Honey Hunt 2
May 22, 2009
There’s just something in me that is drawn to stories like this. I’m not sure what it is about Honey Hunt that I like. I mean, there’s no romance. The main character is extremely weak-willed and can’t make any decisions unless someone tells her how to think. All the celebrity males in the series have a crush on her. And, yes, she is getting work because her parents are famous.
But why do I like it so much? I got totally caught up reading this volume. It wasn’t even a B.O.D.Y.-like experience, where I was cursing at the characters the entire time. Yura did a good job getting in character during her photo shoot despite some difficulties, Haruka seemed to get along with her despite himself, there was a press conference that made Yura get mad and run away, Q-Ta showed back up, Q-Ta and Haruka bantered good-naturedly back and forth about Yura, Keiichi prohibited Q-Ta from hanging out with Yura, some famous actress dissed Yura and made her a nervous wreck… you know, one thing led to another.
I keep comparing the plot to Skip Beat in my head, only because Yura keeps talking about “becoming” her character, something that is discussed at length in Skip Beat. But again, where Kyoko works hard to force herself on people, Yura has “a special something” and celebrity parents. I want to sympathize with her, because it would really suck to be constantly compared to your mom like that, but on the other hand, there was too much of “Ooh, I want to be a celebrity, but I don’t want to be a celebrity like that” going on. I weep for you, Yura, for not getting to be an actress in exactly the way you want.
Also, it was especially lame when at the end of the book, she was sad about getting bullied by an older actress and all it took to snap her out of it was basically someone telling her “don’t be sad!” Apparently simple solutions like this do not occur to her, and she takes the advice to heart enough that she forgives this person for being a total jerk about a serious promise. Oh well.
I’ll keep reading, though. I’ll keep reading it, and talking about it, and secretly storing it on the shelf with my favorite series. It’s infuriating, but it’s got that special addictive touch. That “special something,” really. Curse that Yura, but it really does work.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
May 22, 2009 at 8:22 am
[...] on A Distant Neighborhood (Manga Recon) Marsha Reid on vol. 6 of Hissing (Kuriousity) Connie on vol. 2 of Honey Hunt (Slightly Biased Manga) Emily on Ki-chan Sensei no Jijou (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page) [...]
May 23, 2009 at 2:30 am
the one thing that bothers me about this series, is that it feels like no one is really on her side. it’s very lonely for me, and i can just see all the guys who are interested in her just wanting to use her for something and dump her, like hot gimmick bad x10. but with shojo beat being canceled, i’m gonna have to start buying them to know what happens next.
May 25, 2009 at 3:51 am
That’s true, there is always that suspicion that the only reason anybody is hanging out with her is because they like/want to meet her parents. Q-ta sort of shook that vibe in this volume, but its true he hasn’t quite given up the ghost entirely on Yura’s dad. Haruka seems like the best non-creepy candidate, especially since he doesn’t really seem to like her at this point and only really warmed up to her when he saw her acting. Maybe he’ll turn out to be a nice guy before too long.
I only picked up Shojo Beat every once in awhile since I like reading things in graphic novels better (I’m probably part of the problem), but it does make me sad that it got cancelled, since I like the idea of having a shoujo-centric magazine. Honey Hunt strikes me as an absolutely perfect Shojo Beat series.