Tenshi no Kiss Vol.2

Synopsis:

Alternative titles: Forbidden Dance, Angel’s Kiss.

Continuing the arc from the last volume, Nacchan prevents Aya from leaving for the competition by threatening suicide. It almost became a reality when she accidentally stumble, but Aya managed to save her in time. In the process, Nacchan fainted. Desperate, Aya called Akira and asked him to take care of Nacchan while she rushed to the competition. Luckily, she was not late. However, Aya was clearly tired, out of breath and sweating profusely. Before her turn onstage, Akira called her and told her that Nacchan is among the audience and rooting for her. She also wanted to apologize to Aya for all that she had done. The call boosted Aya’s will and she put on a great show. Everyone was amazed by it, even Aya herself who never thought she was able so dance to well.

Seeing Aya’s performance, Yoshino threw everything into the wind, and gave a surprisingly emotional but unorthodox performance, thereby losing any bit of chance of winning the competition. However, as Yoshino later explained to Aya, eventhough she has a strong personality – she made herself a perfect “textbook” dancer because it was the only way she thought she could surpass Aya. But she know better now, and she will find another dance troupe which will allow her to express her emotions.

As expected, Aya won the competition hands down, and she rushed off to find Akira. That night, Cool had a welcoming party for Aya but someone – Diana Roberts – came to Akira in the gardens, hug him and exclaimed that she “misses” him. It seems that the British Regents Ballet are having a tour in Japan with Diana as their lead in the performance, SwanLake. And Diana & Akira were actually classmates years ago.

During their practice sessions (which Diana attended to watch them), Aya made a lot of mistakes but at the end of the session, Akira still told her that she will be having a small part in the upcoming Cool performance. Both of them decided to continue their practice together and didn’t notice Diana leaving. When they were searching for her later on, Aya found her at the theatre (where Regents will be performing SwanLake practicing. As she watches in awe, she realizes how superior Diana’s dancing were, but then found out that Diana’s ankle was seriously hurt. Diana forced her to keep quiet about it. Aya approaches Akira and scolded him for not doing anything even though he knew about Diana’s injury. He just answered that it was none of her business.

On the debut performance of SwanLake, Aya was still convinced that Diana will definitely fall – especially for Act 2. She went looking for Diana and told her that she will take over her place for Act 2, thereby allowing her to finish performing her last dance. Using heavy makeup, both of them manage to disguise Aya, but her dancing was still not good enough. Many of the audience realizes that it was not Diana who was dancing onstage, but only Akira & the Cool troupe dancers knew that the ballerina was Aya. After Diana took over again in Act 3, she danced incredibly and they had a standing ovation that night. Diana collapsed right then.

Review:

I’ll be giving a shorter review this time. There is more development with the relationship between Aya & Akira, with Diana being the third party to give the story more twists.

The artwork is nice. There are more focus on the dancing, especially for the ballet performances, as we get some glimpse at both Aya & Yoshino’s performances in the competition finals as well as Diana’s performance as Odette in SwanLake. I especially like the drawing in the scenes with Diana’s dancing. She is incredibly beautiful as Odette. Overall, my review would be the same as in volume 1 with the exception on what was already mentioned above. As usual, I highly recommend this manga to all.

Labels: tenshi no kiss

Posted at 1:26 AM

Tenshi no Kiss Vol.1

Synopsis:

Alternative titles: Forbidden Dance, Angel’s Kiss.

The first 2 pages is about Aya in a ballet competition and she had an accident on stage when she suddenly woke up. Actually, she was just dreaming about the accident one month ago and it has been a recurring nightmare for her. As her leg was healed, she now continue her ballet lessons. Her sensei insisted on giving her the lead part, Aurora, in the upcoming performance Sleeping Beauty, even though the part had been given to Yoshino, the dancer who had won the competition instead of Aya. However, the accident left Aya with a bad case of stage fright. The psychological trauma cause her to fall again during the performance. In the end, she decided to quit ballet as she couldn’t dance anymore.

One day in the park, she was caught crying by a guy named Tetsuya. It turns out that they were schoolmates and he invited her to a ballet recital. This was how she got to know Cool, an all-male ballet troupe, led by an incredible dancer, Akira. Aya was so enraptured by their performance that she went to beg Akira to allow her to join their troupe. Surprisingly, he agreed but with one condition: Aya had to compete and win in the upcoming National Ballet Competition!

