Slightly Biased Manga

I’ve been see-sawing on this title ever since it was licensed. Whenever the opportunity to buy it comes up, I always seem to be in a rare conservative mood and restrain myself from starting a new series. Of any other series, it’s kind of strange how I haven’t wound up buying this one after wanting it for, like, two years. Especially since it’s so short. Apparently I was meant to have it though, because volume one surfaced in a discount bin at Chicago Comics over the weekend. I couldn’t turn it down for two dollars, and I’ll probably wind up buying the rest pretty soon.

The plot intrigued me, though I knew it would wind up being a slightly more mature, but still likely mediocre, shoujo story. It has being serialized in Princess magazine in its favor, and I tend to like series from there A LOT (After School Nightmare and From Eroica With Love spring immediately to mind). After reading it, it was basically what I expected. An introverted girl is forced into a social situation when she shares a butterfly birthmark with more than just her sister… and apparently the birthmark means that a promise was made in a past life with a destined lover. For some reason, I thought time travel was involved too, but it has abstained so far, and I’m okay with that. I kind of dislike time travel since I’m not at all familiar with Japanese history and a lot of story details miss me in those situations.

So far, so good with volume one. It is kind of lukewarm, but it definitely has potential to be a fun story. I like the main character and her sister. The main character is extremely self-assured and knows exactly what she wants in life and how to deal with people despite being totally withdrawn from the rest of her students at school. Her older sister is really shy and has no idea how to interact with others, but somehow she’s wound up as a really famous actress.  To deal with this, she’s adopted a personality as written by her sister so that she can deal with people as the “actress” and not as herself.  Both sisters seem satisfied with this arrangement.  I thought this was pretty unique myself, especially as a secondary plot.  It’s a good idea, but I don’t think it would hold up for long if that was all the story had going for it.

The main character begins getting harassed at school by a pair of boys who have the same butterfly birthmark on their thumbs that she does.  She doesn’t like talking to others, but the pair keep dragging her around, and one insists that they are destined lovers.  The girl rejects him again and again, and goes on to say that she’s already got a (made-up) boyfriend.  His story is strengthened by the fact that the girl does have strange visions of the past when the two touch their thumbs together.  By the end of the volume, the name of the game is keeping these boys from finding out that her sister has the same birthmark.  Also, the sister begins to seem like she’s getting jealous of the time that the main character is spending with friends and not with her, though she’s not the kind of character that’ll come out and say it.

Actually yes, so far this series is really fun and extremely unique.  I think the reason I’m not completely won over is that I haven’t warmed up to the characters yet, but so far it’s got a lot of unique ideas at work in the plot.