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Krozam:
Monkey High by Akira Shouko



http://www.mangapanda.com/1229/monkey-high.html

Yesterday I randomly remembered this manga, which I years ago read up to where it was translated back then - around the 6th or 7th volume out of the total of 8. I remembered it was a good shoujo romance. Well, I remembered wrong. It is a fantastic shoujo romance.

Haruna, the protagonist, is the daughter of a politician who recently fell from grace, and as a result she had to change schools. She's smart, beautiful, and a bit of a cynic. She compares the rowdy bunch in her new school to a mountain monkey community. (The original name of the series is "Saruyama", which translates to "monkey mountain".) And the baby monkey, Masaru, aka. "Macharu", is the silliest of them all.

Yet it is his bright smile and straightforward kindness that so easily breaches the walls she has built around herself, and drags her along to their pace, as a member of the monkey community. Contrary to her expectations, she quickly begins to enjoy her new school life, and by the end of the first volume, the two are officially going out.

So the beginning advances relatively fast. After that, the pace slows down, and while it never feels like it completely stops, their relationship keeps developing for 7 more volumes, spanning over two years of their high school life. The result is one of the most complete, touching, emotionally fulfilling romances I've ever had the pleasure of reading.

There is just the right amount of drama. I've never been a fan of heavy drama, but at the same time, too light makes the romance lose emotional impact. Perhaps with the exception of my all-time favourite romance, Maison Ikkoku, Monkey High is the manga that most perfectly maintains that precarious balance. Some of the conflicts come from external sources, most notably from Macharu's best friend, the bishie Atsuyuki, and Haruna's disapproving father. A more or less equal amount of conflicts stem from the couple's own inner insecurities and growth pains.

Comedy is always a matter of taste, but I found Monkey High mostly quite a hilarious read. Much like in Maison Ikkoku, a big part of a the humour comes from their friends teasing the couple. It's also quite amusing how the comparison of Macharu to a little monkey stays in the series as a constant source of friendly jokes. Made all the more funny by the constant reminders that it was this childish baby monkey who scored the hot girlfriend.

Central characters are definitely one of the strongest points in this story. As a shoujo lead, the sensible Haruna is at the very top of my list, along with Misaki from Kaichou wa Maid-sama. Macharu is a weird one for a shoujo male lead as well, as he's the hot guy's silly friend, who'd normally be the supporting character. Atsu, the aforementioned hot guy, is easily understood and occasionally not very likeable, but nevertheless not a simple character. Besides a romance, Monkey High is also a coming-of-age story: in falling in love and growing up, each of these characters gains a significant amount of very realistic character development. Everyone else, however... get zero character deepening. Which, in my view, is the most serious flaw in this story.

The art is a bit amateurish at first... it develops a moderate amount during the course of the series. There is one thing, however, where this mangaka absolutely excels as an artist, from the start: atmosphere. There are beautiful, touching scenes in practically every chapter (far more than in any other manga I've read - perhaps too many, resulting in weakened impact), made so much more so by the beautiful art (and fitting music). She might be even better with those than Akamatsu Ken, whose atmospheric panels in Love Hina have so far been unrivalled in my mind.

Usually, as a male, it is difficult to identify with a female protagonist, so shoujo romances are naturally somewhat dulled in their emotional impact. In this case, I believe the fact that the author frequently let the reader inside her heroine's thoughts and made her so relatable to anyone who's once been a teenager in love, may have helped. And Macharu is quite a likeable and relatable character as well. But, ultimately, it's just such a good romance, and the touching scenes are so well drawn and narrated.

I believe I have a new addition to my previously Holy Duality of romances, Maison Ikkoku and Love Hina. Now it's the Holy Trinity. I spent some 15-20 minutes crying after finishing the manga, before I started writing this review. However, like all of these three manga, Monkey High as well has a serious weakness that drops it to 4.5 stars - that being the lack of love for the supporting characters.

