Shoujo Manga Cliches: HNR Love Triangle

Time to revive my Shoujo Manga Cliches segment to just sit down and talk about the craziness of Hirunaka no Ryuusei since it's finally ended. Unlike most love triangles, HNR was actually fairly balanced and had some sort of uncertainty regarding who would get the girl. In other words, no one felt alpha or beta in the love triangle. Most mangakas make it very clear who the canon pairing is but HNR made it feel a lot more ambiguous in my opinion.  Though not all of these theories prevail standalone, if there are 3 or more, you can best bet the dude who fulfills all of them will 99% of the time be together with the girl. Let this pseudo-analysis begin!

Otaku Wrap Up: Short people problems

I've done posts like this before where I basically summarise what I've been doing for the past couple of months, whether it was reading a slew of manga, otome gaming and just doing anything otaku related (which you can find here and here). So I'm officially making this segment official and it will have a fairly arbitrary update frequencies.
I've done a fair bit of otome gaming (mostly voltage mobile games cos it's in English son) so I will save that for a completely separate post (I'll link it here once it's posted).

Without further ado here's a list of interesting mangas that I've been reading:

Finished: 

Color (2011) by MIMORI Ao

Short people problems

Same mangaka as B.O.D.Y (if you need a point of reference) about a couple of neighbours and childhood friends. The girl is in some unrequited love yada yada, spoiler alert, they end up dating. Really nothing new of groundbreaking but it was executed fairly well and was just short and sweet (about 7 chapters long).

Manga Cap: Ana Satsujin

I'm making a info dump/ master post of all the notable mangas I've read for the past few months I've been on hiatus so stay tuned. This was one of the few shounen manga I started reading. Some messed up shit right here so proceed with caution.

How to buy online smut manga

As someone who uses Renta as a means to legally obtain manga, having your money slowly deplete as you binge read everything has become a problem. More or less, especially with smut, you have to break the age old saying "don't judge a book by it's cover" and actually start doing it. I have made the mistake of impulse buying and as a poor, jobless, university student, savings are everything. So by making plently of mistakes, I've come up with some rules I follow to ensure I don't buy shitty smut manga.

Reading list for June/July

Sorry for lack of activity in the review department and otome gaming but I've mainly been busy and burnt out from life in general.
Anyway since I'm not sure what to review at the moment, I'll give a short list of relevant series that I've finished reading this past month along with a summary.

I'm excluding oneshots and other odd series because they're too boring to be mentioned or ongoing series that haven't really picked up yet. So in chronological order we have:

80s and 90s

Shiroi Mado no Mukougawa by HIKAWA Kyouko (1980)
Your typical childhood friends school life story that builds up to the confession scene and ends. It's quite charming though and has a bit of the late 70s manga art in terms of style without the galaxy eyes. Being a fan of Hikawa's works, it's nice to see her art evolving compared to Kanata Kara which is one of my favs.

Tokyo no Casanova by KURAMOCHI Fusako (1983)
It's a story of false incest where the main gal finds out her bro ain't her bro and she starts having feels for him basically. It's quite dated with hair styles and clothing but I like it for that. It has some idol/actor industry themes to it to if you like that kind of stuff.

"Shoujo Sucks"

Kako from Mishounen Produce
understands my feels.

Here we go, the common thing you hear from people who don't like shoujo, it's because it "sucks". I have to admit there are a lot of bad shoujo mangas but the same thing could be said about shounen, yaoi or anime in all honesty. I know I love to bag shoujo a whole lot but it's more or less a love-hate relationship.

When I see people say the whole genre sucks, it's usually for the following reasons:

• Art sucks/ eyes are way too big
  I get if art sucks if things aren't too in proportion or positioning of their features are weird. Though it's quite a contradiction to say their "eyes are too big" as anime and manga eyes are considered big to outsiders. Art is subjective and just because you've seen a few eighties-esque eyes doesn't mean all shoujo mangakas draw saucer plate eyes. If you judge a manga/anime based whether it's a 10 or not, you're are missing out. Though I do have my favourite mangakas in terms of art so check out that post.

