Title: Confidential Confessions Vol. 4 Volume(s): 6 Creator(s): Reiko Momochi Format: Unflipped; Right-to-Left Publisher: Tokyopop MSRP: $9.95 Genre(s): Drama Rated: Older Teen (16+)

CONSUMER ADVICE

Parents, I suggest that if your child/children are over thirteen, then read this volume with them and have a long discussion about the topics mentioned. For this particular volume a VERY long discussion is required, along with trips to the library and Internet for more info. Confidential Confessions fans will be disappointed with this volume. They should move on to Volume 5.

Confidential Confessions is one of those manga series that one should put in the “must-read” category. Unlike most manga, which tend to be surreal even with its action and historical stories, Reiko Momochi instead writes about problems that girls (and guys possibly) face in the real world, and how to deal with them in a realistic manner. These problems include suicide, sexual harassment, drugs, prostitution, STD’s, rape, and stalking. This may sound like a remix of After School Special, but I can assure you that, however bad some of the stories may be, Momochi-sensei rarely preaches. In fact, her best stories don’t have preaching at all, but explore both sides of one issue, and then show why one side is right. The trick here is to show and not tell.

This “formula,” if you may call it, has yielded some good stories. In Volume One, we get “The Door,” a disturbing look at two suicidal girls. Volume Two’s star is “Tears,” which shows how damaging sexual harassment is on a person’s self-esteem. Volume Three had “Dizzy” (I think this was the story’s name), a Go Ask Alice that makes you pity drug addicts who are high school teens. So surely the fourth volume must have an equally disturbing story or stories, right? Well, unfortunately, along with the good long stories, there are short “glimpses” into certain issues, but these stories don’t explore them in depth as much as the long ones. Because of this, the situation ends up either stupid with an unlikable protagonist or simply unrealistic. Volume Four has four of these glimpses packaged together and expects us to like it. I’ve only read three of them so far but I’m not looking forward to reading the fourth one if I get the chance.

Pain/Ache

“Pain/Ache” is Reiko Momochi’s second attempt at showing prostitution. (The first being in Volume One as “Mistakes”.) “Lilia” is a high school girl who works at a shady bar to wrest money out of unwary customers. (I’m can’t remember her real name, so I’m using this name instead.) A friend of hers who also works at the bar tells her that she can make more money by “selling”; to specify, prostituting at a whorehouse. There she not only bags a customer on her first try, but also becomes the most popular “seller” under the pseudonym Lilia. And then some jealous sellers decide to tell her boyfriend, and around this time she starts to realize the negative side of prostitution. This is the second-best story that I read in this volume, but right from the start I didn’t like it. Why? The main character was shallow. Lilia is either very spoiled or very greedy, as she wants to buy different clothes and the reason she chooses sleazy jobs is so she can buy them. She claims that her parents don’t give her enough money on her allowance. Who do you think you are, girl? I don’t even get an allowance, and I don’t think about buying clothes. And there are other people in the world that would do anything for money, including prostitution. You don’t fall into that category. All the more reason why it astonishes me that Reiko Momochi wrote about you, and not some unfortunate girl who actually has problems.

And Lilia, you really never give consideration to your parents’ feelings. The reason why they tell you not to work at those jobs or to buy designer purses that are for older people is because they’re worried about you. They don’t want you to grow up into a bad kid. You should have a long talk with them about it, girl, because you are long overdue for it. Nor did you ever think about how your boyfriend would feel about it until he found out. Or even worse, you could’ve contracted an STD from one of those dirty men and transmitted it to him! Did you ever consider that? That would break his trust even more because you’ve endangered his life for money! He deserves a lot better than you. What about your school life? Surely prostitution would affect your grades wouldn’t it? And you never talk about how you feel during Sex Ed classes, if they have those, and when fellow classmates talk about sex. Was the story disturbing, though? Yes, but only in two places, and they have nothing to do with the issue. The first is when Lilia starts showing up in the sailor suit uniform for Japanese girls, the same one in all those animes. That provides a bit of a shocker for people who like those anime uniforms or Sailor Moon. The second is when Lilia finds out that her friend is now being paid in drugs instead of money, and her friend offers the drugs to her, saying that they help lose weight. It was disturbing because Volume Three of Confidential Confessions dealt with that exact issue. Overall, the story was too short, had an unlikable protagonist, and not enough psychology. I’ve read up on prostitution and I know there’s a lot more to the issue.