Music: Okuda Miwako - Shizuku. Occasionally the effect of its beauty weakened due to looping it for too long (I did marathon the whole manga in one night), so I had to switch to Makino Yui - Yuo Are My Love, but Shizuku is definitely the most fitting song I could find.

Fuzzy Bear:
Hello there, I saw you once translating this work http://www.primehentai.com/in-one-step-tohgarashi-hideyu/ and I wanted to ask if there will be more of this artist translated in the future?

Krozam:
So far, there haven't been other Tohgarashi Hideyu works that have raised my interest sufficiently, but who knows, maybe some day. I'm currently working on a Kamiya Zuzu manga - slowly.

Krozam:
It's been a while since my last entry. It's not like I haven't been reading manga, I've just been too lazy to write reviews...

World Trigger by Ashihara Daisuke



I have to say, the first episode of the anime is rather underwhelming, I considered dropping it right there. However, I continued. After 5 eps, it's still an unimpressive beginning, but it has started to show some promise. I'm not sure what it was, maybe it was just Yuuma's character with his unusual thought patterns, but I was intrigued enough to check out the manga. Can't say I regret it.

The setup is pretty clichéd for a shounen manga: an organisation of superpowered people protect the Earth from otherworldly intruders. It's supposedly scifi, the powers they use are not magic, but advanced technology stolen from the invaders, but in effect it's almost indistinguishable from magic. The setup is probably the weakest point of this manga, but once you get over it, there's a decent story underneath. Not plot-wise, the plot so far is as simple and straightforward as they get, and shrouding the enemies' motivations in mystery isn't anywhere near enough to change that fact. But, sometimes simple and straightforward is enough, particularly in a shounen battle manga.

The MC, Osamu, is your usual heroic goody-two-shoes shounen MC who can't leave anyone in trouble, even if he clearly understands he's putting his life in considerable risk by helping them. There's just one thing: he's pretty normal. And I mean that: he's actually within normal parameters when it comes to power or brain. No hidden talents, no genius tactical thinking, just a mediocre ability to use the alien technology, a decent head on his shoulders, and a protective instinct so strong it frequently leads him to downright reckless actions. Surprisingly, the manga actually makes it work. He's not as boring as he seems at first, nor is he by any means useless, despite having to be frequently saved by his far stronger friends. His circumstances remind me a little of Mx0, as he has unintentionally gathered quite a reputation just by being in the right/wrong place in the right/wrong time and associating with far more powerful characters, and he's often misunderstood to be stronger than he is.

The other MC, Yuuma, is far more interesting at the start. His foreign way of thinking and unfamiliarity with our world's ways makes for quite interesting dialogue with the "normal" Osamu, right from the beginning. Later on, the roots of his foreign thought pattern are explored, and he's also influenced by Osamu, so the intrigue I felt at first is more or less gone now, but he's still a fairly good character overall.

There are a LOT of supporting characters, some of them pretty interesting and possessing considerable potential, but amidst all the action, not many of them have yet had much character development. Still, the cast is lively and diverse, as good as you can expect from a shounen battle manga.

The action gets a lot better after a while. There is logic and diversity in abilities, and the battles get much more exciting and intelligent, quite comparable to some of the better shounen battle manga I've read. Right now, that might be the greatest strength of this manga, keeping my interest alive and well.

I was at first put off by some aspects of the art... namely, the character designs of some of the younger cast... namely, Yuuma and Chika (who'll be properly introduced in the next ep of the anime). Well, I got over it. Overall, the art is quite decent for a shounen battle manga: the action is well done and most of the numerous characters are easy to differentiate by looks.

In conclusion, World Trigger still isn't good enough that I'd go out of my way to recommend it, but I have to say I personally enjoyed it quite a bit. It's nothing amazing, but if you feel like reading a shounen battle manga, here's a decent candidate with slightly better MC than I'm used to seeing in this genre. 3.5 stars.

Music: Anything that goes well with action, really. Usually something heavier rather than lighter, but the tone isn't ultra-dark or anything, so I tried to find the middle road.