• Bishies, men don't act like this in real life
  I think I can write a whole individual post on bishounens alone and in fact, I'll make it a future post. Bishies represent a teen's ideals in the most hyperbolic way in much the same way as moe girls in shounen or even some men's ideals on bust size in H mangas/anime. We don't expect men or teenage boys to act like this, look like this or be like this in real life. They don't have to be the definition of perfection but can you let a girl fantasize?

• Romance/Characters/Storyline is dumb and unrealistic
  I've said this before and I'll say it again, when your manga is being post in something like LaLa magazine, do you really think there is going to be anything too deep and meaningful? The demographic  puts many potential story ideas out the window (you got editors) and shoujo is such a niche market already.
  
  If you're reading a psychological manga you take the story quite seriously, that's a given. So if the story doesn't live up to you expectations, like having a ridiculous story line then that's a valid complaint.
  If you read a horror, fantasy or even a comedic manga the author expects you to "suspend disbelief" and go along with the premise instead of proclaiming their work to be an unrealistic portrayal of romance/people. It's not meant to be taken that seriously.
  
  The same principles apply to shoujo. If you come in with the expectation for it to be a masterpiece you will be disappointed. Realise the intention and target audience and appreciate it for what it is. You're allowed to hate some manga series but don't let it stop you from enjoying some silly titles every now and then.

All in all, shoujo is a pretty ridiculous genre full of exaggerated caricatures and ideals, not meant to be taken seriously but for fun. Not to say that there aren't some amazing titles out there. My top 5 list has some of my favs plus I will be posting another Top list of some mangas for non-shoujo lovers to try out so stay tuned.

So do you like a lover, hater, neutral to shoujo? Or are you just like me, it's a love-hate thing.

Official Google Plus Page + Manga Cap

Kind of... my life
from Onnanoko wa Koi wo Suru to Mousou
Shichaun desu

So I'm not a really savvy social networker but I sort of made a Google+ Page as a start. I'd really like to talk to people about shoujo manga and bishies since I don't have friends that like manga as much as I do.

Manga through the eras + Sorry I've been MIA

Hello readers, I haven't been posting since I've been on two 1 week long trips (sorry I didn't cue anything) and I've been playing otome games like a mofo.
I also fell into a personal slump so I didn't want to force out crappy posts for no good reason. This blog is more of a hobby than anything.

I still have been reading manga so I'll short list some of the new manga series I've picked up below.

1. 1985 - Cipher by NARITA Minako
2. 1987 - Boku no Chikyuu o Mamotte (Please Save My Earth) by HIWATARI Saki
3. 1990 - Viehmannin wa Utau by YAMAGUCHI Miyuki
4. Hadashi no Aitsuby TAKADA Rie
5. 1999 - My Sweet Dragon by SAKAKI Yuuka
6. 2005 - Tenkuu Seiryuu by YAMAGUCHI Miyuki
7. 2007 - Ten no Ryuu Chi no Sakura by SUMOMO MOMO
8. 2010 - Scarlet Palace by YI Huan
9. 2010 - Mairunovich by SATO Zakuri

I felt like it was appropriate to put them in chronological order since the 80s manga were definitely interesting but really draggy at times though after reading a review of Cipher, it all made sense. It was written for 80s teens (and Japanese teens at that) where time traveled slower and people actually went outside to have fun. I really enjoyed 80s manga like Miriam (1983) by Hikawa Kyoko if you're into investigative cowboy adventures.

Manga Cap: U MAD?

Here's a manga cap from my short overview of manga Ao Haru Ride which will be posted tomorrow.

Manga Cap: Does he have poison in his dick?

Sorry for the late update so here's a manga cap that ties in with my next post. You have got to love Yoshihara sensei and her humor.