A nice two-in-one release from TokyoPop proves to be a decent series that is almost really good.
Creative Talent
Writer/Artist: Minene Sakurano
Translated by: Beni Axia Conrad
Adapted by: Liza Forbes
What They Say
One day, Tasuke, an average high school boy, receives a mysterious ring from his father. Much to his surprise, when he gazes into the dazzling jewel, a beautiful moon goddess appears--and she claims to be his protector! But having been locked away for a thousand years, she has a lot to learn about the modern world... You never know what will surprise her next in this story about a befuddled boy and his clueless goddess.
The Review
Packaging:
The first thing you'll notice about the book is that it isn't a book - it's two. Mamotte Shugogetten is a double thick volume that contains what would ordinarily be the first two volumes of the series. I was initially worried that the spine might not hold, but the book seems to have survived one reading with no ill effects, so I guess that's all right. The cover design is a little bland - just the Shugogetten herself in a watercolour style on a plain white background. Printing is a little below average. Some of the larger black sections have faint bands of lighter colours through them and can get a little distracting. The one repeated problem is that the inner panels are often too close to the spine, sometimes too close to read some of the text. I shouldn't have to put extra pressure on an already strained spine just to read some of the dialogue.
Artwork:
The art is not far above average in general; but it has a friendly look to it and often pleases. The leads, at any rate, are attractive - most of the other designs look fine without being exceptional. The real standouts though are the hoshigami that appear from time to time and their combination of small scale forms and big personalities makes them a lot of fun to watch. Special comedy effects are used frequently and work pretty well most of the time.
Text/SFX:
According to TokyoPop's usual style, sound effects are left untouched, and they remain untranslated unless they don't. Text is generally readable - sometimes it gets small in the speech bubbles, but never too small for comfort. The adaptation is good at distinguishing the characters' different speech patterns and in the main makes for good, smooth reading.
Contents: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
A series doesn't have to be original to be good; which fact is a lucky thing for Mamotte Shugogetten, because "original" is one of the last words you could use to describe it. It will remind readers who pick it up of one other series at least in its premise, and many other romantic comedies in its smaller details. Mamotte Shugogetten could have been good anyway. Unfortunately it's one of those books that often seems just about to become good but keeps getting derailed.
The boy-and-goddess setup gets off to a decent enough start, though. To its credit, the story never bogged down in trying to give any elaborate reasons for how the situation begins. I doubt if it would have succeeded very well at that; and anyway that's the kind of thing it's better to just accept as an impetus rather than explain as a plot point. At any rate, the goddess who shows up out of the blue is a goddess of protection (which is beneficial to the hero), but one who knows nothing of the modern world (which is not so much). As such, most of the comedy early on is situational, as boy-hero and protector goddess Shaorin attend school, go shopping, visit a summer festival, etc. Some of it works fairly well. I particularly liked Shaorin's interpretation of school as a kind of intellectual labor camp - that does show originality. In fact, that instance is an example of the kind of comedy that works in Mamotte Shugogetten. When Shaorin examines a situation for the first time, and comes to a legitimate but erroneous conclusion, that's when the story's interesting. At other times the series is just on the treadmill.
The treadmill sessions of Mamotte remind me of why I so often dislike romantic comedies. I hate it when plot becomes nothing more than a string of forced misunderstandings engineered to split the couple apart. These are a) annoying and b) a lazy excuse to put off developing the relationship. And in Mamotte Shugogetten that can happen. The book has at least the usual quota of situations of the sort where one half of the pair falls down on top of another character, only to have the other half walk in, misinterpret the situation and rush out of the room. If you're like me and don't care for that sort of thing in general, you won't find anything to make these situations in Mamotte stand out from the pack.
And then a new character arrives who comes near to capsizing the whole series. Yes, Mamotte favours the romantic square over the romantic triangle, and brings in a second goddess named Ruuan as the female rival. Not necessarily a bad idea in general - except that Ruuan seems like she's from an altogether different series. True to form, the series once again treads familiar paths. Ruuan is presented as the obvious female rival type, "the sexy one". And like most characters who are trying to be sexy, she fails as completely as she fails at trying to be funny. The only effect is a negative one. A element of trash is added to the story that is totally at odds with its sporadic but quite genuine sweetness. And constant appearances make her annoyance factor alarmingly high. Her one interesting feature is her ability to bring life to inanimate objects; but since this is used mainly in irritating scenes it hasn't contributed anything yet.
Comments:
I have dealt with the plusses and minuses of Mamotte Shugogetten separately; but of course in the book itself they are mingled throughout the book and vary from chapter to chapter. Often they alternate in the course of a single episode. In the long run I think the good moments outnumbered the bad. If Ruuan had never appeared I might have said "greatly outnumbered". As it is, Ruuan simply needs to be dropped off a bridge. And the hoshigami need to be in every single chapter unless they get their own Mini-goddess type spinoff. If either or both of those happen, Mamotte Shugetten could turn into one of the better bargains in manga.
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