama, a popular, good-looking upperclassman with an unusual eye for what makes girls look their best. Though initially reluctant, Yoh finally agrees to act as Haruna’s “coach” to teach her how to make herself attractive to boys–his sole condition being that she promise not to fall for him. Of course she eventually does fall in love with him, finally confessing after a chapter or two of anguish, certain she’ll be rejected.

…

Read More

Filed Under: MANGA REVIEWS Tagged With: high school debut, manga

 | Log in
Copyright © 2010 Manga Bookshelf | Powered by WordPress & the Genesis Framework