Manga Monday: More Miki Aihara
Tokyo Boys & Girls (Volume 1) 
I was so taken with Miki Aihara's latest effort, Honey Hunt, that I tracked down some previous works by the shojo manga creator, beginning with the series Tokyo Boys & Girls (what Aihara is most known for is Hot Gimmick, which I will be reviewing next week). Tokyo Boys & Girls is an earlier work that runs five volumes total, with art that isn't as refined as is seen in Honey Hunt. All of the characters (including the supposedly beautiful best friend) have wide mannish jaws and the panels are arranged a little clumsily. But I can forgive Aihara given what's to come from her. The story centers around Mimori Kosaka, a bold naive girl who is beginning freshman year at her dream school, Meidai Attached High School. Immediately, she's made class rep and becomes friends with a beautiful girl who's the envy of the boys on the other side of the school. One of the boys that the girls meet is the mysterious Haruta Atsushi, who looks out for Mimori while maintaining the stance that he doesn't like her. They have some sort of ties to an elementary school they both attended together, but for her life, Mimori can't seem to recollect the handsome troublemaker. This book is really one of those shojo titles that makes you feel warm and fuzzy for the characters as they slowly build a little group of closeknit friends and discover how their relationships with one another are going to progress. Despite a little animosity at first, the half-dozen characters in Mimori's life genuinely begin to look forward to spending time with one another as they do your typical high school-type of things. The storytelling may feel a little rushed sometimes, but I really did come to enjoy the time I spent in the halls of Mimori's high school, and I'm sure there's plenty of more fun to come over the next four volumes.
Miki Aihara
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I was so taken with Miki Aihara's latest effort, Honey Hunt, that I tracked down some previous works by the shojo manga creator, beginning with the series Tokyo Boys & Girls (what Aihara is most known for is Hot Gimmick, which I will be reviewing next week). Tokyo Boys & Girls is an earlier work that runs five volumes total, with art that isn't as refined as is seen in Honey Hunt. All of the characters (including the supposedly beautiful best friend) have wide mannish jaws and the panels are arranged a little clumsily. But I can forgive Aihara given what's to come from her. The story centers around Mimori Kosaka, a bold naive girl who is beginning freshman year at her dream school, Meidai Attached High School. Immediately, she's made class rep and becomes friends with a beautiful girl who's the envy of the boys on the other side of the school. One of the boys that the girls meet is the mysterious Haruta Atsushi, who looks out for Mimori while maintaining the stance that he doesn't like her. They have some sort of ties to an elementary school they both attended together, but for her life, Mimori can't seem to recollect the handsome troublemaker. This book is really one of those shojo titles that makes you feel warm and fuzzy for the characters as they slowly build a little group of closeknit friends and discover how their relationships with one another are going to progress. Despite a little animosity at first, the half-dozen characters in Mimori's life genuinely begin to look forward to spending time with one another as they do your typical high school-type of things. The storytelling may feel a little rushed sometimes, but I really did come to enjoy the time I spent in the halls of Mimori's high school, and I'm sure there's plenty of more fun to come over the next four volumes.
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