Manga Review: Great Place High School

[Jason]

Title: Great Place High School
Mangaka: Naduki Koujima
Originally Serialized in: Comic Game Pierce (Magazine Magazine Co., Ltd.)
Genre: Yaoi, 4-Koma, Comedy
Published by: Juné
Rating: Mature (18+)
Price: $12.95/US

The Information Management Club (don’t call it a computer club!) is a loose group of weirdoes, presided over by the overstressed Tsuruga. On top of dealing with his crazed twin brother, two cousins who fight over everything, a bear-like giant with a cuteness fetish, and the insane student council president and the VP, who has a sadistic hold over him, Tsuruga also has to put up with the club’s newest member, Minami, an adorably stupid boy with a tendency toward breaking electronics.

Koujima, creator of the popular Our Kingdom series, offers a collection of 4-koma (4-panel) comics, interspersed with longer manga sequences. Unfortunately, other than silliness, Great Place High School has few selling points. Even the silliness isn’t worth the price of admission. Most gags revolve around a feisty boy doing something stupid and everyone yelling about it.

The manga sequences are where all the smut is, but even those were disappointing. Most of them revolve around the student council vice president, Eichi Shindou, and his obsessive love for the student council president, Rin Amanohara, and if you’re looking for a sweet romance, these two aren’t a good choice. Eichi’s obsession verges too far into creepy stalker territory to be romantic.

None of the rest of the characters are very well developed, though Koujima does make a stab at back story for several of them. The only adults are two teachers at the school, both of whom have no purpose to the story at all, and a couple of mothers who spend their time trying to pimp their sons out to other boys.

Koujima’s art is standard, filled with lots of big-eyed boys with tousled hair, lots of shots of boys yelling with little cat teeth showing, and lots of cheek pinching. She sticks with her usual art from previous works, but that isn’t enough to make her stories truly funny, as she just hasn’t mastered the technique of pacing and timing necessary for visual humor. On top of that, several of her boys simply look too much like others to keep them straight.

Juné has done a decent job at releasing this title. The color inserts are on nice glossy paper and they include two lovely shots of Eichi and Rin at play. Unfortunately, those shots are divided over two pages, which gives them an awkward break in the middle.

Overall, I’d pass on this title. There are better books if you want 4-koma comics, there are better books if you want smutty yaoi, and there are better books if you want cute boys doing cute things. All of those are things I usually appreciate, but here in Great Place High School, the combination of the three just didn’t work.

Reviewer: Snow Wildsmith
Proofer/Editor: Lissa Pattillo