Since I spoke of books vs. movie adaptations in my last post, I started thinking about movies that were actually better than the books they were based off of. I only really had a few on the list, actually. How To Train Your Dragon is a good example, and I enjoy Fight Club the movie much more than I did the book. Of course this is limited to my own experience and a lot of my favorite books are never made into movies. I better not start rambling though, I did that enough in this review. I'd just like to say Clue is the best movie based off a board game- wait, Mars Attacks was a game first...?!
Ashita no Ousama by Emiko Yachi
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| Art and story (c) Emiko Yachi |
Genre: Josei, Show Business
Length: 6 Volumes (Bunkoban*) - 53 Chapters
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| Screams fish lips, that pout. |
When I looked at the art I somehow thought it was a Korean manhwa instead of a Japanese
manga but I think its just the simplified look of the faces that really fooled me. In any case I was game and found the art strangely alluring. There is, in fact, a lot I can complain about but having clean and tidy art doesn't always make a comic good. First off, it is an older style, and sometimes those can be a little hard to get into at times; the faces are simple and typically so is the hair. The face shapes are varying and its easy to pick out different characters based on that alone, not to mention the different face types as well. Here we hit one of the problem points of the art, the lips. At times, the odd way the mouths are drawn and positioned on the faces were comedic and showed lots of emotion and at other times they looked odd, they were either too large or strangely positioned, typically. The main love interest, for example, was hard to love at times because instead of looking all handsome and lead role-ish, he had serious fish lips. Then there were the times I couldn't tell what the mouth was even doing it was so wiggly. To an extent, that becomes less relied on as the manga continues but its very much to the mangaka's style and it may just make you laugh when you aren't supposed to. The eyes have a very soft look, bordering on sketchy, but they really work along with the very expressive eyebrows. The clothes are very 'of the time' by which I mean manga/anime clothes of the 90's by which I mean mostly baggy shirts and pants with graphic tones layered on top. They aren't interesting in anyway. The poses and actions of the bodies that inhabit them on the other hand work really well. The hair, too, has a lot of movement, but it is fairly generic, and in the main character's case was usually braids and
to mix it up, other types of braids. The backgrounds are basically nonexistent, and sometimes the strokes that were there, as well as in blocking in the hair and clothes, were very thick and out of place. In short, the art is off putting at times but the feelings of the characters come through so well that it really grows on you in the end.
Ashita no Ousama means “Kings of Tomorrow” and the story follows a young, college woman named Yuu Sasaya who just happens to be invited to a stage play by an acquaintance one night. Suddenly, its all she can think of, that world of putting everything on the line one night at a time, of a story being told through so many different people and capturing the hearts of the audience. So, Yuu goes and finds a way to join a theater troupe, even though she's never acted before or seen how a play is really made. Can she keep up with such a bustling world, and what of that one actor that sparked the fire in the first place…?
Show business manga are not a new thing, Skip Beat is really popular (and just so happens to be one of my favorite manga…) and I've personally read lots of stories about it. So Ashita no Ousama, especially at the beginning, has a lot of the same types of plots that have been seen before. All the same, it has a charm that just pulls you along as you go. As you saw, I wrote a whole huge paragraph about the art because it was complex and I had a love/hate relationship with it that won over to love, and the way the story is written is no different. The character herself is a bit cliche but also very lovable through out. Her being a country side bumpkin allows for her to follow things wholeheartedly and lets the reader share in her learning experience. The plot arcs almost seamlessly move from one
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| Ol' squinty eyes, very Eastwood. |
to the next, too. But it doesn't really linger sometimes, and other times, though the plot is moving, the characters aren't really changing with them. There also could have been a little more romance, it just sort of is thrown in at the end even though its in the background most of the time. Its nice to have a story were all the dramatics really have nothing to do with people falling in and out of love and instead focuses on things happening as the main character tries to cope, but the characters literally do not say one word about it (except as a bit of comic relief in the middle) until the end and the main couple happens and others are hinted at. Every character is their own person, though, besides Yuu, her love interest is a character that isn't the cruel type but he isn't really warm, either, but he understands her so well you can imagine a good coupling there. There is also a whole cast of characters that are unique, too, like her colleagues and rivals that always come up with a way to get her running about in a panic again to prove herself. The leader of the troupe she joins, he seems like a starting catalyst type who would then fade, but he stays through out and became my secret favorite due to his attitude and characteristics. A few tricks were used a little too much, though, like Yuu always speaking to her grandmother. Sometimes every other page was Yuu's internal dialog and it always began with 'dear granny.' It started to feel like it was the only way the author could think to move the plot along. There was also the mean girl trope who would only get in the way when things mattered the most. Very typical, and no one ever really confronts her about it. Just as conflicting as the art, the story though wins out with a 'love' instead of a 'hate' and I found it very compelling to finish it. The characters are so interesting that you want to know what they are up to next. Would I say its amazing? No, but it is a really fun read and there is enough drama to make things good.
4/5 Really good but has some serious flaws; if you can over look them, highly enjoyable.
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| Well, I thought it was cute. |
* Bunkoban comic releases are a slightly larger format for manga, usually put out when the manga is several years old with new covers and sometimes new extras. Much like English three-in-one books that get published for manga with long runs. The usual format of manga releases are called tankobon and range around 175 – 200 pages but bunkoban releases are typically longer in the 300+ range. (More info here).
to mix it up, other types of braids. The backgrounds are basically nonexistent, and sometimes the strokes that were there, as well as in blocking in the hair and clothes, were very thick and out of place. In short, the art is off putting at times but the feelings of the characters come through so well that it really grows on you in the end. 
