Manga Review: Arisa, Volume 12, by Natsumi Ando

Rating (Out of 5): ~3-3.5

Publisher: Kodansha Comics

Release Date: January 2014

Volumes: 12

Spoilers?: No.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells. RightStuf.

Volume: 1. 6. 11.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Tsubasa thinks that her pretty and popular twin sister, Arisa, has the perfect life. Everyone at school loves Arisa—unlike the hot-tempered Tsubasa, whose nickname is “the Demon Princess.” But when Arisa attempts suicide, Tsubasa learns that her seemingly perfect sister has been keeping some dark secrets. Now Tsubasa is going undercover at school—disguised as Arisa—in search of the truth. But will Arisa’s secrets shatter Tsubasa’s life, too?

Review:

I took a very long break from this series, but I have finally finished it. I really, really enjoyed Ando’s Kitchen Princess series, and really wanted to like this one, but it was just… a bit overdone and dramatic.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t dislike this series. I enjoyed most of the characters, and the art is really pretty. I would have enjoyed a bit more romance for Tsubasa, but overall I really appreciated the sister aspect. That’s something that I think was really well done, and I liked that it was given the main focus. Overall, this story was about the two sisters, and how Tsubasa was there for her twin at all times, even when Arisa didn’t deserve it. The ending for them as sisters, too, worked, and made me happy for them.

The idea behind the King plot line I liked, and the reasons we were given for Arisa starting it, also worked. There was some depth given, or at least attempted. It was mostly the Midori part that didn’t work for me.

Midori went through some bad things, and that’s why he is the way he is—those things make sense to me. But how overdone his emotions for it all were, and then the way that it all turned around in the end to make him seem like a victim, just didn’t work for me. Having him be the victim in a moment of horror twisted around, just seemed like a cheap ploy to have people not hate him.

Arisa’s feelings for him didn’t work for me. The fact that no one actually ended up hurt in the end, didn’t work for me. In the end, the only parts I liked were the sisters relationship, and Tsubasa and her friends (from her original school). The rest of it was just cheesy and unrealistic. 

Overall, I’m a little disappointed with this series. I wanted more from it. But, still, I look forward to reading her next series to be released.

Manga Review: Arisa, Volume 6, by Natsumi Ando

Rating (Out of 5): ~3

Publisher: Kodansha Comics

Volumes: 9+

Synopsis:

[No synopsis this time, since I couldn't find one. I probably sum it up enough, though. Sorry, nonetheless.]

Review:

So this series is seeming to continue to drag on, and I'm hoping that it gets to wherever it's going, the climax or revealing the King or Arisa waking up, soon. Something to stop these constant, meaningless problems that keep coming up.

Almost all of this volumes focuses on the problems surrounding Shizuka. Tsubasa tries to make Shizuka happy and not focused on her revenge with Arisa. It doesn't really work, except that Tsubasa ends up getting hurt and Shizuka walks in order to get help. Although, I didn't really see the meaning in her walking? I guess it was supposed to be momentous and whatever, but I just found it dumb, when she could have, much easier, used her wheelchair instead. It kind of makes a difference, as Shizuka is going to give the phones back, but instead the King sends her a message and changes her mind. And then Shizuka messes up the house and attacks her guardian. It pretty much brings everything back to how it was in the volume before this.

Shizuka is psychotic again and wishes Arisa out of this world. Manabe takes her phone, and Shizuka then finds out that Arisa is actually in a coma. Manabe then 'officially' teams up with Tsubasa to find the King again, even though I don't think he really turned against her since a few volumes ago (two, maybe?). But then the King decides to grant someone else's wish, where the person with the cellphones gets taken out. Shizuka freaks out, Manabe takes them, in order to throw them away I think, but ends up getting hit by a car instead. Shizuka, who feels terrible and is emotionally unstable, decides to move away. Tsubasa is upset, but I am glad.

Before she leaves, Shizuka gives Tsubasa a URL, the supposed secret that she knows about Arisa, which leads her to a chat room. Her and Manabe hack into it, and discover some chats between Arisa and the King, and it reveals how it all started. It's been inactive for a while, but when Tsubasa sends a message, the King responds. Also, I'm pretty sure that it's revealed in this volume that the King is Kudo?

At the end of the volume, there's an extra chapter. It's about Arisa and Tsubasa and how they reacted to their parents splitting up. Tsubasa reacts badly, while Arisa accepts it, but they're both hurt. They have a fight, and then make up and decide to send letters to each other everyday.

I'm hoping that, in the next volume, some more big things are revealed and the plot move forward some more. A lot would be nice, but I don't really believe it's going to. That's pretty much all I'm hoping for, actually. The series is just alright at this point, and I want it to get better, to move along already.

