Surt Lim

This takes pretty much every single shoujo manga trope and packs it all into one story. I was wondering at first if it was just a parody meant to comment on the mahou shoujo genre but nope, everything is played straight and that is where it fails. Kasumi doesn't stand out at all in the multitudes of shoujo manga protagonists and the supporting characters are all one dimensional stereotypes. The humour is completely stale, being rehashes of the kind of obvious and familiar jokes found in other works of this genre. The story moves fairly quickly without any real emotion or depth, and ends with a cliffhanger at the end of this volume, but there's nothing there to hook you in for the next. My advice? Skip this and go read Cardcaptor Sakura by CLAMP or Gakuen Alice by Tachibana Higuchi.… (mer)

Thanks to all the setup, this was a little slow, but it's a promising start to a new series. Now that we've been introduced to all the main characters, I'm looking forward to seeing how they'll interact. There were also several hints at some of the more mysterious parts of the world building that apparently will play out in the next volume as well (There are other people with powers! Someone with feathers gets involved!). I'd say this was fine for younger than high school if it weren't for the see-through bathing suit prank that gets pulled on our heroine. I think the fantasy elements will appeal to fans of Fushigi Yugi and Ceres, Celestial Maiden, while the high school and romance angles will appeal to fans of Peach Girl and Boys Over Flowers.… (mer)