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Otomen, Vol. 1 (2009)

by Aya Kanno(Favorite Author)

3.97 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1421521865 (ISBN13: 9781421521862)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

VIZ Media LLC

series

Otomen

review 1: This is a cute story about a boy who loves girly things. And can do some mean martial arts.Asuka is adorable, even when he's full of angst because he loves cuteness. He makes amazing bentos, cleans, knits, sews, and loves to collect cute things in his room. However, all this cuteness has to be hidden for reasons which are explained fairly early on and are fairly obvious. So, in a large sense, this series looks like it's going to be an exploration of masculinity and femininity, as well as other gender issues. If so, I'm looking forward to the rest.Complicating everything are his growing feelings for Ryo, a transfer student who has struggles of her own, though she seems far more comfortable in her own skin than Asuka.But the best twist, by far, was Juta. I didn't see that co... moreming. Not. At. All. And when it happened, I laughed so hard, I knew I was hooked.Looking forward to volume 2.
review 2: I've only read the first book of this series, but it was pretty darn terrible. Basically, the story is about a boy who secretly loves "feminine" things, but feels he has to hide that side of himself and instead be overly masculine. Inexplicably, his friend is a secret manga artist drawing a manga based on the main character. I'm all about breaking gender roles and stereotypes, trust me, but this just felt like it actually *enforced* those stereotypes more than anything. It still felt very binary and only marginally progressive, in spite of the opportunity for this to be so much more. Not to mention, the characters are all fairly one-note, and remained undeveloped through the entire book. I realize it's only the first book of many, but there was still plenty of story and time to make the characters more three-dimensional and less shallow.I don't believe I will continue on with this series. less

Download links for: Otomen, Vol. 1

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