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Reviewed by Steve Saville I have now read three of these Shoujo [girl] Mangas and I am starting to ‘get it’. They all tend to follow a fairly familiar format and seem to contain the same ingredients. In that way they tend to be variations on a theme. They naturally feature schoolgirl-aged protagonists embroiled in the world of teenage girls, romance, school grades, crushes, acceptance etc. Quite often there seems to be an issue with the parents and a number of the main characters seem to be orphans or estranged from their parents. As the characters and the audience are primarily young teenage girls certain other features also seem too be present throughout, cute animals for example. I do not mean to belittle this world but I think it is important to identify the fact that it is the primary setting of this genre. The second level that always seems to be present is the realm of magic [or something closely associated]. The conflict in the story is often provided by the main character trying to reconcile these two worlds. In “Kamichama Karin,” we have the tale of Karin an orphaned girl who is struggling at school and on top of all of that her beloved cat has just died. So she is pretty down about life but then everything changes because her mother left her a magic ring that has the power to make her a goddess. This book is made up of several almost self contained chapters that offer variations on that theme and as such I found the concept started to become a little tedious after a while. Initially the transformation into her Goddess state and the confusion that creates is well handled as Karin tries to combine her newly discovered Goddess state with lifting her school grades and other more mundane matters. But it just seems to drag a bit after that. The initial premise is introduced sympathetically and our empathy with the orphaned Karin is enhanced via some careful character development. In particular her violent outbursts seem to be a very understandable reaction to the raw deal that life had recently dealt her. So initially her goddess powers and resulting improvement of her grades is a welcome transformation for character and reader alike This is a youth orientated story with its themes of loneliness and dislocation. It develops the idea of what it is like to be different and the importance of being accepted and therefore is a valid teenage read, I am not sure it has much interest for readers outside of that demographic. The Manga style is always beautiful to look at, explosive and dynamic. In this comic the transformation scenes are particularly effective from an artistic point of view. In many ways this makes up for storylines that tend to be a bit light in substance. In a word. Fluffy Comment on this review of Kamichama Karin v1 on the Manga Life Forums. |
6 October 2009
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