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Papillon, Vol. 01 (2010)

by Miwa Ueda(Favorite Author)

3.89 of 5 Votes: 4

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Star Comics

series

Papillon

review 1: As a long time fan of Miwa's other work Peach Girl, I eagerly grabbed this manga off the shelves as soon as I saw it. The story is about a shy & "mousy" girl who is always in the shadow of her beautiful & glamorous twin. (I say mousy since the main character of Ageha is one of those pretty ugly girls that is never really ugly or mousy.) Ageha was raised in the countryside, having been left to take care of her grandmother until she died & her sister Hana was taken to the city with their parents. Ageha's tentative existence is shaken up when she meets a guy from her past (Ryuusei) whom she's had a crush on forever. A guy that her sister also seems to have a crush on. Never fear, as there's also an equally gorgeous guidance counselor (Kyuu) who is willing to help Ageha get th... moree guy she wants & get from under her sister's shadow. Let me first say that while I was entertained by this manga, the plotline is really very similar to Peach Girl. Some of the circumstances has changed, but the plotline is still about a pretty outcast teen who has to fight against a backstabbing "friend" to get the guy she wants. The only difference is that now the "friend" is her sister. The guys are also the same as well, with Ryuusei & Kyuu both strongly resembling the male love interests in Peach Girl. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's sort of a little dissapointing. This formula is a safe plot mechanism & works, but it's just that I've seen it before in her previous manga. Even so, the manga still is pretty entertaining for the most part. As long as the twists & turns still keep coming, I'll probably still read this. I only hope that this go round the twists aren't nearly as constant as they were in Peach Girl, as the soap opera twists got a little exausting at times.
review 2: Ageha and Hana are twin sisters who were raised separately. Hana was raised in the city with her parents but Ageha was raised by her grandmother in a more rural setting. When Ageha was in the second grade, her grandmother became to ill to raise her and so she ended up living with her parents in the city. The two girls are totally different- Ageha is a more average tomboy and Hana is a beautiful social butterfly. Now that the girls are in high school together, Ageha finds herself excluded from almost all social activities. When she is left alone to tend the classroom during the school’s fair, a somewhat mysterious man named Kyuu comes running into the class to try and hide from a group of girls (it turns out he’s the hot new young guidance counselor). He asks for coffee and flips through Ageha’s planner- finding a picture of Ageha with her long standing crush, Ryuusei. Kyuu tells Ageha to follow her heart, making her shout out that she’s Ryuusei’s girlfriend and that her life is great. Just after she does this, Ryuusei appears and recognizes Ageha from their childhood. A relationship begins to form between the two, but her beautiful sister decides to step in between them.Miwa Ueda is best known for her work on the series Peach Girl, and to be frank I’ve seen little new in Papillon. It’s a very typical, tried-and-true (and tired) shojo storyline of the ugly duckling gaining confidence in herself and winning the guy. Appealing for those people who a) liked Peach Girl or b) like the stereotypical shojo fare. It’s not anything groundbreaking or new; this is the same storyline that has been done time and time again and it doesn’t seem like Ueda is going to really do it any differently. The one bonus to this is, as is typical with Ueda, the artwork. Her style is unique and beautiful. Unfortunately, this is a manga I’d rather look at than read unless I’m looking for a quick-and-trashy beach read. Moreover, it is exactly the type of shojo I *dislike*, reinforcing the “girl is no good until a guy is into her and she’ll be helpless when he’s gone” stereotype. A very superficial storyline. less

Download links for: Papillon, vol. 01

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