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Reviewed by Shannon Fay After being charmed by the shojo series Sand Chronicles, I tracked down SOS, a collection of short stories from the same manga-ka. Like Hinako Ashihara’s other works the stories here are built on standard shojo staples of love and romance. But what makes SOS great is that the stories veer away from what one expects, crossing the line from fluffy shojo to stark realism in a matter of pages. The first story is a two-part story about a trio of high school students who run a match-maker club. The first half is mostly setting-up the premise and characters, while in the second part delivers more of a story; a young teacher has caught wind of the club and threatens to tell the principal (match-making for profit is apparently frowned upon at the school). He offers the match-makers a deal: he’ll keep quiet if they can find a boyfriend for the woman who’s stalking him. The second story is great in how it handles its increasingly dark subject matter. At first the woman’s obsession seems cute, the kind of quirk that shows up in many anime and manga. But as the kids spend more time with her, her obsession becomes less like a quirk and more like the mental illness it is. The second story, ‘That Sweet Organ Song,’ is the least-memorable story in ‘SOS.’ It’s not bad, but it just isn’t as interesting as the rest of the book. The story is set in Kobe in 1922 and follows a romance between a poor girl and a rich young man who loves to play the organ. As you can tell from the description, it’s a story about star-crossed lovers kept apart by destiny. Though the story itself is cliché, the bitter-sweet ending gives it some weight. The last story in the book, ‘The Easy Life,’ is a simple story about a girl who’s going out with a great guy. Or so she thinks, until he starts treating her like a servant rather than a girlfriend (e.g. asking her to pick up snacks for him and his friends, blowing her off on her birthday to play video games, etc). The scene in which the heroine snaps is my favorite in the whole book. I was a little disappointed with how the story ended, but overall it’s well done. Ashihara’s layouts are packed with panels and text but they never feel overcrowded. It helps that almost every word or panel moves the story along. Even when there are as many as eight panels on a page, they’re there because they need to be. The art is really good and clear. There are plenty of screen tones and sparkles, but there are also plenty of well-drawn backgrounds to balance things out. The character designs don’t really stand-out. Everyone one is distinct, which is especially important in a collection of short stories where the cast changes almost every chapter, but the characters aren’t exactly eye-catching. This may be partly intentionally; all of the heroines in this book are plain-looking girls who rely on their will more than their looks. But then, that doesn’t explain why everyone else looks rather dull too. Overall, SOS is an above-average collection of short shojo stories. Because I like that sort of thing, I’m giving it an A-. Comment on this review of SOS v1 on the Manga Life Forums. |
7 May 2008
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