I Reads You Review: HIGH SCHOOL DEBUT Volume 6

Creator: Kazune Kawahara

Publishing Information: VIZ Media, paperback, 192 pages, $8.99 (US), $10.50 CAN

Ordering Numbers: ISBN: 978-1-4215-1733-9 (ISBN-13); 1-4215-1733-9 (ISBN-10)

The heroine of High School Debut is Haruna Nagashima, a high school girl who was a tremendously talented and prolific athlete in junior high school. Now, a high school student, Haruna has changed her focus from athletics to boys. She consults fashion magazines and shojo manga (comics for teen girls) for advice on everything from what to wear to how to attract a boyfriend. It doesn’t work because she can’t get even one boy to make a pass at her.

Haruna finally gets an idea. When she wanted to get better at sports, she found an athletics coach. So, she thinks, if she wants to get better at attracting boys, why not hire a love coach. Haruna recruits the very popular upperclassman, Yoh Komiyama, as her dating coach. He agrees to help her as long as she doesn’t fall in love with him… but how will Yoh feel when boys start hitting on Haruna?

Eventually, Haruna and Yoh became a couple, and many were the tests of their love’s strength and endurance. High School Debut, Vol. 6 presents the biggest test. Yoh’s former girlfriend from junior high school, Makoto Kurihara, has returned, and Haruna has unknowingly befriended her. Helping Makoto reconnect with her old flame, Haruna is too clueless to realize that she is helping Yoh’s ex-girlfriend reestablish contact with him. Yoh insists that he’s through with Makoto, but Haruna wonders if he is really being honest.

High School Debut is a high school shojo romance similar to Aya Nakahara’s Love*Com, as both are about mismatched couples. The reader would not be blamed for doubting that the taciturn Yoh and the frantic, chatterbox Haruna will last as a couple. That, of course, is the draw of High School Debut. The tenuous nature of the Haruna/Yoh relationship is what’s at stake in this series, and lovers of such tales of shaky romances will enjoy this.

Although High School Debut, in a sense, is standard fare, creator Kazune Kawahara tells the story in a way that transforms teen romance into a pot boiler of a soap opera. Her graphic storytelling mixes taut compositions (especially on the figure drawing) and atmospheric toning and sparkly effects. That makes for a visually sparkling romance.