I bought a defective copy… It’s missing the climactic chapter when Airi arrives in the magical world and is saved by Aram. I don’t want to spoil this for anyone; but if you’ve read this manga you’ll know how much I was missing…

The chapter was actually replaced with a chapter from Hana Kimi 132 and half of 133. I really enjoy reading Hana Kimi; but this made the rest of MeruPuri really confusing.

Ah, I want to read Volume 2 over again!

The short stories at the end of this volume make it really worthwhile! Watase-sensei ga suki desu ne!

Man, the cover art on this volume irritates me. She looks like a badly sewn muppet.

I don’t have anything nice to say about this… sorry.

The art is lovely and has a nice fine-art/independent comics feel to it… but, that’s not enough to save this comic. If the story was strong even the worst art would be fine; however this is not the case. The plot is choppy and undeveloped, it is inconsistent, and has the most mediocre dialogue I have ever read in a comic. Don’t bother; unless you can’t read!

Don’t let the juvenile cover design fool you. One of the better ‘how to draw comics’ books of recent years. Rivalled only by Nagatomo’s ‘Draw your own manga’ and Eisner’s books on sequential art. But more than these, I’m impressed with the magically merging of information relative to both Japanese and American comic book styles.

kudos!

The story is practically the same (I mean its the same legend) just with slightly different characters (i.e. Miaka with long hair and Tamahome with…boobs)... but, I love the way Watase has made slight changes in their situation to cause new trouble.

This is better than the last two volumes I’d read. I felt like somehow Ohshima was being pressured by her editors to really focus the manga on her male audience and punch up the fan service. In this volume she has toned it down and is working with much fresher material.

She really focusses on the ‘school trip’ here which generally gets small recognition in most shoujo style comics; its a device usually used as a break in a longer story arc or for the two main characters to discuss ‘their feelings’. I think she successfully works with the material she has here and is her crazy, rediculous self.

I’ve heard talk that Ohshima only claims that this manga is inspired by her life experience; and to those people I would like to say that I have never read a manga that was more nostalgic…the characters…the situations…Oh, wait! I was trying to forget all that.

Anyways, most people won’t understand the comedy… but if you’re kinda warped and idiotic; this is the series for you. heh.

In this volume Umino is only barely scratching the surface of what these characters can be. It will be difficult to pull this chaotic ‘gags’ together into a neatly drawn ‘romantic’comedy which I believe she is headed toward. I get the feeling that she’s just testing her material before she makes a gigantic decision about her plot (which could really go anywhere at this point).

As for her art, its functional at best; it is a shame that she doesn’t render all of her panels in color (definitely where her skills lie)—even if they were scanned in b/w the quality of the manga would increase incrementally; and greatly affect the currently dimensionless characters.

...even so, I would recommend this manga; it is my experience that leads me to believe that many of these problems will disappear by the third volume. I have high hopes for this manga—and I’m really looking forward to see how Umino is going to pull it all off.

Viz changed the spine colour… Why?!

So much disorder…it’s unerving!