Higurashi is something wonderful and not something to miss, but it does take a while to get going, and then a bit more to get past all the 'senseless' murder arcs, but once it gets into the 'Kai' answer arcs (When they Cry 2 and 2+), it suddenly reveals the 'why' to the 'whats' presented in the first arcs, and reveals exactly how character-oriented the plot actually is.

The whole harem beginning was meant to compete with all the hentai/harem visual novels - attract players and customers with a group of cute girls, and then suddenly lure them into a series horrifying murder arcs, hopefully hooking them until the end where things are solved, the time-loops/world-skips explained, and leaving the player with a feeling that something was actually accomplished. It gets very emotional.

As for Summomo, thats deliberate. She's actually the same age as him, she's just done loli styled because of the way she clings to him and stuff. I didn't like the anime version to much, but i'm hopping the manga has a better grasp on the story. That said if you didn't like the first chapter cause of Summomo, you'll hate it latter on when the more ero characters start to turn up.

Svetlana's art was the best though, the congratulatory art she drew is awesome!!

Though there's more in "Shoujo Beat" that I read (being a shoujo fan), the color printing with it's tissue paper pages drives me NUTS.

Of the rest, "Maximum Ride" and "Nightschool" were my other favorites, though I agree that "Maximum Ride" just throws you in without any introduction and too many characters, sadly loosing a lot of my interest by the end. But the art was AMAZING and except for a few of the action scenes, the pacing was well done. "Nightschool", on the other hand, wasn't my favorite in art (I prefer the softer, smoother, airy lines of "Maximum Ride" and "One Fine Day") but Svet has a knack with dialog and humor that goes right to the heart. I agree with the perplexity of "who's the protagonist?", and I also think that the story itself could have slowed down to introduce the characters more, saving the dream sequence for another chapter (threw me a loop jumping so much between characters), but of them all, "Nightschool" had the smoothest storytelling, something Svet has shown time and time again that she excels at.

I enjoyed most of the rest of the Manwha (though having "Jack Frost" right after "One Fine Day" almost gave me a heart attack from the sudden jump in ah . . . maturity level), but they didn't hook me as much as the others. "Pig Bride" shows potential in its story, but I found the character design of the lead male character overly feminine and unemotive, making it difficult to connect to him as a reader. Sarasah just freaked me the heck out. OMGSTALKER! Some chick followed me like that, I'd be reporting her to the police for harassment! But the ending left me curious. Dangit . . .

As for the manga . . . I flipped and, unfortunately . . . passed. Maybe I've become jaded from having shelves and shelves of manga, but the art style of the manga displayed in Yen Plus felt generic to me, and I find it difficult to get into anything that looks like something I've read a hundred times before. I also found a lot of the manga stories to be extremely cluttered in their pacing, which made them difficult to slip into as a reader.

And the prepubescent-looking girl asking a guy to have sex with her so she can carry on her lineage to the next generation? I ripped the page out and threw it away. Just . . . uck.

"Jack Frost" kinda ticked me off with the first chapter, but if the headless girl is really the protaganist it could get interesting, so I will reserve my dislike for the next issue. That being said I didn't think their was to much fanservice in the other series; Soul Eater is funky and creative so it gets a pass.

Great review, I look forward to seeing what you think of the next issue.

We’re targeting this to the US market, and the US market is not big enough to approach it like you would in the Japanese market.

The trouble is, it's not as liberal as the Japanese market, either. in an era when Playboy magazine has to be sold in a sealed plastic baggie at 7-Eleven and the youth market for manga in the U.S. is booming, it only takes one jerk prosecutor to conflate those two things and launch an all-out war based on that 'creepy fanservice' Danielle mentions to shut the whole thing down. They're not really going to be interested in the culture-clash defense.

Shame really, because it sounds like a good idea in theory.

As for why it’s all mixed together, i think Kurt says it bets, so i’ll QFT:

We’re targeting this to the US market, and the US market is not big enough to approach it like you would in the Japanese market. The Japanese market is so huge and well-developed, so it makes total sense to target a magazine to a specific demographic.

But when you’re looking at a nascent market like the US, where so much of the readership crosses over to read books targeting different demographics, then you really have to take a broader perspective on it. So we’re really not looking to limit it like, ‘this is a boys magazine’ or ‘this is a girls magazine’ – this is a magazine for anyone interested in manga.