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First Impressions: Everyone’s Getting Married & Yona of the Dawn

I’ve been way behind on manga reviews, but mostly because I’m waiting on a certain amount of volumes before passing judgement on a series.  These two recent series from Shojo Beat, though, have already made the cut. I’ll show you why I’ll be buying the rest of these volumes as they are released.

First series is Everyone’s Getting Married by Izumi Miyazono.

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volume 1 cover

The Gist: Successful career woman Asuka Takanashi has an old-fashioned dream of getting married and becoming a housewife. After her long-term boyfriend breaks up with her to pursue his own career goals, she encounters Ryu Nanami, the popular newscaster at PTV. Asuka and Ryu get along well, but the last thing he wants is to ever get married. This level-headed pair who want the opposite things in life should never get involved.

The Review: If you are a fan of Happy Marriage?! then you are going to want to pick up this new series. It’s a josei without all the supernatural. It’s twenty-somethings with careers – not high school. (Amen!) The romance is fun and quirky – two people with opposite goals who can’t help but like each other. The first volume quickly moves through character exposition to put the readers in the middle of Asuka’s conundrum – follow her feelings for Ryu and end up heart-broken, or try to find someone else with her same goals? I can tell that the smut is coming soon, maybe the next volume or so, but it’s gonna be oh so fun to read! The art is very attractive and the pacing of the story moves along well. It’s only 5 volumes, so I’m highly optimistic about the outcome of the romance and look forward to seeing how it ends.

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Love how she just clocks him awake here. He was coming on to her in his sleep while she was trying to work.

The Audience: The publisher has this rated Mature, so it’s appropriate for older audiences. If you wouldn’t want your daughter to read a romance novel with sex scenes, then you wouldn’t want her to read this either. The young adult audience, however, should eat this up!

The Media: Everyone’s Getting Married is available from Viz Media. The second volume comes out in another week. There are a total of 5 volumes to this series.

Heart of Manga Rating: ♥♥♥♥

Next series is one we’ve all been anticipating for a while now, Yona of the Dawn by Mizuho Kusanagi.

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volume 1 cover

The Gist: Princess Yona lives an ideal life as the only princess of her kingdom. Doted on by her father, the king, and protected by her faithful guard Hak, she cherishes the time spent with the man she loves, Soo-won. But everything changes on her 16th birthday when she witnesses her father’s murder!

Yona reels from the shock of losing her father and having to fight for her life. With Hak’s help, she flees the castle and struggles to survive while evading her enemy’s forces. But where will this displaced princess go with such an uncertain path before her?

The Review: It’s not like we haven’t all seen the story already – the anime came out last year. However, holding the story in my hands for the first time felt so vindicating. I’m starting over from the beginning and reading this start to finish. Not sure how long that’s going to take, seeing as it’s still ongoing and at 22 volumes in Japan. (Hopefully not ten years like Skip Beat!) But I digress.

For those of you who have been under a rock, you must read this epic fantasy of the red-haired princess and her deliciously attractive reverse-harem of human dragons. The first volume with Hak alone made my heart pound! The adaptation done by Ysabet Reinhart McFarlane at Shojo Beat is fantastic. The art by Kusanagi – so enchanting! I can’t wait to get the next volume.

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Younger Yona escapes Tae-Jun’s unwelcome advances with Hak’s help

The Audience: This is perfect for anyone who likes epic fantasies or reverse-harem stories. A younger audience would enjoy it, just be aware that there is violence and killing. If you have enjoyed Dawn of the Arcana, Fushigi Yugi, or Red River, then make sure to pick up this series as well.

The Media: Yona of the Dawn manga is available from Viz Media. The second volume will be published in October. It is still ongoing and at 22 volumes in Japan. The 2-cour anime ran last year and is available from Funimation.

Heart of Manga Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥

Hopefully, all this is convincing enough for you to want to run out right now and buy every volume available. That’s my ultimate goal for everyone who reads this. >_< If not, I hope you will give at least one of these series a try.

 

 

 

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2 Comments

  • I wasn’t too keen on Everyone’s Getting Married, sadly, only for the fact that I expected the rom com, hate/love relationship to be fleshed out more. They literally got together at the end and I was disappointed since I wanted to see tension and development before they started declaring their love. Still, I’ll give volume 2 a go.

    And agreed. I would love to see more series like Yona brought over. Kingdoms, strong heroines, a great romance, and adventure-that’s what I love.

    • Everyone’s Getting Married: It’s not a long story, and I think that’s why it only took a volume – it’s typical for Petit Comic series.

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