Manga Review: Arisa, Volume 5, by Natsumi Ando

Rating (Out of 5): 3.5

Publisher: Kodansha Comics

Volumes: 9+

Amazon Synopsis:

Twin sisters, Arisa and Tsubasa, are separated by their parent's divorce. The twins secretly exchange letters with each other during their separation. They are finally united after three years and Arisa asks Tsubasa to pretend to be her and spend a day in her school just for fun. At school everyone seems very nice to Tsubasa (who is pretending to be Arisa) and everything seemed normal... until she finds a strange note in her sister's shoe locker. When Tsubasa hands over the letter to Arisa, Arisa tries to kill herself by jumping out of a window. Arisa survives but remains in a coma. The letter read, "Arisa is a traitor." After her sister's suicide attempt, Tsubasa is determined to unravel the mystery behind the letter and her sister's suicide attempt so Tsubasa continues to go to school as Arisa... will she find out who sent the note and why it had such an effect on Arisa?

Review:

This was actually a little better than the last one.

So the first bit is about the trip they go on, and has the normal kind of drama. Tsubasa is dealing with Shizuka, who hates her. Tsubasa is trying to get all of the phones back from her, and then Shizuka makes a wish to take something important from Arisa. Tsubasa immediately thinks of Midori-kun, and into a trap set by the King. Manabe comes and saves her, but their class had to wait for her to get back in order to eat, and they think she ran off to spend time with Manabe, resulting in them all hating her and Arisa losing her good reputation. And Shizuka also thinks that Manabe betrayed her.

This was... just whatever. It's the same type of thing that's been going on already. Just more drama to put off the climax that I'm hoping is coming soon. The next part, though, I did enjoy.

The next chapter shows us what happened to Shizuka to this point, and what Manabe knows about it all. Shizuka was immensely competitive with Arisa, wanting to be number one in their class or grades or whatever, becoming obsessed with it. And then she bad talks the King in front of everyone, making them all hate her. (This was a dumb move, of course, on her part.) And it shows how much she relied on Manabe to do everything for her, including things to Arisa that she shouldn't have made him do. All because of some promise he made when they were little kids. And then Arisa, who he'd been getting close to, was going to tell Manabe something, presumably something very important, but Shizuka jumped off the rooftop of their school, interrupting them.

Manabe blames himself, but Shizuka is a little psychotic and obsessive, and she obviously needs help. And I want to know what Arisa was going to tell him.

And in the last chapter, we see that Kudo is up to something, and Shizuka is still hating on Arisa. But Tsubasa decides to follow Shizuka, but instead she gets caught and they start talking. And we find out that her home life sucks. We saw in the previous chapter that her parents died, and she was taken in by some relatives. Which is part of why she was so obsessive over being top of the class, because she wanted to prove to them that it was worth it to take her in. But then she jumps off the roof and now she can't walk anymore. But the people that she's living with are complete jerks to her, don't care about her, and don't help her with anything. Tsubasa gets all defensive, but Shizuka is used to it, even if it depresses her and makes her feel worthless. Shizuka also tells her that a while ago the King came to her, through the phone, telling her that he could help her.

At the end of the chapter, we see Tsubasa coming up to Shizuka, and putting a cloth over her mouth until she passes out. This doesn't seem like something Tsubasa would do, and I'm curious as to what her reason was.

So, I am a little tired of all the drama pushing back the climax. I just want to find out who the King is, and I'm getting annoyed with only seeing a black-shadow-type figure with a weird grin, especially with all the clues it's giving us, only to take them back not long after. And I want to find out what really happened with Arisa. Some more flashbacks (or Arisa waking up,) would be really nice, and I hope that more are coming up.

But, I have the next one already, so the review for it will probably be coming up soon.

Manga Review: Arisa, Volume 4, by Natsumi Ando

Rating (Out of 5): 3

Publisher: Kodansha Comics

Volumes: 9+

Amazon Synopsis:

Twin sisters, Arisa and Tsubasa, are separated by their parent's divorce. The twins secretly exchange letters with each other during their separation. They are finally united after three years and Arisa asks Tsubasa to pretend to be her and spend a day in her school just for fun. At school everyone seems very nice to Tsubasa (who is pretending to be Arisa) and everything seemed normal... until she finds a strange note in her sister's shoe locker. When Tsubasa hands over the letter to Arisa, Arisa tries to kill herself by jumping out of a window. Arisa survives but remains in a coma. The letter read, "Arisa is a traitor." After her sister's suicide attempt, Tsubasa is determined to unravel the mystery behind the letter and her sister's suicide attempt so Tsubasa continues to go to school as Arisa... will she find out who sent the note and why it had such an effect on Arisa?

Review:

I've been wanting to read the next one in this series for a while, and I finally found it. I'm mostly enjoying the series, but I'm still wondering where it's going. As more complications are just about the only thing happening.

At the beginning of this one, Osawa steals the phone from Tsubasa, putting her in a fire in the midst, only for Kudo, the guy that set her up, to 'save' her. Osawa uses the phone to make a wish, because he wants this girl, but then she makes fun of him (because she thinks that he's stalking her, which is possibly true), and so he decides to change his wish to that he wishes she wouldn't judge people by their looks. And so she goes blind. And Osawa doesn't even seem sorry about it! He's a little psychotic, I think.

