W Juliet 14
Posted: March 5, 2007 Filed under: W Juliet 19 Comments »The timeline for the end of the series is a bit wacky, and the opposition I was hoping for seems to happen after graduation, when I was wishing for everything to be resolved… but oh well. I still got a pretty satisfactory ending. The fact that the dad stopped what could have been a foul-up right at graduation with what Emura called psychic powers of some kind was definitely a bonus. After graduation, there are several more stories about different couples intermixed with Ito and Mako’s story, but I like how they turn out in the end.
I think I like Ito and Mako a lot as a couple because they stay so true to each other throughout the entire series. Unlike most other manga like this, where the relationships are rocky and the characters often hop around, the opposition came from other sources and the one constant throughout was that Ito and Mako had each other. This was adorable, and made even better by the fact that I liked them so much as characters and a lot of the stories served not only to provide cute moments between the two, but also to flesh them out and give them background.
Yes, the series did repeat itself sometimes, and yes, I think it did focus too much on other characters at the end, but I absolutely adored W Juliet for never seriously threatening to separate Ito and Mako from one another. It was assured that even if they needed to be uprooted from their surroundings or things went bad with either of their families, they would be together despite that. It was really nice. I mentioned that I liked the steady couple in Marmalade Boy too, when Miki and Yuu were solid after about four volumes, but the relationship needed to develop first, then it was threatened one or twice after it was established too, so… I liked this better where the relationship was solid from the first volume and only grew from there.
I also mentioned I liked the passage of time, where most other series would let the seasons cycle indefinitely while the characters remained the same age (this one DOES do that in the first year, to be fair), W Juliet has reason to mark off time since the end of the series is something that is a clearly defined event.
Emura’s talks were also something that appealed to me throughout. I said I liked them better than any other mangaka, and I realized this was because she always talked about her stories and answered questions readers had about the characters instead of video games, going out shopping with friends, or her assistants. She lost me a bit when an entire volume was dedicated to real-life ghost stories, and another volume was dedicated to assistants, but even when she spent an entire volume on her sister, I was kind of touched since she’d talked so much about her sister up to that point. She says she just doesn’t have anything else to talk about since the manga rules her life, but I still say she’s one of the more interesting for those side columns.
The one thing that I was totally disappointed about in the end, and THIS IS A HUGE SPOILER SO DON’T READ IT IF YOU DON’T WANNA HEAR, was that Ito and Mako didn’t get married. I was so sure this was going to happen, and I was really sad that it didn’t. Emura blamed it on too few pages for the last installment… but now that there’s a W Juliet II, I’d be thrilled if we got it there.
Highly recommended for fans of shoujo monogamy as one of the only representatives in the genre that I can think of.
There’s going to be W Juliet II??
Yeah, I think it started again not too long ago, though I know absolutely nothing about it other than it’s a continuation.
ZOMG you so spoke my mind! I agree with this though I have yet to finish the series ((On Vol 9 )) I hate in most Shojo Manga where the main couple is not sure if they want to be together..I enjoy this Response since you basically said everything I thoughts..Plus I love Marmalade Boy as well..XDD And I can’t wait for W Juliet II too..But the only thing that bother me while reading how that this series starts out with a lot of acting, plays and stuff..But as Ito and Mako’s relationship grows that kind of stuff goes away for a bit..but then comes back..then goes away the comes back ect. Since I’ve only read till the 9th volume I’ll have to see what happens next..But I still enjoy the series..^^ and your Responses..So yeah..theres a comment for you..
~KazeTala
Thank you for your comment ^_^ I agree with you about the plays fading in and out of the series. Though they stay as kind of a focus throughout, the plot seems to move between plays and social situations. The pro auditions at the end of their senior year were pretty cool, though. I don’t think I liked them too much while I was reading them, but they worked really well as plot for the series.
I was hoping they’d get married in Volume 14 cause of the picture in the front x_X sucks that they didn’t -.- Ehhh, What happens to them? Are they still going out?
