Review: HAPPY MARRIAGE?! Volume 2

HAPPY MARRIAGE?!, VOL. 2
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

CARTOONIST: Maki Enjoji
TRANSLATION: Tetsuichiro Miyaki
EDITOR/ENGLISH ADAPTATION: Nancy Thislethwaite
LETTERS: Inori Fukuda Trant
ISBN: 978-1-4215-5935-3; paperback (October 2013); Rated “M” for “Mature”
192pp, B&W, $9.99 U.S., $12.99 CAN, £6.99 UK

After debuting with Fu•Junai (Wicked Pure Love), manga creator Maki Enjoji created four more series.  That fourth series is Happy Marriage?!.

Happy Marriage?! focuses on 22-year-old Chiwa Takanashi.  In order to get her father out of debt, Chiwa enters into a marriage.  Her husband is 28-year-old Hokuto Mamiya, the President and CEO of Mamiya Commerce.  The two live a secret life together, with only Hokuto’s personal assistant, Taeko Soma, knowing of the marriage.  To complicate things, Chiwa works in the same office as her husband.

As Happy Marriage?!, Vol. 2 opens, Chiwa worries that Hokuto is cheating on her.  She shares her concerns with the company’s hot new recruit, Yu Yamagi, but tells the young man that she is seeking advice for a friend.  Meanwhile, paparazzi catch Hokuto in the company of hot actress, Yukana Kishi.

Chiwa gets a little closer to Yu than she expected, which captures Hokuto’s attention.  Then, Chiwa is reunited with an old college friend, 26-year-old Shingo Sakuraba, the director of small startup business.  Is this another sign that the terms of the marriage contract are the only things keeping Chiwa and Hokuto together?

Early in my reading, I grew bored with the Happy Marriage?! manga.  Chiwa Takanashi’s fretting and doubting just became repetitive – real fast.  However, I started to notice that one of Happy Marriage?!’s hooks is the clever way creator Maki Enjoji gives her characters a penchant for misunderstanding everything and everyone.

This series is like a comedy of errors in which the characters are just self-centered, self-absorbed, and clueless enough to spite themselves.  A little effort and a little honesty would bring them closer to what they want, if not outright get it for them.  Pretty soon, I found myself laughing and enjoying Happy Marriage?!  It is not a great work, but it is an effective romantic comedy and drama about misunderstanding and misdirection.  Sometimes, it’s just fun to watch the characters clown themselves.

B+

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: VOICE OVER! Seiyu Academy, Volume 1

VOICE OVER! SEIYU ACADEMY, VOL. 1
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

CARTOONIST: Maki Minami
TRANSLATION/ENGLISH ADAPTATION: John Werry
LETTERS: Sabrina Heep
ISBN: 978-1-4215-5970-4; paperback (October 2013); Rated “T” for “Teen”
208pp, B&W, $9.99 U.S., $12.99 CAN

After debuting in 2001 with Kanata no Ao (Faraway Blue), Maki Minami created many other manga series, including S•A.  VIZ Media publishes her recent series, Seiyu Ka!, in North America as Voice Over! Seiyu Academy.

The series is set at Holly Academy High School, which offers general education, sports, acting, music, and visual arts like many other high schools.  However, it is famous in the world of voice acting for its voice acting department.  Fifteen-year-old Hime Kino is the newest student.  This first year student’s dream is to be a voice actress with a cute voice – the princess type.  However, Hime’s gruff voice earns her the ire of teachers and students alike, but she isn’t about to give up.

As Voice Over! Seiyu Academy, Vol. 1 opens, Hime is spending her first day at Holly Academy.  She recalls the moment that started her dream of being a voice actor.  It was an encounter with voice acting legend, Sakura Aoyama, former star of the anime, Magic Warriors: Lovely ♥ Blazers.  Aoyama’s son, Senri Kudo, just happens to be a second year student at Holly Academy, but after her first encounter with the teen, Hime finds his attitude about more than a few things to be potty.

Her time in the Year One Voice Group quickly turns sour as she finds herself in the Voice Acting Department “stragglers,” the failing students.  But a school acting performance will change Hime’s future... hopefully for the best.

As a narrative set at a school for voice actors, the Voice Over! Seiyu Academy manga seems to have a problem.  In theory, it is a story that would work best as an audio drama or as a television series.  A manga certainly does not come with sound, and audio would also be the best way to hear the characters’ voices, especially Hime’s.

Creator Maki Minami focuses not so much on voice, but on overall characters.  All the characters in Voice Over! Seiyu Academy are familiar types, even stereotypes, from shojo manga.  Minami gives each a twist, something surprising, shocking, or unusual about each character type that makes him or her interesting to the audience.  In fact, that has made me very interested in Voice Over! Seiyu Academy.  I like this manga and want more – shojo loving guy that I am.

A-

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

I Reads on Your Grave October 2013

Finally!  Forever Evil is over.  Just kiddin' y'all.  It's October 2013.  Welcome to I Reads You, a ComicBookBin web publication (www.comicbookbin.com).  We write about the things we read:  mostly comic books, comics, and related books.  Sometimes, we’ll write about or link to other topics:  typically books, politics, and entertainment.

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