Everyone I've introduced this manga to has become obsessed with it. LOL

I'm reading it again because I can't get enough of it!

The best part is how Kyoko instead of getting depressed from a broken heart becomes
a much stronger person. After all the really typical shojo storylines its great to find a manga
which has you following a character who isn't a love-sick puppy with tons of love problems but
who is working hard to find herself and true happiness (in acting). And seriously, its just too
funny. I actually lol by myself a lot when I read it. Anyways..

Love fruits basket! Such a touching story.. wait - such touching stories! It shows you so
many different types of love and heartbreak and of course the healing from the pains
people have.

I've yet to read the other ones! Great list!

I love your review of Fruits Basket. Its the best I've ever seen. Lucky for me I didn't read volume 1 first or i might of thought it too cutesy and stopped right there. I read vol. 6, compared to other stuff in the story now that one seems kinda...silly? too, but i'd never seen anything more emotional and by my previous manga record it was a given that teenage boys should turn into monsters. xD

I hate the ussual summary for it because its doens't portray it correctly at all.

Akito 4-ever!

1. Skip Beat – look at the description above. My favorite manga.

2. Maison Ikokku - same author as Inuyasha, Ranma 1/2, etc. A young student falls in love with his apartment manager. Many of the puns and ideas used in other manga come from this manga (coz it’s quite old). Look past the old drawing style – it’s a classic.

3. Tokyo Crazy Paradise – Life in Tokyo in 2020 is tough so much that one family raised their daughter as a boy. Now that her parents are dead she becomes a bodyguard for the leader of a mafia gang.

4. Vampire Knight – A school is divided into 2 classes, the day class and the night class. The day class just has normal students while the night class is filled with vampires. Two school prefects are assigned to stop the other students from finding out this secret

5. Kare First Love – A geeky girl thinks she’s not pretty and so is shocked to find that one of the boys on her train has taken a liking to her.

6. Ouran High School Host Club – to repay breaking a very expensive vase a girl (that everyone mistakes for a boy at first) joins the school host club to pay off the dept.

Might have to check Afterschool Nightmare out.

What would your ALL-TIME favorite manga list include? Glad ParaKiss was mentioned...I just finished it. Basically...I'm still heartbroken. T_T It's fitting, it's poignant, but it also makes me want to kill both George and Caroline....(I just like that name better than her real one. ) Why doesn't Ai Yazawa let me enjoy the beautiful fantasy world of manga? It's such a good read, and it's SOO realistic, and really, someone as twisted as George and someone as needy as Caroline can't go together. They grew up through each other, but they realized each other's faults too late. The chance to change each other went by like that....So they have to go and seek other people who might be able to make them into better people. Hiro is one that can make Caroline into a great person. But still!!! GEORGE!!! Yes, I am blinded by his beautiful looks and clothes and twisted personality. I don't care....! I don't hate anyone within the manga, but I don't love anyone either, not even George (maybe it's a love-hate thing), and yet it is undeniably one of the best mangas out there.

I thought ParaKiss was depressing. NANA is 10x more depressing, maybe because it's longer...? I heard that ParaKiss was cut short for NANA, but I don't think the ending would've changed. When Ai Yazawa switched from shojo to josei, she was going for the hardcore heartbreak.....Yet I can't put either of them down. She's making me as crazy as her characters.

I like Skip Beat. I really do. But to me it's not that memorable. Maybe it's just me? It's a definite up from shojo, and I really do enjoy it a lot. It's probably the best out of shojo. Kyoko is a bit unrealistic but pure genius anyway. But after reading josei, it sometimes pales in comparison when I see how much more mature josei is...(but that's a given.) But Josei does have its problems. It tends to be too melodramatic or depressing....

^_^ I adore all the series you showed at one point or another. Swan I liked as well, but its glamor wore off a bit, probably because ballet really doesn't interest me and the art paled in comparison to say, Ai Yazawa. (Yes, she's my favorite mangaka). I'm not keeping up with Furuba these days.

