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Peng Xue Fen - Unbeatable Youth, vol. 01-02 (orig. Chi.)
(彭雪芬 - 青春無敵)
Xiang Wei Er has just transferred to a new school. As Our Heroine, she is full of spunk and sass, and she's a good student to boot. (Also, she has glasses! And she does not get a makeover that makes them go away! I approve.) But because of her good grades, she's assigned to tutor trouble student Yu Hen, who seems oddly attached to her, given that he's the leader of a pack of the cool kids at school and she's... not.
This is a pleasant, but largely forgettable manhua. Still, a lot of the manhua I was reading in the summer was so bad that pleasant and largely forgettable is good! And the art doesn't make me want to tear my eyes out. I know I am totally damning with faint praise, but when a genre and/or medium is taking off, it's pretty hard to find even average stuff done well.
There's something about Peng's art that feels very simple and not-quite-manga-esque, even though it is pretty standard art. I think it's the lack of tones and shadows on characters' faces and the way her line weights don't vary much, but I really wish I were able to give a few sample pages to artists to really figure it out. I've gotten to the point where I notice subconsciously, but I can't analyze.
Anyway, I enjoyed this, especially because Wei Er kicks Yu Hen around a lot, and that always makes me happy. And there's the thing in which he has a giant crush on her because she swooped in and saved him from being bullied as a kid!
And then... there is a magical tree. I am still not entirely sure what happened with that, or if the tree was actually magical or metaphorically so, and it was quite confusing.
I do hope the manhuajia writes more though, since she's got the basics down (except the random magic tree).
Xiang Wei Er has just transferred to a new school. As Our Heroine, she is full of spunk and sass, and she's a good student to boot. (Also, she has glasses! And she does not get a makeover that makes them go away! I approve.) But because of her good grades, she's assigned to tutor trouble student Yu Hen, who seems oddly attached to her, given that he's the leader of a pack of the cool kids at school and she's... not.
This is a pleasant, but largely forgettable manhua. Still, a lot of the manhua I was reading in the summer was so bad that pleasant and largely forgettable is good! And the art doesn't make me want to tear my eyes out. I know I am totally damning with faint praise, but when a genre and/or medium is taking off, it's pretty hard to find even average stuff done well.
There's something about Peng's art that feels very simple and not-quite-manga-esque, even though it is pretty standard art. I think it's the lack of tones and shadows on characters' faces and the way her line weights don't vary much, but I really wish I were able to give a few sample pages to artists to really figure it out. I've gotten to the point where I notice subconsciously, but I can't analyze.
Anyway, I enjoyed this, especially because Wei Er kicks Yu Hen around a lot, and that always makes me happy. And there's the thing in which he has a giant crush on her because she swooped in and saved him from being bullied as a kid!
And then... there is a magical tree. I am still not entirely sure what happened with that, or if the tree was actually magical or metaphorically so, and it was quite confusing.
I do hope the manhuajia writes more though, since she's got the basics down (except the random magic tree).