Only she doesn't really go blind, since Tsubasa blocked her from the glass that hit her eyes. And I'm wondering what happened to Osawa, since Kudo does something to him and we don't see him anymore in this volume.

And then Midori breaks up with Arisa/Tsubasa, because he doesn't think she really loves him. Which makes sense, since she's been hanging out with Manabe a lot. Anyway, Manabe and Tsubasa, and Takeru, are trying to find out who has the two other phones (you know, the phones with the numbers that were chosen by the king). But Manabe is acting weird, and we see that he has one of the phones that Tsubasa is looking for (which I was really confused by, in a way that made me think it could have been done better, but I get it now). And then he's mean to Tsubasa, and we find out that he has a friend who used to go to their school, and who has the phone they are looking for. Tsubasa meets her, is nice to her, but she hates Arisa for some reason. She's been hurt, and is in a wheelchair, but is going on some field trip with their class. And she has all three of the phones, and is obviously planning to do something to Arisa/Tsubasa.

We keep finding out that Arisa has done these terrible things, but have a completely different impression of her from Tsubasa. I'm wondering when (if) she's going to wake up so that we can find out who she actually is. And, I'm thinking that Kudo is the King? (Unless they introduce someone else...) He's up to something big that we aren't aware of. I'm waiting for all of that to hit, for whatever this is all leading up to. I'm hoping that it's good, and that there aren't too many things that are going to come up to prolong it from occurring.

So, I'm enjoying the series, for the most part. And I have the next couple, so I'll probably be reviewing them soon.

Manga Review: Arisa, Volume 3, by Natsumi Ando

3.5 of 5 Stars

Publisher: Kodansha Comics

Goodreads Synopsis:

Tsubasa thinks that her pretty and popular twin sister, Arisa, has the perfect life. Everyone at school loves Arisa—unlike the hot-tempered Tsubasa, whose nickname is “the Demon Princess.” But when Arisa attempts suicide, Tsubasa learns that her seemingly perfect sister has been keeping some dark secrets. Now Tsubasa is going undercover at school—disguised as Arisa—in search of the truth. But will Arisa’s secrets shatter Tsubasa’s life, too?

Tsubasa hunt for The King thickens when Arisa's class goes to a planetarium to watch an eclipse and The King makes a decree that turns the chosen against each other. Later, suspicion mounts on Midori, who asks Tsubasa on a date! Can Tsubasa save the day from The King, and protect the stars in her sister's sky from ill fates?

Includes special extras after the story!

Review:

I'm really quite liking this series so far. I've read Ando's other series, Kitchen Princess, and really liked it, so I was excited to see that another of her series was going to be released.

Arisa is much different from Kitchen Princess, though. Kitchen Princess was more about the characters and romance and food. Whereas Arisa has more mystery, it's much darker.

Arisa is Tsubasa's twin sister, and they were separated by their parents when they were younger and have been talking by sending letters to each other. And then Arisa visits Tsubasa, before throwing herself out a window and going into a coma. Tsubasa, wanting to know what brought her sister to this, since she hadn't told her anything about it, decided to pretend to be her sister by going to her school. Where Arisa was class president and had a boyfriend and a best friend and a ton of secrets. Her class also had this thing where 'The King' would grant a wish from a student at this specific time when everyone sends one in. 'The King' keeps picking very dark, dangerous wishes, and everyone keeps sending in dark and dangerous secrets. And the class is obsessed with it. Tsubasa wants to know what is up with it and what it had to do with her sister.

Tsubasa has teamed up with Manabe, boy from Arisa'a class, as well as Takeru, a boy from her old school. They're trying to find out who the King really is.

There's a bit of the book focused on Mariko, Arisa's supposed best friend, who seems to have something seriously wrong with her. She seems to be working with the King, until the King turns on her and Tsubasa helps her. The King is also changing the rules, so that he will choose five people's numbers and they will be the only ones able to send in a wish for him to grant. Manabe gets chosen, as does Mariko's.

And then they think it's Midori, Arisa's boyfriend, because he's acting really weird. But he goes on a date with Tsubasa/Arisa, and he seems fine. Then they get a transfer student, name Kudo, who's acting really weird. There's a scene on the roof with Tsubasa, and then another near the end of the book. He's talking to a boy, telling him to steal Midori's phone from Tsubasa, if he wants his wish to come true. He's hidden behind a curtain the whole time, and we don't see him until the end of the chapter, with a crazy smile on his face.

I'm really quite liking this series, and I want to know what happens next. The mystery to the book is really good and interesting, but I'm wondering how long the series will last. Because mysteries aren't usually things that can be dragged on too long, or at least they shouldn't be.

Still, I'm excited to read the next one. And I'm hoping the Arisa wakes up or something happens with her soon.