Yeah, they wind up being together, and the wedding is pretty much a go, but they don’t show the two getting married. It’s kind of a bummer, but I assume that just means they leave the wedding open for the sequel series, W Juliet II. I haven’t heard anything about the content of that one, though, so I can’t say for sure.
What are you talking about Ito and Makoto don’t get married?They do so in book 14. They don’t have a huge formal wedding they just do a little private thing just the two of them.The W Juliet II would be cool to read but what would it be about?I mena in the last instalment we knoew that they get married and eventually have a daughter, would the story be about their kid?
Agreed with Kitten:
They definitely do get married in book 14, just not a big affair. When they’re putting their house together, they talk about how they’ve done their paperwork but how they don’t quite feel married yet. But they’ve definitely married by the end of the first series.
Huh, I’m not sure how I glossed over that. Thanks for the specifics though, it’s been so long since I read the end of the series. I’m still kind of curious about the sequel series though.
Hello. And Bye.
dude you know what I’m talking about! soy desole
LOL, nice comments here.
One think I want to say is that I also hate it when mangaka talks only about playing video games, it’s really stupid (Nobuhiro Watsuki likes to do that).
I hardly ever read those asides anymore because I eventually just got fed up with that. Arina Tanemura was the worst, because they were all about her assistants and were just the most long and mundane stories in the world, even in those 4-panel comics she likes to draw. She literally sucked all the joy I got from reading those away forever.
The ones with the video games are kind of boring, but I hate the ones with the assistants or the ones where they talk about celebrities all the time the worst.
I did read all the bonus write-ups in Basara, which were great because she actually talked a lot about the characters and story. Kaori Yuki’s were also pretty good from what I remember of the Cain Saga and Angel Sanctuary, and I occasionally read the asides in Skip Beat, which are usually about the characters. Mikiyo Tsuda has the best bonus write-ups ever, though. I don’t actually like her manga all that much, but those bonus comics and asides she writes are always very funny.
You know how you have certain manga that you just couldn’t get into, like Fruits Basket? Well, W-Juliet was like that for me. Frankly, I’m tired of genderswapping series all together, plus the fact that it took about one volume for Ito and Makoto to get together. Sure, they remain loyal to each other, which I appreciate, but I felt that 14 volumes dragged the hell out of this series. PLUS A SEQUEL? You’ve got to be kidding me. Add to the fact I couldn’t stand any of the side characters that were trying to come between the main couple, and you receive from me one huge sigh. I bought all the manga more out of completist syndrome rather than actual delight.
Oh, well. You win some, you lose some.
True. I can see how this series wouldn’t click for a lot of people. It’s pretty middle-of-the-road, and I think I wound up enjoying it more because I read all the volumes at the same time and let myself get caught up in the story rather than because the story was really engaging. I hadn’t read a lot of gender-bending stories at the time, so the concept was still pretty novel, too. But yeah, it is kind of episodic and not much develops. I think of it and Hana-Kimi at kind of the same level. I think I liked Hana-Kimi a little better, but neither one left much impression when I wasn’t reading it, and both were really episodic shoujo stories with… not a whole lot of plot development, I guess. I got pretty caught up in both, but between the couple in W Juliet hooking up way early and the couple in Hana-Kimi hooking up in one of the last volumes… well.
Also, it’s probably worth mentioning that I was reading Cheeky Angel at the same time as this series, so that was the only serious competitor for gender swapping. Cheeky Angel is still one of the worst series I’ve ever read.
Cheeky Angel is genius compared to Evil’s Return.
Evil’s Return sounds vaguely Arm of Kannon-esque, but I got pretty bored of the over-the-top porny violence after a few volumes.
Granted… not even Arm of Kannon uses a euphemism like “womanhood” straight on the cover.
It’s so horrible. You should read it just for a laugh.
I’m seriously considering it.