It’s Shojo Manga Week over at The Manga Critic, and it’s evolved into Link to The Manga Critic Week here at The Manga Curmudgeon. In honor of both, I wanted to put out a plea for some kind publisher to pick up two of CMX’s shôjo titles that saw only one volume released before DC pulled the plug on the much-loved manga imprint.
Miku Sakamoto’s Stolen Hearts has several things going for it. It’s about an ongoing relationship rather than a potential relationship, which is almost always entertaining. It also explores fashion in its way, which puts it in the same category as Banri Hidaka’s V.B. Rose and Ai Yazawa’s Paradise Kiss (both from Tokyopop). It’s about a tall, menacing-looking boy whose family runs a kimono shop who starts dating a short, innocent looking girl who becomes the shop’s model. There’s a bossy, conniving granny involved, and just about every comic can be improved by the inclusion of a bossy, conniving granny. Here are some of my thoughts on the book, which basically repeat what I just said.
I think the book is still ongoing in Hakusensha’s Hana to Yume, which has given the world a lot of great shôjo manga. CMX was also planning to release Sakamoto’s Nadeshiko Club, another Hana to Yume title about a girl who joins a home economics club filled with hot guys. It staggers me that nobody has picked up this reverse-harem title yet. It ended up being seven volumes long.
We also only saw one volume of Mayu Fujikata’s My Darling! Miss Bancho. This makes me sad, as I was looking forward to reading more of it:
“It’s a likable, well-executed variation on a very common theme, and its clear-headed freshness keeps it from seeming derivative to the point of superfluous. Fujikata also gives good author’s notes in which she expresses pixilated amusement that her editor keeps letting her get away with this stuff.”
Snarky author’s notes are always welcome, especially when they’re the icing on a generally tasty cake. This ongoing title is currently being serialized in Hakusensha’s LaLa DX. I wonder why Hakusensha never started its own stateside manga imprint? In retrospect, it’s probably just as well, as there was never any shortage of outlets for their licenses, but still… they have so many great books.