Pastel 4

For Valentine’s Day, I read four different takes on romance. Or at least, that’s what I’d like you to believe. It just so happened that Pastel, Kashimashi, and even Immortal Rain are rather heavy on the love. I also reread the first volume of From Eroica With Love to ensure that my Valentine’s Day was as lovetacular as possible. Because… the love was then from Eroica, you see… yeah. That volume is not nearly as good as the rest in the series, but there’s still a lot more flirting in that one than there has been in recent volumes. I’ve already talked about it though, so no entry for it.

It worked out, because each of the four is a representative of different genres… Pastel for shounen romance, Immortal Rain for shoujo, Kashimashi for girl’s love, and Eroica for boy’s love… though Eroica is by no means boy’s love, Dorian can’t help but spread guy-on-guy action wherever he goes. I swear I just grabbed random stuff off the shelves.

Anyway, Pastel! This series just isn’t for me. It doesn’t do anything particularly offensive this time around… there was only one situational joke which made me cringe, and everything else seemed fine. I just can’t warm up to it for some reason, though.

I think this may have something to do with Yuu, who I get the impression does indeed return Mugi’s feelings. She’s just a robot though, who doesn’t show any emotion except a kind of stuck-up displeasure. She can’t help it she can’t show affection. Her facade is melting away at least a little bit in this volume though, as one of the major plot points was that a girl at school befriended her to ruin her reputation and steal Mugi away. She at least expressed displeasure that was not aimed at Mugi this time. I just don’t like Yuu very much, despite trying as hard as I can.

I still really like Mugi though. He makes for a really good main character. I wanted to start listing off qualities that made him better than other similar people, but the only other two characters that sprang to mind were Yota from Video Girl Ai and Ichitaka from I”s, and not only are those two the same person, they’re also the same person as Mugi, except Mugi’s a bit nicer and a little less of a screw-up. Maybe less agressive too, which I like. Perhaps that’s just a personal preference, though.

There were some situations with Mugi’s old girlfriend which made it clear she still liked Mugi, which is kind of a bummer because that means she’ll be back a lot. The better part of the volume comes in the second half, where a good-looking girl decides to target Mugi to play with, and when he resists all her advances, goes for Yuu, as I mentioned, to ruin her reputation and try to steal Mugi away for the fun. This goes about as you would expect it to, with the only real character development coming from Yuu, who as I said expressed slightly more emotion than usual, but not really that much more.

I’ve got one more volume of this I’ll probably read this week. I don’t know… it’s not really bad at this point, but it’s also not doing anything particularly good right now, either. I’m having the same problem with I”s too, so I think this genre of shounen romance just isn’t really for me.

Pastel 3

So the series has definitely mellowed out quite a bit. It’s much more sensitive to its characters now, which I appreciate. They still sneak in some fanservice, and somehow Mugi manages to walk in on Yuu more than once, but at least everyone doesn’t freak out about it as much now, and it’s no longer a point of contention constantly. The characters all have feelings now, which is wonderful. Most notable is the fact that there’s a chapter that Yuu spends holding a grudge against Mugi, then a chapter that Mugi spends holding a grudge too. I liked that contrast, and I also liked the fact that Mugi was finally, FINALLY displayed as the good guy he deserves to be.

I also kind of liked the fact that Mugi had women all over him here. It’s made kind of clear that Yuu definitely has feelings for him… the girl from last volume sneaks in and has a terribly awkward wrapup of her role, but reappears frequently. The girl that shows up at the end of the volume, however, is not only starting an awkward situation, but seems a better fit for Mugi than even Yuu. I like that a lot.

I haven’t totally been paid back for those fitst couple volumes of horrible manga, but at least it’s beginning to pull itself out of the shitter. Hooray for that.

Pastel 2

Aww. I want to like this series. I really do. But I just can’t. It just screams seinen romance comedy as hard as it possibly can from every pore of its body. Mugi is a perfectly nice boy, but he’s incredibly put upon, and even Yuu is hard to like at this point. Manami is actually much more likable, because she doesn’t blame and slap Mugi when she clearly exposes herself to him. Tsukasa is especially horrible, because not only does she actively seek out reasons to get Mugi in trouble, she used him to break up with a drive away her boyfriend.

It’s also still using every cliche in the book. This time around, there were a couple bath scenes as well as a festival chapter. Please.

The relationship between Yuu and Mugi was much harder to get into this time around as a result, but there was still some pretty sweet moments between them. It hurts me to admit this, but the best moment was indeed at the festival. The romance between Yuu and Manami that’s starting up is actually much more interesting at this point, and I sort of wonder where that’s going, because Manami’s not willing to jump all over him at every opportunity. But I don’t know, even though she’s sort of being a bitch, I still sort of like Yuu, too. Who knows. Maybe it’ll get better next volume.

Pastel 1

You know, I liked this volume. I liked it despite it being rather mindless. It had good characters. It just relied too often on the same fucking peeping joke over and over again. The two main characters, including Yuu and Mr. Wheat, were both awesome, and even though Yuu gets peeped on way too many times, they have a very sweet relationship, and it makes for quite a light, enjoyable shounen romance.

Of course, judging by the summary on the back of the volume, I thought Mugi was going to go after Yuu for the entire series and not find her. That is not the case. Not the case at all. They fall in love, she is forced to live in his house, it’s a very shoujo romance, told with tits and to a male audience. Mugi is sweet though. Sweet like Mugi Choco. I think I need to go to bed.