Tag: Aishiteruze Baby

Modern Shojo: Narutaki’s Most Wanted Part 1

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The full title of this post should probably be “Modern Shojo: Most Wanted, That I Want That I Could Think Of At The Moment (Part 1)”, but somehow that didn’t seem catchy. This post was inspired by one over on Shojo Corner called “One Hit Wonders . . . in America” which featured manga-ka who’ve only seen a limited release of their works in the U.S. So I decided to talk about a few off my own wish list.

Aya Nakahara

Nakanara’s popular series Love*Com (Lovely Complex) was lucky enough to be released by VIZ fully. It is one of the best romances in recent memory by showing two people actually becoming friends, having commonalities in their lives, and then falling in love. Of course it had a healthy dose of humor and a unique and relatable lead, Risa.

Nakahara actually has an extensive catalog of titles. She tends to go with pairs of unlikely people whether it be romances or friendships. Some of the titles I’d like to see: Hanada, too perfect girl meets uncouth boy; Nanaco Robin, imagine Kozuki from Love*Com (with a bad attitude) in a cute romance; and Berry Dynamite, idol duo who are friends on stage and enemies off.

At the very least I hope we get the new Love*Com manga that was recently announced.

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Aishiteruze Baby, Just the two of us.

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Yoko Maki was one of the first manga-ka I discovered in the wondrous world of scanlations. Yoko Maki’s work often have fun female leads with a little bite and cute boys abound with a focus on friendship and budding romance. She also draws in the somewhere between simple and complex with a perchance for the sweet and cute. As I read more of her pieces she quickly climbed my charts for a wonderful shojo manga artist that remained untranslated (and all of her pieces besides this one remain so).

But it wasn’t until later, when VIZ picked up her (what was at the time one of her most recent works) sweet series about a boy who finds himself with a new responsibility in the form a cute little girl, did I actually get around to finishing this story.

Unlike Narutaki, my interest in Aishiteruze Baby came from a more unusual direction.

The last manga review on Anime Jump before it went into hibernation was a review by Chad Clayton for Aishiteruze Baby. What interested me was the odd dichotomy in opinions. I had heard quite a few enthusiastically positive reviews of Aishiteruze Baby. They usually involved some combination of sweet, funny, and heartwarming. But while no one was claiming it was high art the reviews almost always said that is was refreshing and delightful shojo dramedy.

Chad’s review on the other hand was pure venom. It was the complete and total deconstruction of the plot of the first book that makes the series out to be an artificial calculating monstrosity that was more emotional torture than entertainment. So I went into reading the manga with a great deal of anticipation. I had had long been curious where my opinion would come in on the matter. While I was pretty sure I was not going to love it as much as it’s most die hard fans I was also pretty sure I could never hate it as much as its extremely harsh critics.

What I was wondering is what side would I lean towards in the end and how much would I lean towards it.

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