B.O.D.Y. 5

This series is honestly infuriating.  I want to take Ryoko, slap her a bunch of times, shake her, and then do the same to all her friends.  What they do just doesn’t make any sense.  Why isn’t she just honest with her boyfriend?  Why is it so hard?  Ryunosuke knows that the guy was a total creep, so why would it be her fault that he kissed her?  Why is this something she agonizes over?  Why do both of them keep these annoying, inconsequential secrets from each other?

Every single one of these stories is like watching a train wreck.  You can see it coming a mile away.  It comes on slowly.  But there’s nothing you can do to intervene while the characters carry on down their extremely obvious and ultimately disasterous collision course.  And as I said, it is infuriating.

Remember how I was glad all that Host Club stuff was cleared up?  Somehow Kousuke is way more annoying than any of that stuff ever was.  Everything that he does, every sentence out of his mouth, is just… you want to punch him in the face.

Why am I still reading this?  Clearly I’m just getting worked up even thinking about the volume after I’m done.  I don’t think I’ve been this angry while writing one of these in awhile.  But there is something mildly addictive about trashy manga that’s done well, and while I wouldn’t say this is among the better of that genre, it’s certainly got whatever it needs to keep me coming back to these aggrivating characters and situations.  I hate myself a little for being so weak.  God dammit.  I need a drink or something.

Let’s see… something positive… well, the copy on the back cover is written out in rhyme in a little valentine or something.  I thought that was pretty cute, and the slightly different design to call attention to it was appreciated.  I don’t really read the author commentaries for a lot of shoujo series anymore, and I skipped over almost all of the plentiful bonus material in this volume, but several things caught my eye.  One of the 4-panel comics she has in the back talks about a reader that wrote in about a sign she saw at a bookstore that said something like “B.O.D.Y.! Cult hit with fangirls!  Future popularity not guaranteed!  Pay special attention to the bonus stuff, it’s almost paralyzingly funny!”  I really wish more bookstores paid backhanded compliments with signage.  Also notable was in the last page of the bonus content where the author talks about all the manga series she reads.  She lists 20 or so titles, and maybe three of them are not available in the US.  THREE OF THEM.  We’ve come a long way, friends.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.