Choco Mimi 2

Konami Sonoda – Viz – 2009 – 4+ volumes

This is still very, very cute and very, very little girl-y.  Again, it’s a collection of 4-panel and short comics surrounding two junior high girls named Choco and Mimi.  They like clothes and hanging out with their friends.  The art is super-cutesy and goes over the top when it comes to flowers, sparkles, and clothes.  It’s not terrible, I chuckled a few times, and I would have loved it if I had read it as a little girl.

I kept a closer eye on it this time to gauge it for possible negative influences.  There really wasn’t anything I could disagree with.  There were a few jokes about Mimi’s bad grades in the last volume, but it doesn’t mention Mimi’s lack of interest in studying at all in this volume, and does mention a few times how Choco is a good student.  The clothes, for as much focus as they get, aren’t inappropriate, and frequently the girls are dressing in layers with lots of those cute/cheap accessories that young girls have in abundance.  About the worst thing they wear are shorts, or halter tops overtop of a tank top, and I can’t really fault it for that.  It’s possible a materialistic message can be inferred from that… but I couldn’t find it in my heart to fault it, since the girls aren’t actually going out and shopping all the time, or commenting on how the clothes make them look pretty or anything like that.  There are several strips that lay out outfits in varying degrees of simple and complex in a way that I would have appreciated when I was young.

There is more focus on their adorable relationships with the boys they hang around with.  Choco and Ando have a mutual crush on one another that neither want to aknowledge, and an annoying boy named Mumu has what is most likely a crush on Mimi.  Both girls also adore one of Ando’s friends, a smart but spacey and strange boy that both Choco and Mimi see as a prince.  There’s no actual dating, or segments on how to pick up boys or look pretty or anything.  The boys are already friends with Choco and Mimi, and most of the comics are just about them hanging out and being friends, doing things like having birthday parties, going to the beach, spending New Year’s Day together, stuff like that.

I would have no problems giving this to a young girl, really.  It’s just cute and absolutely made for little girls.  Sugar and spice and everything nice, and all that.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.