Ore Monogatari 1a-1d (what kind of awful numbering scheme is that?)
This shoujo series has always been some sort of a mystery to me. Every time I went to Betsuma's website, I would always see ads for it and the promotional pictures did not look appealing one bit. But then I read about
Da Vinci magazine listing it as one of their top female oriented manga for 2012. Not that I put a lot of weight into their choices (Detective Conan, One Piece, and Kimi ni Todoke are all terrible choices), but it was odd that this manga would be the one to stand out from the rest of the crowd, especially since how there were other 2012 shoujo series that I would have liked to see nominated instead.
But then last month, I read that the manga was nominated for the
Taisho award and it really pushed me to read it. There must be a reason that a shoujo manga with a cover like this is getting praised so much
The middle dude, Takeo, is the protagonist of the story which I suppose is the uniqueness factor for this manga cause really how many other romance stories with an ugly MC are out there? Anyway, he is best friends with the handsome, Suna, who plays exactly like any typical shoujo lead, the ones that all the girls go after, but always denies them cause he is cool like that. One day, Takeo saves the main girl, Yamato and she ends up liking him, but Takeo misunderstands and thinks she is going after Suna. A stupid misunderstanding, but surprisingly it all gets cleared up very quickly (4 chapters).
And that's pretty much all the available chapters translated so far. Did this end up being the saviour of shoujo like I thought it would be? Not really, but it wasn't terrible so that's something. It also had brisk pacing for the first 4 chapters at least, and reading some of the comments online, that strong pacing supposedly keeps up for the first 3 volumes.
I guess I can see why something like this ending up getting the attention of award judges and surprisingly the main public since its
sales exploded recently. It gives a sort of fresh perspective on the genre (as far as I'm aware, I could be totally wrong) with passable art. Also, for what its worth, the writer of
High School Debut is actually writing this manga, collaborating with Aruko for the art. I didn't finish Debut yet, but from the 8 volumes I read, it didn't have that many stupid scenarios so that gives me hope for this manga.
