I just finished reading a manga series called NG Life, which was actually very good! It's a shoujo series about a kind of dorky guy who remembers his past life when he was living in a little Italian city hanging around with his best friend and his wife and an assortment of other characters who show up as reincarnations later in the manga. Thing is, even though there are a few people around him who he recognizes as reincarnations of those he knows (I was particularly amused by his mother and father being his rival and younger sister from his past life), none of them remember anything. The most important two are his best friend, who has reincarnated as a girl with feelings for him (although he can't see past the "you used to be a dude" bit), and his wife, who is now a boy.
As you can imagine, many crazy hijinks occur.
The manga does a fairly good job of keeping the full story of what happened in the past (and why the main character is so stuck on it) under wraps and revealing pieces of it as the story goes on. I personally thought the relationship between the main character's past life and his best friend was very cute and would've liked to see them get together back then! Of course, that doesn't happen, but oh well, you can't have everything. The conclusion of the past life had me in tears at the end, and it almost felt like the rest of what happened afterwards was overpowered by it.
Still, the main romance was pretty sweet and the characters were all fairly likeable (except for one or two who got on my nerves a few times). I was hoping the manga would go more along the lines of gender not being a barrier to affection (either with the main character realizing he was okay with loving a boy or okay with loving someone who he had previously known as a boy), but even though it didn't, I still enjoyed it. It had a theme of not getting stuck on the past and learning to be who you are without trying to be someone else, which is always cool.
For the most part, I'd recommend it if you like shoujo romance and don't mind a lot of silliness mixed in. I'm going to go try and track down the Tokyopop translated version and add it to my manga collection!
In other reading-related news, I'm just about done with my Austen readings (making my way through a Watsons continuation now), and I'm thinking I'll move on to Georgette Heyer next. I've got a number of samples downloaded to my kindle, so I'll be giving them a go shortly. My expectations are high, so I hope they turn out to be good!
As you can imagine, many crazy hijinks occur.
The manga does a fairly good job of keeping the full story of what happened in the past (and why the main character is so stuck on it) under wraps and revealing pieces of it as the story goes on. I personally thought the relationship between the main character's past life and his best friend was very cute and would've liked to see them get together back then! Of course, that doesn't happen, but oh well, you can't have everything. The conclusion of the past life had me in tears at the end, and it almost felt like the rest of what happened afterwards was overpowered by it.
Still, the main romance was pretty sweet and the characters were all fairly likeable (except for one or two who got on my nerves a few times). I was hoping the manga would go more along the lines of gender not being a barrier to affection (either with the main character realizing he was okay with loving a boy or okay with loving someone who he had previously known as a boy), but even though it didn't, I still enjoyed it. It had a theme of not getting stuck on the past and learning to be who you are without trying to be someone else, which is always cool.
For the most part, I'd recommend it if you like shoujo romance and don't mind a lot of silliness mixed in. I'm going to go try and track down the Tokyopop translated version and add it to my manga collection!
In other reading-related news, I'm just about done with my Austen readings (making my way through a Watsons continuation now), and I'm thinking I'll move on to Georgette Heyer next. I've got a number of samples downloaded to my kindle, so I'll be giving them a go shortly. My expectations are high, so I hope they turn out to be good!