Slightly Biased Manga

Now!  To counterbalance that disturbing Confidential Confessions review, here’s the beginning of my 6-volume deficit of Cheeky Angel volumes!  I’ve got three of them under my belt so far, I’ll probably get to the other three before the end of the weekend.

This series never quite gets over being one of the most absolutely mediocre series I’ve ever read.  There are parts where it drops waaaay below the average mark, and there are parts where I kind of like it, but those parts are probably only likable because I’ve been reading this series so long and I’m desperately trying to find something good about it since I’m only about halfway through.

But this volume was pretty good.  It was very character-driven once again, and we get some more backstory about Genzo, who has none.  Meg chats with an old girlfriend of his, who spills the beans about how he uses women.  The fact that Genzo was a thug who hated or used women in the past wasn’t that big a revelation, but for some reason all the characters took it as one, and there are several chapters dedicated to finding the real Genzo.  Ugh.  He is who he is, and it’s annoying that they thought that somehow there was another persona hiding.  Clearly Meg brought out all this good stuff about him… I thought that had been established fairly early on.  Maybe I misread.

Anyway, we get a story about Genzo’s scars in a backstory that involves both Meg and Miki.  Later, they pin the change in Genzo on the devil clown, so the group goes to Genzo’s house and meets his sister, who is totally awesome.  She even LOOKS different from other characters!  Wow!  Unfortunately, she is described as a Genzo in drag, and she really looks nothing like him… doesn’t even really act like him, except for being slightly Meg-obsessed and only a little over the top.

So another round of stuff from the Devil Clown in the wish book, which I thought had somehow been rendered useless.  Meg has to fight about whether or not she does or doesn’t want to be turned back into a man.  She finds something out that will make the rest of the series AWESOME if it sticks, and she is a bit conflicted about it.  The end of the volume ends with the cutest scene between her and Genzo EVER.

It was a good volume, and I liked it, but again, a powerfully mediocre series.  The next volume’s kinda good, but the volume after that one stinks again.  More on that later.

I like the series more and more, I think, which is good since I’m only halfway through. I did wind up liking the story arc with Miki quite a bit, and even though it became nigh comprehensible in parts, it was still quite good.

The one with Megumi’s mother right afterwards wins Cheeky Angel so far, though. Her mom is AWESOME, and a lot of the series faults disappeared during that story arc, where mom tricks and grills all the boys in the series except Meg.

I think accepting the series as bizarre and silly is part of me coming to terms with it. It is a gag manga in a lot of ways, and I think one of the problems with reading it in English is that a lot of the visual jokes don’t make sense anymore, or just aren’t as funny. I like both Genzo and Meg a lot, they’re both silly and a lot alike, and they’re a good couple and by no stretch of imagination serious. I want to read some more volumes now. I’ve got one more on the shelf, but I think I have three more I need to pick up.

Why am I always behind with this one? Because I don’t like it? Well, I like it better now, though it’s still not good. Let’s see where that puts it.

Eh. Eh. I’m torn on the Miki going away arc. On one hand, I wonder IF they’re going to do it, because they sure are uncharacteristically committed to doing so. On the other hand, it may be going on a tad too long. On that nonexistent third hand, this is the best and most well-developed story arc yet, and this volume finally, FINALLY brought some character development out in both Miki and Megumi.

I can’t say anything bad about it, and it’s just shy of being enjoyable… not quite thrilling enough for me yet, but that might be because I have a huge bias against this series and am committed to not liking it. This volume was emotional, people cried, stood up for each other, and everything was sweet, bittersweet, exciting, action-packed, and just about everything I could have asked for in this series.

Okay, okay, it was fantastic. I wonder if the story arc will conclude next volume or keep going on, and I’m dying to know what happens… which is something I never thought I’d say about Cheeky Angel.

Eh. Eh. Not bad, but still a mediocre series. I liked the rival last volume, but they did things to ruin it this volume and run it into the ground, which I guess this series can’t help doing. The gigantic plot that took up the first half of the volume, with the little boy they were trying to make tough, was no good. It was boring, but not embarassingly bad like the mofia plot.

The plot with Miki that took up the second half was at least mildly more interesting, but Miki… has no personality. Not even after they tried to develop her. She was given this distant personality, but she’s still completely boring and not an interesting character at all. However, I DO like what that plot was doing for Megumi, it was at least giving her a lot more personality. That’s nice.

One more volume to go before I’m caught up. Thirteen more before the end of the series.

Okay, okay, goddammit. This volume is much better. Much, much better. We get a rival introduced for Megumi, and you wouldn’t believe that this brings the storylines back from the fucking dead, but it does. Megumi reacts in strange ways to the girl, she elicts a reaction from all of Megumi’s followers, and Megumi is scared of her. It’s good.

Plus… don’t tell anyone, but I love Genzo. He’s so stupid, but he really is a good guy, and he’s so goddamn funny. His jokes are just so bad they’re funny. And I can imagine him in real life, and he is hilarious. Genzo and Megumi are my two favorite characters, not necessarily as a couple, but just in general. They’re the best. Megumi’s friend, whose name I can never remember, is also good, but those two are the best, no matter what.

I also liked that it looked at each of the followers a bit closer instead of focusing entirely on Megumi. I liked the scrutiny for Ichiro and the Glasses kid. They were both hilarious.

Also, there were some errors as far as some swapped and blank word bubbles. Worth noting, I suppose.

Yeah, yeah. The storylines are much better now. But it’s still bad up until this point.

I actually haven’t read this series in forever, but have been buying it. With three volumes backlogged, I dove into volume five and remembered why I hadn’t been reading it.

This series is really terrible. I kept reading, hoping it would do something interesting and not keep being stereotypical with stupid joke after fucking stupid joke. It doesn’t. They just keep pulling the same shit with Genzo, with Ichi, and with Megumi. Here’s the end of their fight with the mofia, here’s a predictable fight with Genzo, etc. They try to track down the wizard that gave Meg the book, and aren’t successful. Guess what, Meg doesn’t move away. Surprise, fucking surprise.

God, Cheeky Angel. I want desperately for you to be good, but you just keep punishing me for reading.

Somehow this series flew under the radar and I didn’t even know it existed until I heard a friend mention it. When I found out this was a genderbending manga, I was all over it. They write that genre of manga just for me, you know.

The premise is a lot like “Pretty Face,” which was an absolutely terrible Shounen Jump series with a great premise. How do you ruin a manga about a complete thug getting into an accident and having an unwanted plastic surgery to make him look like the girl he has a crush on? I don’t know, but Pretty Face did it. This is along the same lines, but better, much better.

Maybe I’m getting pickier about my manga, but I really didn’t like the fact that they had to mention that Megumi was a boy at least once every three pages. Apparently the reader can’t be trusted to remember that. Some scenes were also just weird and akward, but overall, somehow, it pulled everything off. The art is weird and the proportions are off in some places, but it’s also strangely appealing. Pretty sure it’s done on a computer. The character design on Megumi is great, and I loved the fact that everyone just called her Angel. Hated Genzo at first, but the very last scene with him in the bear suit won me over.