Lovely Complex

I've always heard complains from guy friends about tall girls and being unable to date 'em hot girls, and a few lady friends who are simply adamant about not going out with a guy shorter than them. No can do, just.. because. How could I possibly gaze up into the eyes of the girl I love? Or; I'd never want to look down on him.

A challenge to the traditional rule-followers, get lost. Lovely Complex is here for my fellow short princes on a white horse.


We've all heard it before - girl chases guy for a long time, gets rejected multiple times, boohoo. Except the corniness isn't very obvious in this well-drawn and well-written manga. Yes there is the trite playing at the beach scene, the Japanese festival setting (a must-have in all shoujo manga it seems..), the twist of the interfering bishounen, and of course, the dreaded Valentine's Day. But with the way our two protagonists interact, these cliched scenes aren't bad at all.

One thing that's great about this manga is that they don't fling the hollow "it's what's inside that really matters!" message. We all know that isn't really true.... But LoveCom portrays the characters in such a way that their personalities easily outshine their unconventional appearance, and you forget that people have looked down upon relationships such as theirs since forever.

However, a bad thing is that if you're looking for varied character development, you'll have to look elsewhere. Besides Risa and Otani, the other characters might as well be wood carvings. They hold up the comedy foundation well, but nothing else. It also becomes one of those "let's pair everyone up and they'll all be happy" mangas. As seen by the equal number of guys and girls.


One of my favorite things about this manga though has to be the many expressions Risa and Otani both have.

My, rejection is awful.

Ultimately, the mixture of comedy and romance blends well to give you the wonderful LoveCom.

Happy reading!
S.

Ludwig Kakumei

The first manga I read from Yuki Kaori was Godchild, and the art took me completely by surprise. The detail put into the clothing, the sheer beauty of each character...
I automatically recognized this work as hers.
Read only if you are able to stomach having your beautiful Grimms fairy tales distorted beyond meaning. This work, scanlated by the wonderful staff of Aerandria, centers around a beautiful prince, Ludwig, or Lui for short. A preview is below:

I'd have to say, after reading five chapters this is extremely refreshing.

Such beautiful art isn’t seen everywhere after all.

The first story is Snow White. All of the fairy tales start the way they should – the queen has asked for a beautiful daughter. The catch is—her daughter is not just beautiful, she has EVERYONE falling for her. Huh, if everyone could be that beautiful…. But she is also extremely evil. The first thing she does is seduce her own father. They’re caught by the horrified mother, who realizes that her daughter is wtf a spawn of the devil ew. I think my heart got a bit broken here, but Yuki-sensei explains that she couldn’t understand how a perfectly innocent princess is able to concoct such a horrible revenge on her mother for trying to kill her (making her dance in red-hot shoes).

A warning is due. There are a lot of breasts. No kidding, but with Ludwig's obsession, he's another one of those characters who can tell cup size by eye. He has great taste in wo--ahem.

A short and sweet sixteen chapters. What's not to love about this series?

S.