Sakura of DOOM

Nicole is university student by day, receptionist at night, and writer whenever she can find the time. Her old neighbor Josh is working in a bookstore and getting lots of people's phone numbers, though he still wants hers, since she's the only person who's ignored him.

(For those interested, the art style is more indie comics than shoujo.)

This should be a sweet shoujo series on the power of the imagination, but it completely didn't work for me.

We get to see snippets of the story Nicole is writing, and sadly, I was very bored by it, which means I didn't emotionally buy the power the story had over her. I do grok the draw of writing and creating, but as a reader, it was like reading one of those things that tells you so-and-so is incredibly witty when all their dialogue is not.

I like that Josh is Korean American (I think?), but I hate the womanizing thing and how he stalkerishly pursues her. It was a little better after the reveal that they had actually spent some fun times together, but in the beginning, it seemed like he went out of his way to pursue her despite her consistent expressing of non-interest, and that was very off-putting.

Unfortunately, the rest of the romance is also boring. There are too many stupid misunderstandings, and Josh acts like he has zero comprehension of human behavior (who takes the advice "Go pick a fight with her; it'll make her like you better" seriously?). I also completely did not buy the final turn which leads Nicole to reject Josh -- it felt like it happened just because they needed to be kept apart for another volume, not for anything real.

Didn't work for me at all.

Go read this.

I speak as someone who is not generally a fan of most OEL manga out there, and as someone who was pretty wary about the premise of the series. I mean... the series has love triangles in it, and I still loved it.

Christie has just written a manga with her artist boyfriend Derek, and they're off to try and sell it at Yatta Con, along with a few friends. It's Chriss' first con, and it's a whole new world. And then, she bumps into a guy in sunglasses and a long flappy coat of angst (Matt), and the fun begins.

Volume 2 takes place a year after Chriss' first Yatta Con, and she's now back as a con veteran (sort of), with some friends in tow.

Even though rachelmanija has been reccing this to me for a good year and a half now, I just never got around to reading it until now. This is partly because despite Rachel's many assurances, I didn't want to read some cutesy thing on cons with a billion in-jokes and other things on anime fan culture.

Then I was reading Off*Beat yesterday night, except it had a lot of the things that generally turn me off OEL manga: too many panels per page, way too much text on a page, and an aesthetic and storyline that felt more indie comics instead of shoujo manga. For some reason, I flipped to the back and found a small excerpt from Dramacon. I read it, laughed out loud, and then rushed to get my copy of vol. 1 and devoured the entire thing.

This is, by the way, at around 3 in the morning.

( The art )

( The characters )

( The story )

( Race and gender )

In conclusion: I really loved this. I was so delighted with vol. 1 that I ran to Borders today to buy vol. 2, and now I am irritated that I cannot read vol. 3 right this second because it hasn't been published yet.

Even if you don't think it's your thing, just try reading the first few pages in a bookstore or online to see if it grabs you -- reading these two volumes made me so happy that I want to make other people read too!

ETA: Also, Chriss literally clocks someone in vol. 1!! yes i am twelve