Everytime I pass by a bookstore, I would always vist the manga shelf (or shelves) to see if there's anything that might interest me. Usually I would only see a few volumes available per series. And frustratingly, volume one seems to be always missing. Despite these reasons, I still keep checking, hoping that I'll find something I like.
Yesterday, I got lucky. I found volumes 1 to 6 of Vampire Knight and volumes 1 to 10 or Ouran High School Host Club. I decided to go for the Ouran volumes because I was in the mood for something funny (I bought all ten books). Good thing that since the manga titles were from a Singaporean publisher (Chuang Yi), each volume just costs about half the price of a usual manga title published in the US. In addition to that, all volumes had a 20% discount! It looked like the planets were lining up in my favor! :-)
Here's a short summary of the Ouran series:
Haruhi Fujioka is a scholarship student at Ouran High School, a fictional school located in Bunkyō, Tokyo. Because of the superlative cost of the school uniform, Haruhi resorts to wearing long slacks, polo shirts and vests. Combined with her large glasses and tousled short hair, Haruhi's look causes her to be confused for a boy.
Looking for a quiet place to study, Haruhi stumbles upon the Third Music Room, the working place of the Ouran Host Club, a group of six attractive male students (Takashi Morinozuka, called "Mori"; Mitsukuni Haninozuka, called "Hunny"; twins Kaoru and Hikaru Hitachiin; Tamaki Suou, and Kyoya Ootori) who spend their time charming and entertaining the school's girls for profit. During their first meeting, Haruhi accidentally knocks over and break a vase valued at ¥8,000,000, estimated to be US$80,000.
In order to pay off the large debt, Haruhi is employed as the club's "dog" and constantly ordered to do menial tasks like serving food or cleaning up. The Club president, without knowing she is really a girl, promotes Haruhi to "host" as soon as he discovers her potential. Even after the truth comes out in the Club, Haruhi continues the charade and is allowed to pay off the rest of her debt working as a host; in order to accomplish this, Haruhi conceals her true identity/gender from the customers.
The only unfortunate thing about this is that it looks like I won't be buying any more mangas for about a month or so. I've got to watch it or I might spend all my money on manga. Hehe.
Wow, all it took was one afternoon to read Chocolat Volumes 2, 3 and 4. Although I really liked how the story was progressing, I was kinda peeved that I finished reading them so quickly. I mean, they're not exactly cheap so it would be better to make them last longer. I guess I was just used to reading novels that took at least a whole day to finish. Haha.
But other than that, I wasn't disappointed with the Chocolat Volumes. Being a huge fan of Korean pop music, I'm learning a lot about how the industry works. Oh, and a love triangle has started developing. It seems pretty obvious though who the female lead will end up with. I don't mean to give things away but is it just me or do female manga lead characters always tend to fall for the silent, moody guys? What do these guys have that funny, goofy guys don't?
I do hope there's a great twist in the end though, something that would really turn things around! Either way, I can't wait for the next volumes of Chocolat! I checked JustManga.com and volume 5 is now in stock! I'll wait for volume 6 before I order both just so I could read the two volumes one after the other! :-)
After the three Chocolat volumes, I read my first volume of Hana-Kimi. This one was very funny. Currently, there are two guys who are potential love interests for the main female character. Big surprise, one's a funny, goofy guy and the other's a more serious guy. Obviously, it looks like she's falling for the serious one, but I don't know yet who the main love interest will be. I am inclining towards the funny, goofy one because I think he's cuter.
Anyway, after I get all my finances sorted out I'm buying the next four volumes of Hana-Kimi and volume 1 of The Devil Does Exist. I found a copy of volume 2 of The Devil Does Exist lying in the discount bin of our local bookstore and I couldn't just pass up the opportunity. :-) The art looks great so if volume 1 is as good as other people say it is, then i'm definitely collecting this series too.
