Pretear volume 1

Title: Pretear volume 1

Author: Kaori Naruse

Genre: Slight romance, fantasy, shojo

Summary: Himeno has always thought that she was an ordinary high school girl. Her mother passed away quite some time before, and Himeno and her father were never the rich family.

Until all of a sudden, her father remarries to a rich lady, and Himeno finds herself steeped in wealth and money, along with a stepmother and her two stepsisters.

One unexpected day, a boy accosts Himeno and leads her to an entirely new place, where she is surrounded by an almost illegally sexy group of guys and told that she is, most assuredly, the Pretear, and that she is their last hope to stop the Princess of Disaster who is hellbent on corrupting the world with darkness and, possibly, red snow. XD The Pretear is their leader and the guys are her Leafe Knights, each of whom control a certain ability (ie wind, snow, water etc) and are in charge of destroying the Princess of Disaster's dark seeds.

The Pretear is in charge of protecting the Leafe, the source of all life, and only the Pretear can create more Leafe. To protect the Leafe from the darkness, she has to merge with one of her knights, and thus borrow the knight's power to use in battle.

Opinion: Pretear is shojo through and through – a girl surrounded by pretty boys, changes her outfit with every different knight she merges with, with glittery art? Definitely shojo, and pinkishly so.

However, any shojo fan will like this, I think, although it doesn't appeal to me as much. I mean, Himeno changes her outfit every time she merges with someone different, and with seven different knights, she has eight outfits – including the one she's wearing. It's a classic story of girl being surrounded by hot guys, perhaps conveniently orphaned as well (some anime characters have their mothers dead, for some reason) with a rag-to-riches plot.

Himeno also annoys me sometimes (to admit it...) so it's not entirely the first book I would pick up from a pile of manga. Still, if you like classic plots (classic is cliched) do find some time to read Pretear.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Gravitation volume 1

Title: Gravitation volume 1

Author: Maki Murakami

Genre: Comedy, shounen-ai (boy love)

Summary: Gravitation is a boy love manga following Shuichi Shindou and his music band Bad Luck which he formed with Hiroshi Nakano, his best friend. One day he meets Eiri Yuki, a famous romance writer, who critisizes his work. However, this is not the first time they're going to meet...a full-blown relationship between Yuki and Shindou soon forms, but the thing is, they're both males!

Gravitation naturally focuses a lot on music and the band as well as Shindou aspires to be a famous singer.

Opinion: I have been poked for liking Gravitation. Seriously. And it's not because it has boy love themes in it. It's just because they claim that Gravitation sucks.

Well...it doesn't suck all that bad (or is this my shounen-ai fangirl side coming in?) but I have to admit that Shindou can be so annoying sometimes. He's constantly whining, crying, needs assurances, and does the stupidest things to get Yuki to notice him. He's even dressed up in a girl's school uniform and bunny costume and things...the things he will do to catch Yuki is unbelievable.

Some of the manga is absolutely...*has no words to describe*. You simply can't describe it as 'good' or 'crap'. It's just...slightly unbelievable.

...

Ax that. It's COMPLETELY unbelievable, some of the things Murakami has written. It's so out of whack that it's not funny. However, if you're into shounen-ai, I'd say take a quick peek at this. There are not many fantastic shounen-ai manga out there, so you'd better grab Gravitation while you can.

The romance keeps you hooked. ^^ It works for me, even though I'd love to smack Shindou sometimes.

Rating: 3 out of 5.