Akaki Tsuki no Mawaru Koro Story by Arata Kigawa and Art by Sawaki Otonaka
 | |
| Art (c) Sawaki Otonaka Story (c) Arata Kigawa |
Genre: Shojo
Length: 2 Volumes – 10 Chapters
The art is, in my eyes, nothing more than generic for manga of it's time. The eyes are insipid, the clothes and hair are nothing more than typical, even the character designs are vaguely familiar. Just kind of bland over all, really. Its that type of art that your eye just sort of slides over while you read while the lack of background and clothing details really help this process along. Even when the extra detail is given (for the 'performance' sections) they are over so quickly that its almost like they never existed. Plus there’s this use of shade tone over open mouths, which normally looks fine, but its used even when there's teeth showing and it looks very odd. I wish I had something flattering to add, but I don't.
Riu is the daughter of a prestigious Kabuki theater troupe, though her strange ability to be able to understand plants causes her to remove herself from public society, and every night she has the same dream of a man dying in her arms and herself powerless to stop it. When, for once, she goes out to see her brothers' performances, there on stage, she sees the man from her dreams! Before she can speak to him, though, she has to rush to the hospital because of her father's sudden collapse. When her father's sudden illness proves to be poison, she is led to a rival theater troupe's house by her ability, where the man of her dreams is plagued by 'accidents' as a contender for their next head of house. Though she doesn't much get along with Rui, Riu can't stand to see that bloody scene of his death in real life like she sees it every night in dreams and decides to watch over him for now. The plot, at a distance sounds very interesting, but the pacing just races along, you almost don't get to know any of the characters because they just sort of come and go so quickly. Not just the side characters, either, and even the 'play' sections are rushed over, instead of actually showing the reader the harshness of the practices and the beauty of the performances. Once I found out this was based off a novel, though, all these problems just clicked into place. I've seen it before, a manga based off a popular novel that is just sort of thrown together, heck, I've seen lots of American comics hastily made when a popular movie comes out, too. It's always a disappointment when you are fooled into to reading it, too. There aren't a lot of manga based off of novels that don't leave you wanting, that’s just the nature of why the manga was created in the first
place, but I don't think this intrigued me to reading the book at all. The only manga to come to mind that did is Trinity Blood, and the books themselves are so expensive I haven't gotten around to buying them yet. So the bluntness and the rush of the pacing is rough, and the romance suffers for it. The romance is already of my least favorite type, which I've pointed out several times because my sister enjoys it and so I end up with an abundance of manga with a domineering and mean male leads to read. Rui's first appearance is him assaulting her because she's out of place, Riu is actually nice and spunky at times so Rui doesn't get the chance to tease her too often but the generic quality of the romance and art just doesn't paint him in a very romantic light. The one thing that bothered me the most though is the two main characters having almost the same fricking name! My dyslexia went into fits every time Riu or Rui's names were printed anywhere near each other, to the point that I wasn't sure which name went to which person until I purposefully looked back to make sure my facts were straight for this review. I also saw everything coming plotwise, but had to wait two volumes to validate my premonitions, so I found the twists and the action even weaker because of it. Then there is Riu's ability to talk to plants that is sort of just throw in, I hope that the book isn't as haphazard. I do sort of feel like this manga was a waste of my time, had it been a prelude to something more in depth about the couple or, at least, had a better ending with the two beginning a relationship, I think I would have been worth my time if not entirely enjoyable. Lets see, have I bitched enough yet? I think so.1.5/5 I didn't hate it but it was just generic in art and character.
I always seem to forget so I'll add it down here, the name means something like 'When the Red Moon Turns Around'
No comments:
Post a Comment