Manga Review: Peach Girl: Change of Heart, Volume 10, by Miwa Ueda

Rating (Out of 5): ~4

Publisher: Tokyopop

Release Date: 2004

Volumes: 18 (8 for first series, 10 for Change of Heart)

Spoilers?: Not really; hint for guy chosen

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble.

First Volume.

What Will I Miss?:

• I will probably miss the drama; it's over-the-top at times, but sometimes you're just in the mood for that, and this type of series really fills that craving.
• Also, the artwork and possibly the story-telling gets better the more she writes, which really makes me want to read her newer stuff.

Review:

I am so glad that I finally got this series, because it was so good. I wasn’t sure at first, and it was really only the last couple volumes where my emotions really got going, but overall it was really freakin’ good.

Since I watched the anime, I did know a lot of what happened, but it’s been so long and there was enough deviation, that it was all really refreshing to me. There’s so much drama, and Sae never really goes away, but it’s all just so good.

I remembered loving Kiley, but I found that I really liked and understood Toji as well in the mange. In the end I was a very big fan of Kiley, though; he’s like a poor, sad puppy dog that you just want to hug, and I’m so happy with how the story ended. I feel a little bad for Toji, but I do like Kiley more. And Momo is happy, which is also very good. Sae seemed to have changed in a good way by the end of the series as well, even if she’s still, you know, Sae. It makes me wonder what’s going to happen in her spin-off, which I will be reading soon (at least, the first volume).

This was a really good series, I’m so glad I picked it up, and that I’ve read it now (especially since I’d been staring at it for so long). And I really hope that someone picks up another of Ueda's series to release over here, which I think would be Kodansha, and I’m going to be optimistic in that they will do so, since they seem to be expanding their shojo line. 

Also, as a sidenote: does everyone else remember when Tokyopop didn’t translate all of the Japanese? Like for the sound effects/SFX parts? There was a lot of that in this series, and I even noticed some of it in their later series, like Karakuri Odette. And, god, that drives me insane. I don’t understand why they did that, and I’m pretty sure that none of the other companies did, or at least that they don’t any more. Why did they do that? It really annoys me when I’m reading a supposedly completely translated book, only to have a panel with large Japanese text and a character with a startled look on their face, and having no idea what happened until I read the next couple panels, when I would have known from the noise made. Sorry, that just really bothers me.