MJ Review: High School Girls Volume Eight

[Eric]

Title: High School Girls
Volume: 8
Manga-ka: Ohshima Towa
Originally Serialized in: Weekly Manga Action (Futabasha), Comic High! (same)
Genre: Seinen (yes, seinen), Comedy, School life, Slice-of-life
Publisher: DrMaster (formerly ComicsONE)
Price: $9.99

High School Girls is the ongoing story of two groups of friends who melded into one. One group always went to private girls' schools together, and the others are outsiders who were accepted from other schools. They’re quite a combination of distinct characters, all who go through their high school life together dealing with rather mature issues with a frank and open nature that is unusual.

Ohshima's work is the result of her own life. HSG is mostly autobiographical and there you find the best part of this series. The stories are true, and frankly, they have that ring of truth to them anyway. The characters are real also (and she apologizes often to her old high school friends), although they're pretty exaggerated sometimes. No manga of imagined drama and slices of life could possibly live up to the reality that makes up the framework of this story.

It's unlikely that anyone will pick up the series in the middle like this, but to be honest, there's little in the way of back story needed to orient the reader. You could pick up this volume and know what each character is like and not miss a joke almost immediately.

Our main characters are: Eriko, Yuma and Ayano, from the outside schools, and Akari, Kyoko and Igue, from the girls' schools. Eriko is lighthearted, and sometimes levelheaded, when she's not being clueless and bad at P.E. Yuma is her best friend since middle school that, despite being inventive at cheating, can't get good grades. Ayano is the glasses-girl (mega-nekko): frail, girly and timid but the only one in the group with a steady boyfriend. Akari is likely the most irritating character of the whole manga, convinced she's going to be a great actress despite being awful at it and mostly just a cosplay nut. Kyoko was once overweight, and though a crush on a teacher helped her lose weight, it makes her unable to have good relations with boys a lot of the time. Igue is extremely under grown, looking like an elementary schoolgirl, and as innocent as one too.

The problem with the character Akari is that unlike Miu of Ichigo Mashimaro, she does not move the plot forward or give it its reason for being. If Akari were used in this manner, it would have been a lot more interesting. While this is definitely a weakness of the manga, it also gives me the impression that Ohshima is sticking closely to her life experiences with this character. She probably knew an "Akari" who was little more than an annoying, embarrassing idiot... but a good friend nonetheless.

In this volume, the girls are on a school trip to Okinawa. Most of the plot revolves around a pair of girls, Nao and Sayaka, who act very much like lovers. Eriko is dying to get to know them and get them to open up to others while Akari just wants to know if they're lovers or not. There are three omake chapters at the end about the girls’ summer life.

DrMaster has stopped changing the artwork of the sound effects but nearly all of them are translated in the panel. The book is nicely produced, including cover flaps despite not having a dust jacket, and several colour pages in the front. I found nothing to quibble about in the translation, however, each page is pretty obviously trimmed off and it gets annoying. I'm not sure a manga like this warrants it, but I wish some translation notes were provided at the end of the book -- some things could have used a bit of explanation.

High School Girls continues to be lightly entertaining and very frank about the lives of girls. If you've liked it so far, you'll like this volume as well. Although the idea of this manga being marketed as seinen creeps me out slightly, I have to say that I certainly enjoyed it, so who am I to talk? Reading this manga feels a lot like having a bunch of idiot little sisters. Pick it up for some fun.

Reviewer: Eric Turner
Proofer: Eduardo Menendez
Editor: Lissa Pattillo