Before I get into anything, I'll level with you: I am a sucker for High School Romance mangas! If the plot is the slightest bit interesting, I'm hooked. Such was the case with Mizuki Kawashita's latest manga series entitled Hatsukoi Limited, or First Love Limited for all you English freaks. You know who you are.
Anyways this manga, if you can't tell from the picture, is about a group of high school girls, and boys if you care enough to wonder about them, and their little unrequited loves and complicated feelings and all that jazz. The thing that really got me interested in this was the fact that there was no real "main character." No, it wasn't a bunch of unrelated stories that were too short to even care about, it was interrelated amongst all the characters and most of the characters appeared in every chapter even if it didn't focus on them. This was a big change for me because most mangas of this nature focus on one person, usually a guy, and his interactions with various women that are falling all over simply because of the fact the he is indeed the main character. If you've read Love Hina or I"s then you know exactly what I am talking about... lucky bastards.
So if you're the kind of person who loves nothing else but the before mentioned type of HS romance manga, and wishes they were a main character too, then Hatsukoi Limited might not be the best read you've ever had. But if you're open to anything and love a good HS romance, with the added bonus of a bevy of characters and twists, then you will absolutely love reading this series. But be warned, the ending is rather abrupt. Hatsukoi Limited ends with only 4 volumes, 32 chapters, and leaves off with a kind of "I'll keep trying" kind of ending for a few of the characters. Coming from the woman who wrote the 19 volume romance epic Ichigo 100%, Strawberry 100%, this really surprised and disappointed me. It could have easily been a lot longer, but you have to realize that most of the profit garnered is in Japan and if they don't like it, then it doesn't last long.
I am awarding Hatsukoi Limited a 4 out of 5 because even though it was a great read, the ending kind of sucked... but only because you'll definitely want to see more.
You can read the manga, as well as many others, online for free here: http://www.onemanga.com/Hatsukoi_Limited/
No comments:
Post a Comment