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Yoshinaga Fumi - Flower of Life, vol. 01-03 (Eng. trans.)
Tue, May. 6th, 2008 03:24 pmDespite Yoshinaga being widely praised, I tend to avoid her manga because her kinks are... most decidedly not mine, let us say.
Hanazono Harutaro's leukemia is in remission, and so he's enrolling in school late. He soon quickly makes friends with the somewhat short and chubby Shota, which is how he ends up in the school's manga club, run by super-otaku Majima. Not much happens in the three volumes, and quite a few chapters aren't even on Harutaro. What's great about this manga is how normal and ordinary it is, from Majima's all-too-real rants about manga to a young manga writer's love of art supplies (I forgot her name.. Shin something?).
It's a very difficult work to describe, because so much is in the details. Yoshinaga is excellent at observing people, and I especially love the Christmas arc in the third volume, which by all rights should be schmaltzy and cliched, but is instead wonderful and makes me smile. I love how Yoshinaga's geeky love of manga shines through even as she makes fun of it at times, and I particularly love how fond she is of her characters, even prickly Majima. My favorites, though, are manga writer girl and Shota (people talking about weight in a manga!), and I am so glad manga writer girl doesn't get a makeover.
There is one plot point that I very much dislike, but I love the others so much that I will keep reading. I'm not sure how well this will work for non-manga fans, because it is filled with such love and bemused affection for manga, but if you love manga and know anything about it, this is wonderful.
Yoshinaga fans, tell me -- should I read her other series? I loved the first half of Antique Bakery, but not the second about Tachibana's angst and Ono's assorted relationships, and I am very, very bad with non-consensual anything and/or huge power differentials. But I love her characters in this so much.
Hanazono Harutaro's leukemia is in remission, and so he's enrolling in school late. He soon quickly makes friends with the somewhat short and chubby Shota, which is how he ends up in the school's manga club, run by super-otaku Majima. Not much happens in the three volumes, and quite a few chapters aren't even on Harutaro. What's great about this manga is how normal and ordinary it is, from Majima's all-too-real rants about manga to a young manga writer's love of art supplies (I forgot her name.. Shin something?).
It's a very difficult work to describe, because so much is in the details. Yoshinaga is excellent at observing people, and I especially love the Christmas arc in the third volume, which by all rights should be schmaltzy and cliched, but is instead wonderful and makes me smile. I love how Yoshinaga's geeky love of manga shines through even as she makes fun of it at times, and I particularly love how fond she is of her characters, even prickly Majima. My favorites, though, are manga writer girl and Shota (people talking about weight in a manga!), and I am so glad manga writer girl doesn't get a makeover.
There is one plot point that I very much dislike, but I love the others so much that I will keep reading. I'm not sure how well this will work for non-manga fans, because it is filled with such love and bemused affection for manga, but if you love manga and know anything about it, this is wonderful.
Yoshinaga fans, tell me -- should I read her other series? I loved the first half of Antique Bakery, but not the second about Tachibana's angst and Ono's assorted relationships, and I am very, very bad with non-consensual anything and/or huge power differentials. But I love her characters in this so much.