Have you ever tried Emma? I'm not even sure if it's shojo or not....Romance is there. And I THINK it's suppose to be from Japan. The artist's name and some general things led me to believe that....But the art is sparse and the paneling reminds me of standard comics....If you haven't checked it out, you should. The pure detail put into the Victorian setting was enough to make me pick up the next volume.

My college friends and I have read many shojo mangas in the past several years. As graduation approached, we were all getting bored of manga and no longer read any new series. But then Skip Beat came out...and wow, it was SOO refreshingly different from any series we had read.

The first thing my friend, an English graduate said to me after I lent her four volumes of Skip Beat was, "Kyoko is so unpredictable! You never know what she's going to do. Do you have any more volumes?"

We talked about it more and came to the conclusion that Kyoko's pretty relatable. By shojo manga standards, she's kinda cynical and crazy almost. But to us, she's just a very interesting character in that she IS the nice princess-like character of many shojo stories, but she's also a badass. She's bad at being a damsel in distress. Anytime she encounters a hurdle, be it a bitchy rival, actress, an accident, a humiliation, a scary producer/director, difficult contest, difficult role...she always shows up with a victorious move.

We had come to expect the typical heroine mopes or cries until someone helps her or motivates her to do better or whatever. Not Kyoko. She's a very sweet kind girl, but she's also hella tough. If someone crosses her, lord help them. Everytime something bad happens, we almsot expect her to cry about it or feel sorry for herself, but instead she gets up with violent vengeance and proceeds to figuratively beat the sh*t out of her opponent. And she does it with an evil smirk and evil aura (demons popping up) that always scares the crap out of everyone. lol, it's always awesome to watch her. She's like a force of nature.

I guess in a way, Skip Beat is like a shonen manga. The main character has a battle and looks about to be defeated but suddenly comes up with a badass move that royally screws his enemy. The main characters are like "warriors" no matter the genre of the story.

That's what Kyoko is. She's a badass warrior in the world of acting.

P.S. Before Skip Beat, Fruits Basket was my top recommendation for anyone interested in manga/shojo manga. When my neices are old enough, I'm SOOO reading this one to them. I always recommend it for anyone going through a tough time too. It's very inspiring. I shall definitely have to check this "Nightmare" too. I think I paged through Swan, once, but upon your recommendation I'll give it a second chance.

NANA...I dunno, it never appealed to me. It seemed to me like a very slow ride towards tragedy. Oh there were happy times and funny times, but it always felt like a fragile happiness to me. It is a grown-up series (josei manga afterall...) so perhaps that's why it didn't appeal to me. (I'm a psychology/criminal justice graduate...i get plenty of wacky/cynical realism in life that I prefer a bit more juvenile optimism in my fiction...) XD

Incidentally, I had a very similar reaction to that "all-night parties" line on NANA's back cover. And it's repeated verbatim on volume 2! The nearest thing there was to a party was some friends sitting up late and having beer. Ooh, crazy.

I can't recommend After School Nightmare highly enough...it really does stretch the boundaries of shojo as far as I'm concerned and the art certainly ain't a chore to look at....

Why doesn’t it surprise me that your list is virtually identical to the one in my head? I have some catching up to do with Swan and Skip Beat, but I’m very fond of both of them.

If I were inclined to add some honorable mentions, I would list Yazawa’s Paradise Kiss because it makes me swoon, Ai Morinaga’s My Heavenly Hockey Club because it’s hilarious, and Tenshi Ja Nai!! because it’s mean.

Oh, see these are books that are CURRENTLY being published in States (no title above has been concluded yet) otherwise Paradise Kiss would probably have to replace NANA. Although...oh dear lord, it is like choosing between's one children? (Not that I have any...but still.)

The Last volume of My Heavenly Club didn't hit me quite right (I think I may just want *more outright romance* because Hana as a girlfriend? What could be crazier?) but yes, I could so go all-shojo-all-the-time even though I think my readers here would appreciate a little more variety....

If I were inclined to add some honorable mentions, I would list Yazawa's Paradise Kiss because it makes me swoon, Ai Morinaga's My Heavenly Hockey Club because it's hilarious, and Tenshi Ja Nai!! because it's mean.