Beauty is the Beast Mini Review (manga)
September 19th, 2007 by Nothayama
PG-13 for some sexuality; official series website
I really wanted to like this comic. I am a much bigger fan of adorable, innocent shoujo romance than someone of my age should necessarily admit to, and Beauty is the Beast seemed to have everything I could want to feed my addiction–a main character who’s more weird than pathetic, a love interest who’s misunderstood instead of a jerk, and the more entertaining brand of shoujo hijinks. But even I couldn’t get past the one-dimensional characters, incoherent storytelling and terrible English adaptation. The whole thing reads like a shoujo fill-in-the-blanks–each character’s personality can be summed up in a maximum of two adjectives, and plot points are strung together without any kind of pacing or tone.
Initial impression: Don’t bother. (NotHayama)
Additional educated impression: I actually liked this short series (5 volumes in all) quite a bit. It’s true that most of the side characters should be completely ignored, but I found the main three characters–the girl, her boyfriend, and the boy who should be her boyfriend–likable enough. It’s a bizarre little story, and the tone of the whole thing is pretty dreamlike and existential, but that unique tone is exactly why I liked it. It’s rare that a tone can completely sell a comic, but in the series’ case, I almost feel like it can.
I found all five volumes used (”$.99 each?! Huzzah!”) and picked them up sight unseen. It’s the perfect series to take to the beach or use to take a break from something more substantial. Nothing amazing, but light and fluffy. I really liked the random looks at dorm life, and one particular joke had one of the best timing/frame layouts I’ve ever seen.
Personally I would’ve given it a B-, but the ending is blah, and the _ending_, ending -that comes after a completely different short story- was kinda confusing. So a C+.
I was thinking about checking out Beauty is a Beast, but reviews around the net seemed iffy about it. If I find cheap copies, I will buy all five volumes. I’m interested in Tomo Matsumoto’s other series called Eikaiwa School Wars.
I really enjoyed this series. The characters were fun and quirky. It is a little slow paced, and the ending could have been better, but overall, it’s a good read.