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Title: Tokyo Boys & Girls
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
The only thing parents have to worry about is whether or not their children will pick up on the characters stupidity or not. There is also some bad language, nasty additudes, and minor inuendos in this series. Oh, and the cover features the main character flipping us off. Charming. |
If there is one thing I've learned in life, it's that if you want to clear up a misunderstanding, you need to actually talk about the problem at hand. If there is one thing to learn in "Tokyo Boys & Girls," it's that no one in this series is capable of starting said conversations. "Tokyo Boys & Girls" revolves around a teenage girl named Mimori Kosaka, whose biggest dream is to go to a school that has a really cool uniform (I guess this sort of thing is a big deal for Japanese girls). Through a weird turn of events (one of which ends up being stupider than the next), Mimori ends up being the class representative through a big misunderstanding. Then she runs into a childhood friend named Atsushi, who despises her now for something she (apparently) did to him in the past. What did she do? Atsushi won't say (although he DOES make it a point to mention that he wants revenge several times throughout the book). Shortly afterwards, another misunderstanding causes Mimori to "accidentally" destroy one student’s self-created video game discs.
Not only was this disc supposed to make this student a millionaire, but he's also friends with Atsushi, which puts Mimori into an even worse position than before. Throughout the series, Mimori will get into one misunderstanding after another, making her more popular/unpopular by the day, all while no one clears up ANY of the misunderstandings by explaining what the heck is going on! There are many problems with "Tokyo Boys & Girls," but the one thing that sticks out the most is that this is a series that asks you for sympathy for situations that you, quite frankly, know little (if anything) about. What is this "situation" in Atsushi's past that prevents him from being friends with Mimori? We don't know. Why is Mimori a class rep? Because she argued with the teacher ONCE, and he decided she'd be a GREAT class rep!! Why do all the characters look the same? My guess is the author has no drawing talent, but that could just be a wild guess. Otherwise, though, I was confused as to why these morons didn't just get their act together, go into a room, and do one of two things:
1) Kill each other until there is one left standing (like in "Battle Royale").
Or -
2) Start explaining what's going on so that we can all identify with the characters.
I personally hate being kept in the dark in real life, and I especially hate being left in the dark when a story I'm reading is asking for sympathy from me. Or maybe the series isn't asking for sympathy at all. How else can you explain the cover of the very first book being Mimori looking at us while giving us the finger? I know I certainly felt like I deserved that for being suckered into actually paying for this book. To top off all this irony, there is a warning on the last page of the book that proudly (?) proclaims that "Some scenes have been modified from the original Japanese version." What these scenes are, I'm not sure, and right now I don't really care. "Tokyo Boys & Girls" is being released by Viz Media under the "Shojo Beat" banner, which means you get to save ONE WHOLE DOLLAR by buying this book over ALLLLLLL the other great shoujo series that are waiting to be discovered!!!! Yet because this series is being released under the "Shoujo Beat" banner, I'm guessing this series is far more likely to be discovered above some more deserving series (like, say, "Gals!" and "Othello"). I find this fact stupidly sad. Especially (and this is the kicker) since I've read Rosie O' Donnell's boring-as-h**l blog, and somehow, that blog is more interesting and entertaining than this book. Come on, do you REALLY need a better example of how bad this book is?! I thought not.