Krozam:
Yasashii Sekai no Tsukurikata by Takeba Kumiko



http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/a-method-to-make-the-gentle-world-r80
20 ch read.

A young genius is recruited to teach in an all-girls high school. The premise sounds a lot like Denpa Kyoushi. However, the truth is that these two manga have very little in common. Not to say that Denpa Kyoushi isn't good, I found it very entertaining up to where I've read it (ch 46), but I've got to say that Yasashii Sekai completely outclasses it in depth. This is far more realistic, focuses on a smaller cast of very well developed characters, and focuses a fair bit more on romances.

The male lead isn't as good as I had hoped, in terms of likability, but since he has actual depth and dimension, I suppose I shouldn't judge him by the same standards I use on regular harem leads. I suppose, genius or not, he's still only 19 and inexperienced in life, so let's allow him a bit of naïvete and thickheadedness.

The female lead's complexity consists mostly of the discrepancy between her "gal" outer appearance, and her extremely innocent personality. TBH, I think she's among the weaker character in the cast, depth-wise. Which still makes her far deeper than your average romance female lead. Likeable, and kawaii as fuck, too. And maybe the author is saving her arc for the last.

Alone, these two wouldn't carry the manga very well. They could, but not well. Fortunately, the author gives a lot of attention to secondary characters, giving some of them their very own plot threads. The female lead's three friends and two other teachers, as well as some even less prominent characters, are all well defined characters with their own problems, given some development and sometimes romances of their own. Truly, supporting characters are a strong point in this manga.

Another strong point is the art. Even not looking at the author's name (assuming it's not a pen name), I'd guess that she's is female, from the art style, but she sure draws some hot girls, too, even some classy fanservice (which is fairly rare, though). From the start, the art style was top quality, even though this appears to be the mangaka's first series. Overall, very pleasant to the eye, with some attractive characters to ogle at, whether you like guys or girls.

Just like the art, the content of the manga is pretty gender-neutral. By that I mean it contains elements that pander to both genders - and it actually works, maintaining a pretty good balance. I'm not sure if this is serialised in a seinen or josei magazine, but it would fit equally well in both. Due to some mature themes, there's little chance it's shounen or shoujo.

So, as I was saying, I expected a harem, with some Denpa Kyoushi -like elements: the teacher MC helping students resolve their problems with his out-of-the-box thinking, having them fall for him in gratitude. Boy, was I wrong. Sure, the teacher does occasionally help his students with their issues, and one student definitely fell for him for it - but only one. The rest of the students pretty much resolve their issues amongst each other, occasionally with the help of other teachers or outsiders. Although there's a simple romance at the heart of the story, this turned out to be a surprisingly deep and complex story. Woven around that romance, there is a multitude of realistic, painful issues that various characters will have to resolve in order to move forward with their lives. Nothing super heavy, but serious enough to put this manga at least a peg or two above most romance manga I've read, in terms of depth.

Apart from the awkward start (with some stupid misunderstandings that almost made me give up after only 2 chapters), this feels very much like a story written by a professional with clear goals where the story is heading. The author has excellent control over her plot threads, and I get the feeling that this is one story which won't be dragged on beyond its natural lifespan. The dialogue is good: sufficiently entertaining, and carries the story onward at a deliberately controlled pace, neither too slow nor too fast. The drama so far has maintained precarious balance between touching and frustrating. In a story like this, there is alaways a danger of too much melodrama, but so far the author has avoided it, so I'm quite hopeful regarding the last (probably 2) volumes.

In conclusion, this is a manga I could recommend to anyone with a taste for good, serious but not overdone drama, and some sweet romance. I'll give this 4/5 stars, dropping half a star each for the not quite good enough mains and the weak beginning. Might raise it to 4.5 later, if the rest of the manga keeps being great.

Music: Marija Serifovic - Molitva https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlCafldxv1E
A beautiful song, won ESC 2007 completely deservedly.

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