Kink/Distortion

In America, the only times we have corporal punishment schools are when we open juvenile hall, which is the minor equivalent to jail. I’m not so sure about Japan, however. “Kink/Distortion” is my only reference to it, and if that is how schools in Japan are involving corporal punishment, then Japan really sucks. Another way to look at it is that Momochi-sensei might be referring to certain schools instead of the norm. If that’s the case, then she should’ve made this story longer because it was the best out of the lot that I had read. Aiko and her friend Miho go to a school where the male teachers check to see if they have white underwear (to comply with school dress code) and other ridiculous and inappropriate regulations. Miho believes that this is wrong, and one day when she comes to school wearing read underwear, a teacher strips to her to bra and panties and drags her around her classmates. Right after school Miho runs in front of a train and dies. Aiko then decides to fight for what Miho had fought for and seeks to change the school rules. However, it’s not easy, as her classmates claim that they are leaving in two months and can last till then, the same teacher who stripped Miho picks on her now, and even her own mother doesn’t want to help. In the end, Aiko goads the teacher into pushing her down a flight of stairs and sending her into a coma for a week. From this incident on, the rules change and the teacher is arrested.

When I say this is the best, I say it is the best because it has a likable and believable main character, something the other two stories lack. The story is a new version of “Tears,” if it was all the teachers bullying the students instead of just Coach Todo and the punishments were a lot harsher. There are several moments where I can’t suspend disbelief, such as the stripping and the underwear checks going without the police wondering if it’s more perverted than anything else. However, the main reason why I dislike this story is how stupid people act. Aiko doesn’t know who to go to after her mom refuses to help her. Well, why doesn’t she go to Miho’s father? He blames the school for his daughter’s suicide, and therefore would be a strong ally. Another thing that’s stupid is that Aiko never tries to look up laws to see if there is anything that can be used against her teacher, such as when he locked her in a tiny cage and dropped it underwater. She had never exhausted this option at all except to ask if a bruise the teacher had given her would count as an assault. Knowledge is power, and this situation is no exception.

Finally, Aiko manages to change the school rules by goading the teacher hurting her badly. Someone from Tokyopop should’ve written a warning at the end of this story saying that this method should only be used as a last resort. Think about it: if Confidential Confessions is essentially a guidebook for solving these problems, then girls who are going to corporal punishment schools might follow Aiko’s example. I’m not saying they will. I’m saying they might. However, the story’s saying, “It’s okay to endanger your life and maybe even throw it away as long as you make a big change.” While this may be fine for revolutionaries and martyrs, this is NOT an appropriate message for this issue! There were other options for Aiko, but either she never thought of them, or Reiko Momochi didn’t. Look, hope is the main theme in all of these stories, and you’re offering little hope if you’re promoting self-injury. In fact, Momochi-sensei, you made in clear in Volume One that you were against self-injury and how it didn’t hurt anyone but the person doing it. Here it makes a change, but I’m still amazed at your hypocrisy.

Tomorrow

And here we come to the worst story out of the three that I have read. If you’re a hardcore Stephen King fan, then you’ll probably know what Carrie is. If you’re not, then skip this volume and aim for Carrie instead to get a real look at bullying. It’s a supernatural horror, but its characters are more believable than the ones in this story. So, who’s being bullied? Not the main character, but the main character’s friend, Ruka. Ruka is the only black-haired kid in the class, she wears funny round glasses, and she is somewhat pudgy. Nanako wants to help Ruka, but she’s afraid of being bullied as well. Some friend, huh? Anyway, the story is about Ruka’s so-called “assertiveness” to the bullies, and how she doesn’t let it get to her. This was a stupid story. Why? First of all, Ruka only has the illusion that she’s standing up to them by running barefoot in a race and so forth. She’s still handing over her money and getting dunked heavily in the pool. Not to mention that she doesn’t want her parents to know. *_* Why is that? Are her parents pushy? Why don’t Nanako’s parents ever come into the picture? To make a long story short (no pun intended), you could poke holes the size of basketballs into “Tomorrow”.

