Genre: Shojo
Length: One Volume - 4 Chapters
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| Art and story (c) Yuu Toyota |
A little unpolished, but not terribly so, the clothes could hang a little better and the facial expressions could be a little less awkward. The amount of backgrounds isn't stellar but I didn't notice the lack very much. Expressions are good, if a little shaky in anatomy in profile, and the body movements are okay, nothing sticks out but the variety isn't there. Clothing is appropriately detailed, especially since the story takes place in a fancy hotel. The art has nothing really against it and matches well with the story.
Mistaking one hotel for another when finding an ad for a cheap place to stay, high schooler Kaori Tachibana finds her self in a tough spot with a bill she cannot pay the next morning. This leaves her with one choice: to work off her debt as a maid in the glamorous
Hotel La Vie En Rose, which caters to rich ladies looking to be pampered by excellent food, beautiful music, and a very attentive staff. Kaori quickly finds out, though, that the owner is a lot less pleasant than he appears, and his kind manor is for guests only.
Hotel La Vie En Rose is straight
forward from beginning to end, Kaori gets debt, Kaori pays debt, it
really does make one want more embellishments as the plot moves on
from chapter to chapter. But, for a single volume shojo you get
enough that the end doesn't make you explode with anger, although it is just as sparse as the rest of the book.
The biggest problem when reading was that it starts out with a
reverse harem type of feel but you get pretty much no character
development from the males in this manga at all, even the love
interest only explains things at the very end. Taken as it is,
though, its a solid story with solid art and though I was worried at
the beginning that it would be very 'blah' it grew on me. It has a
silliness to it and its not cookie cutter butler cafe, either (this here is the link to the wiki for cosplay restaurants if you've never heard of such establishments).
Looking back it may not have been very epic, the simple story
actually makes it easier to swallow the fact that a high school girl
is working at a random hotel and apparently not going to school at
all. I guess its winter break....? The characters all blend together
well, and the setting is adequately explained. So, take a little of
Ouran Host Club and put it into a butler cafe and you have Hotel La
Vie En Rose. Its a little abrupt at times, though mostly in
explanations, and it makes you want to have a little more of this
story instead of the open ending you are given. Still, its highly
enjoyable if a bit trendy.
4.2/5 Some extras or something would really boost the overall enjoyment of the thing.
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