English: B.O.D.Y.
Synonyms: BODY
Type: Manga
Volumes: 15
Chapters: 60
Status: Finished
Published: 2004 to 2008
Genres: Drama, Romance, School, Shoujo
Authors: Mimori, Ao (Story & Art)
Serialization: Betsuma
The story sounded good enough in the summary so i picked it up. A girl who falls for a boy who is at first seems like a good shy boy but actually it's all for appearance and he's working as a host after school. But this is all. Just an interesting concept. After this is all used in the first volumes your left with a very typical boring to death story. About all kinds of love rivals and exams and typical things. Nothing really new. This manga even not trying to refresh something. And no, to take the typical settings for shoujo and put there a host club isn't really refreshing. Maybe the problem was with how the story was told or its just me. I am not against for anybody to read it. Its just that its nothing new. But anyway I just write what is good in this manga in my review cause I already wrote whats bad.
At first the story started out like all the others. Girl falls in love with boy. Boy likes girl but there are problems with their relationship. But then, this story took off and became very interesting. More characters were introduced and surprising things happened that you would not expect. Cheating, lying, laughing, crying... the characters made the story perfect. Because of the personalities of the characters, the story was interesting. I don't wanna spoil anything, so that's all that I can say. I mean, host clubs are interesting anyway :)
The main character is very well-rounded. Ryoko is naive but yet she will not let herself be walked all over. Her lover, Ryu, is good. I like him. He is that shy kid that no one is friends with, but he turns out to be someone very different, someone every girl falls for at the host club. He is hot! Three other characters are later introduced that are VERY important to the story, and they really are also well-rounded characters. That whole "I have a tortured past and I'm trying to be better than that." idea.
Regarding art...First I must say, I am sooooo jealous of these characters' clothes. They always dress sooooo amazingly! The only thing I must say I did not like about the art is that there didn't seem to be amazing drawings in the smaller boxes. When the art took up a whole page, it looked AMAZING. And don't get me wrong, the art was good all the way through, I just think that some of it could have been worked on a little harder. I also noticed that often the main character Ryoko is drawn with this stupid expression on her face, even when it shouldn't be like that.
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I laughed while reading this manga. I mean, it really isn't meant to be that humorous I don't think. But at some points I did laugh. Near the end of the story it was sad. And this story is not something new... but if you are comfortable with it, I would recommend it :)