However, Akira wasn’t really serious about it and this really pisses Aya out. She was determined to prove her worth no matter what, and she continued her preparation for the competition while spending every bit of her free time watching Cool’s members practices. Seems like she had a plan hidden up her sleeve. In their next performance, she actually poisoned one of the members, and took over his role! All of this showed Akira her determination.

The National Ballet Competition has finally arrived. During the preliminaries, it was quite clear that the competition was between Aya & Yoshino, whom the latter decides to quit the ballet school if she loses. During the prelim, someone sabotaged Aya by putting glasses in her shoes. She suspected it was Yoshino & slapped her. Aya was so pushed to win that she purposely show the judges her superiority in technical skills, but in the process, lost what is most important in ballet – the feel and emotions. One of the judges, Mr. Jones actually walk off in the middle of her performance and gave her 0 points. Aya barely pass the prelims.Mr. Jones is actually a teacher at the Regents Ballet School in England and used to teach Diana Roberts, a world-renowned dancer. After watching some of her performances on video, Aya realizes her mistake and started practicing again.

On the day of the final, Nacchan (Aya’s best friend in the ballet school) went missing. Seems that she's upset that she was eliminated in the prelims. Aya went looking for her, and found her in the ballet school. Nacchan admitted that it was her who put the glasses in Aya’s shoes, not Yoshino. She has been jealous of Aya for a long time. Now she threatened to commit suicide if Aya leaves the room, thereby preventing Aya from making it to the competition.

Review:

This is the first time I’ve read a manga regarding dancing, ballet in this particular one. Naturally, I have high expectations with it. As the manga is only 4 volumes long (with the 4th volume only a chapter – the other chapters are oneshots), it is jam packed, and the storyline fast-paced. The characters are introduced quickly to us, but it is good that there are not too many side characters to bother us. The plot is interesting with a couple of twist here and there to keep up the tension.

As this manga is about dancing, I expect the artwork to be beautifully lined, especially the dancing scenes. The mangaka, Ashihara Hinako-san, did not disappoint. The dancing scenes, especially the ones with Cool, was incredible and full of lovely forms. The only complain is that there are not enough of these scenes, and each performances, or scenes are incredibly short. In fact, they couldn’t tell much story, other than that it’s just good dancing. There wasn’t much technical explanation regarding the dances as well.

Other than these scenes, the artwork of the rest of the manga is quite pretty and sleek, but normal. Although, I must say that Hinako-san took advantage with background features. Most of the time, she only emphasized on the characters, whereas the background are always simply drawn or otherwise empty. The body & facial proportions of the characters are also not always perfect (as in naturally correct) . Of course such emphasis are not necessarily bad and this is a manga after all, where the extremes are to be expected.

Over all, I strongly recommend this manga to all shoujo manga fans. It is quite interesting to read something with a different plot setting, instead of the usual high-school girl-boy relationship.

Labels: tenshi no kiss

Posted at 10:22 PM

Ouran Koukou Vol.2

Synopsis:

A new volume, a new chapter. Things starts off with Tamaki wanting Haruhi to turn back into a “girl”. However, he soon realizes that she will not be able to join the host club anymore if she is not a “guy”. Furthermore, Tamaki is a 2^nd year student, whereas Haruhi & the twins are not only 1^st years, but classmates as well.

The first chapter concentrates on the physical examination that all students must undergo. It was really incredible to see the length the hosts go to just to cover up Haruhi’s real identity – Tamaki even don a brown wig to pretend as her! That part was hilarious!

Another interesting chapter is the last one in this volume where the host club decided to have a holiday at a resort under the Ootori’s (Kyouya’s family) Group Corp. which is shaped to be like a tropical island (a fake one, naturally). Of course, it turns out that the resort is still under development, and that Kyouya brought them there as guinea pigs. Through yet another series of mishaps, Hunny went missing and everybody started searching for him.

All in all, the 2^nd volume brought new revelations regarding the main characters – we see that Haruhi is now able to recognize both the twins (she’s the only one able to in the entire manga) and could even point out the differences between them both. There was also much explanation about Hunny & Mori-senpai. Turns out that they’re cousins and the the Morinozuka family have been serving the Haninozuka family for generations before they became family through marriage. Hunny is also a world-class martial artist (even better than Mori!) despite his size and Lolita image. We can also see that Kyouya is a manipulative guy who’s make use of people for his own gain – but we all still love him, don’t we?