Forbidden Kiss

Update 7-03-06: Finally I have read this last story and I don’t know how to react to it. I could scream in outrage that Reiko Momochi is building a false image about gays and lesbians. Or I could shake my head as a reviewer and tell you not to read it. Momochi-sensei screwed up. Oh wait, that’s an understatement. She flunked. A girl named Liliko (or Ririko, as the manga calls her) is in love with another girl named Kanna. Why she is she doesn’t tell us; on Kanna’s first day at her school they make eye contact and Liliko is convinced that Kanna is her soul mate. (The story doesn’t mention if they share any common interests or hobbies.) She starts taking her to her secret hideout in an abandoned inn and imagines kissing her and touching her breasts. This wouldn’t be too bad except that she also imagines raping her. For all you bugging your eyes out on your computer screen, I completely agree. And the reason this is acceptable is because it’s only a fantasy and Liliko is a girl. If it was a guy having this fantasy, then we’d immediately shout, “Pervert!” and close the book as fast as we could.

And then we learn why Kanna can’t be with Liliko: she sleeps with her father. (And I don’t mean she simply climbs into his bed…) I can see your eyes bugging out again. Then Kanna’s father’s new wife finds out and decides to stab him to death. (She doesn’t even seem to care about Kanna.) By now I think our eyes are fixed in that wide-eyed position. And then Liliko quits school and decides to let Kanna live with her. And here I can no longer describe the story clearly because it falls apart. The last sane thing I recognize is Kanna doing the same thing that Lilia did in “Pain” and Kanna claiming that her prostitution is why she can’t have a relationship with Liliko. Then for some reason they decide to get together anyway and get naked. I have no idea why.

My main reaction is that Momochi-sensei has no idea of what lesbians are really like. I’ve never met a lesbian, but I know that they are not perverts who have mental problems, as the characters in “Forbidden Kiss” seem to have. The common stereotype of a lesbian, I’ve heard, is actually a tomboy who cuts the hair off all their dolls. And I know girls who are tomboyish who are not lesbian, including myself. We still have our own private conversations in the girl’s bathroom like other normal girls and we think that certain male actors are good-looking, though we’re not able to date them. So what is the right answer to “What is a lesbian like”? Good question. If only I knew the answer. Momochi-sensei fails to provide it and creates an ugly stereotype of gay people. If anyone listens to her then I think that all homosexuals will receive weird looks in public. A guaranteed F in my book.

(One more thing: Reiko Momochi added a note after this story that everything in the book had a grain of truth in it. I checked for this note in her other books and they’re not there. If she’s trying to apologize for flubbing the fourth volume, then it’s not working. Merely the words “schools have actual regulations like these” don’t make up for a mediocre story. We know they’re real. The whole point of your series is how to deal with these kinds of problems. The question is why you didn’t do it right this time. Did you simply not know enough? Or were you not given enough page space? And WHY did you try to make this disturbing? There’s nothing wrong with a girl falling in love with another girl. You just made it not okay. “Forbidden Kiss” will more likely make people MORE homophobic than less.)

Let’s move away from the stories and onto the artwork and preparation for a brief moment. Art is standard manga fare. Why the hell there were funny anime facial expressions is anyone’s guess since this is supposed to be serious. They didn’t fit. You could tell the characters apart, though. Momochi-sensei gets credit for that. Preparation is standard, though I wish that Tokyopop would actually include liner notes on all these stories! Since prostituting is illegal in the US, more info would be helpful, as well as info on schools that use corporal punishment and on bullying. Here’s something you might not have noticed: the cover for Volume Four is the same as the cover for Volume 6, only with a different color overtone! Now why is that? Did Reiko Momochi get lazy? If so, then I’m disappointed. Overall, you should avoid this volume. Do yourself a favor and spend that $9.95 that you were going to use to buy this on something else more worthwhile, like a volume of Battle Royale. Or, if you have a weak stomach, make it $30 and read a cute and serious fantasy called Magic Knight Rayearth. So, this is going to be a partial grade of the three stories. First story gets a D-, second story gets a D, and the third gets an F. So, that would be an F+. There has never been an F+ on this site, so this will become an F. This may seem unfair, but when a manga fails to hit a homerun, they fail big-time.