Review:

More character development here. We were revealed to more insight to our host’s stories, especially the one with Hunny & Mori. Hatori-san is taking her time slowly to bring about the real plot behind all the sub-plots. Only a sip was given, not even a mouthful... it just makes me want to skip all the front volumes and jump straight to the important parts. However, that means I will miss all the bits & pieces which when joint together, actually makes the manga quite enjoyable and which will connect us with the characters. Unfortunately, there are parts which I get bored easily.

The drawings are still not up to par here. It was only in the later volumes (when the manga has gain a steady fan-base) that more care was taken of for the artwork. This is very similar to mangas such as Hana Yori Dango (in which the artwork of the earlier volumes are “poison” to the eyes but the back volumes are beautiful) where the mangaka is only able to afford to hire assistants after the popularity of their work increase.

Labels: Ouran

Posted at 10:04 PM

Onnako wa Yoyu

Synopsis:

Tomomi is a high school girl who with her two best friends - Chika & Kaede are in the broadcasting club where Ojika-sempai was the ex-president of.

Tomomi is in love with her longtime childhood friend, Sawada. Unfortunately, he likes another girl instead. However, Tomomi decided to keep quiet about her feelings for him and was even willing to help him woo the other girl by giving him tickets so he could go with the girl to a performance. The first chapter is dedicated to how Tomomi loses her first love and how she overcome it. She is also more appreciative of everything around her, from the beauty of the surroundings as well as the support of her friends.

At this same time, it was made quite clear that Ojika-sempai is interested in Tomomi. He has a wonderful & commanding voice, in which he uses to try to court her subtly. In the 2nd chapter, through a series of 'events', Ojika-sempai manage to go home with Tomomi and met her parents (and her very sexy & open sister). It was also reveal that Ojika used to be in the tennis club, but he quitted for some unknown reason and joint the broadcasting club instead.

By the 3rd chapter, both Tomomi and Ojika are quite close with each other already. However, Chika (and Tomomi's sister) warned her that Ojika is a playboy and that she shouldn't be so close with him in fear that she might be toyed by him. Tomomi answered that she only respected him and the one she really like was actually Sawada. Unluckily, Ojika was nearby and overheard her. Later when they were alone at the nurse office, he made a move on her, but later laughed it off as a joke and said that he will always be the senpai that she respects.

Later on, the 3 girls together with Ojika's classmate, Takahashi, decided to visit Ojika (who was living alone) when they found out he was sick. Takahashi also revealed that Ojika's parents actually favoured his dead brother more, and that Ojika has always been like a shadow next to his brother. Furthermore, Ojika actually decided to play tennis to replace his dead brother, who was a good player, and after reaching the finals in the national, decided that his responsibility was done and his brother could rest in peace now, therefore he quitted.

Tomomi's view of Ojika became more and more positive as she sees him in a different perspective now. At the ending of the manga, Ojika was shown leaning on her shoulder while thanking her (this was viewed by Kaede & Chika).

Review:

Although only 1 volume long (3 chapters in total), Hikawa-sensei manage to cramp everything in perfect style. When reading this manga, I don't feel rushed at all. In fact, it is a very calming and straightforward story with no wasted or twisted plot. This is one of the manga that makes me feel very refresh because of its simplicity. For now, Onnako wa Yoyu is the only oneshot manga (i know oneshot is different than 1 volume, but it's still very short, therefore, i consider it as a oneshot) which is able to portray its story realistically in such a short amount. There are loads of humor offered through the secondary characters, especially Kaede & Chika. There are even enough time to show the possible blossoming love of these 2 characters as well, even though most of the story is centered around Tomomi, first with Sawada, and later in a much greater degree, with Ojika-sempai.

As for the artwork - I must say that it is alot better compared to say - Hoshi no Harmony. The lines are clearcut, and clean. The females characters drawn are those very cute and pretty, although the male characters are not exceptional (not even Sawada), except for Ojika-sempai. I'm guessing that Hikawa-sensei wants to emphasize on the looks of our main male character, and therefore bestow good looks only on him.

In conclusion, I felt really satisfied, and also a little sad after finishing the entire story. It was good, but I wish it was longer so that i could enjoy it for a longer time.

Labels: Oneshots/Single volume

Posted at 1:43 AM