What's your opinion about this manga?
| Another 2 weeks have passed and it's time for the new special read. The reason I picked "Prince Charming" for you is, that it seems to me a manga which deserves to be better known than it is. Story: Asahina-sensei is far from the ideal teacher - he comes to class drunk and sleeps around. But one time he chooses the wrong love hotel and is filmed "in the act". And now that video has come into the hands of his student, the extremely self-assured, good looking and rumoured to be gay Yuasa. Yuasa has been in love with his English teacher since the first day in class - when he sees a video of Asahina with a woman that shows the teacher unable to reach climax without having his backside played with, Yuasa suspects that Asahina may not be as insusceptible to trying sex with a man as priorly expected. Yuasa sets out on a journey to win his love through black-mailed sex. A new life on the other side of the alley of love unfolds for Asahina, the English teacher. He's enjoying the ride, but there's things nagging him ... like an urge to try sex with another man than Yuasa, for example the hottie Kagami, one of Yuasa's friends. And Yuasa finds out that his friend Nagai has been in love with him for a long time. There's many factors trying to destroy the fragile relationship that starts to grow between Yuasa and his teacher. Review: When you read the plot you may think you know how this story will unfold. But don't be too sure, because Takaido Akemi does not coddle her readers in safety. The title is also deceiving implying some sweet love story with a prince-like hero. Instead this three volume yaoi manga is best described as "slice of life". There's some comedy, there's also some bitter feelings coming up like jealousy or regret, and the story unfolds slowly at its own pace and takes a few unexpected turns.  This was a manga that seemed inconspicuous at first but kept me thinking about the plot and the characters even a while after I had read it. Considering the number of yaoi stories I read, that is quite an achievement - sometimes there are stories where I can barely remember what they were about two days after I'm finished with them. This was definitely different and stayed in my mind for a long while - maybe because it is a story that does not go down smoothly and caused me some "mental hick-ups". Or maybe because in a love square like that it is predestined that not everyone can have a pink-died happy end. Whatever the reason, I think Prince Charming is certainly a series which stands out. The characters are unique - especially as they are often not "nice". No goody-two-shoes here! If you like to get emotionally attached to a manga character, then "Prince Charming" with its cast of 4 main characters, offers a really good selection to choose from: you could fall for Asahina-sensei who is the epitome of an irresponsible teacher, for Yuasa who is the stand-in for all people who are so stupidly in love that they lose their brains but gain lots of endurance, or for the earnest, quiet, suffering and "deep" Nagai or for Kagami (my personal favourite) whose sluttiness is covering a longing for real love. On the downside sometimes the characters are not real. The 3 gay friends are very mature for high school boys, Asahina is at the beginning such a horrible teacher that I doubt any school would employ him for long. And teacher and students look much the same age - apart from the way they dress.  Takaido Akemi's art is easily recognizable. At first I must admit that I did not like it much. Her profile views of faces are sometimes off, and she always seems to have a character with a horrible pot-like hairstyle in her stories. But her art has grown a lot on me and today I even like it - a lot sometimes. It definitely has its own merits and I will no longer argue her artistic capabilities. In fact I have learned to really appreciate it and really think that she deserves to be better known. Still, the art is not what makes Prince Charming an insider recommendation - it's the characters and the story. This is typical for underrated yaoi manga artist Takaido Akemi - whether you like her art or not - it's usually the outstanding characters and the stories she tells that draw you in. The English translation bears an explicit content warning and is labeled "M" like for mature audiences of 18+. There is certainly some things going on here, but if you've been reading yaoi for a while you'll probably agree with me that it is not really explicit. But because of the debauched characters and because a few taboos get trampled along the way the story has a slightly perverted feeling to it even without especially explicit art. According to our club classification of explicitness I'd say it is somewhere at the border between soft yaoi and average yaoi. There's a few sex scenes, mostly just outlines of the couple, once or twice the faintest hint of genitalia is visible. This yaoi series has been published in a 3-volume English translation by Juné. We would like to encourage you to support the mangaka by buying the print edition. Club classification: Uke: mean uke, tough uke Explicitness: soft to average explicitness, few short sex scenes with only faintest hint of genitalia, but still feels a bit perverted in places Now it's your turn. I'm really curious: please, let me hear what your opinion on this manga is! What did you like about it? What did you not like? And why? |
Queen2408Nov 8, 2009 10:31 PM
| Totally reading this and looking forward to it. Thanks for the feature! |
 |
| I read it a while ago now but I have to agree, that it certainly stands out out of the blur that a lot of yaoi is to me. I found the characters and story engaging enough to have missed any flaws in the artwork, Tokaido-sensei's style was easy to get along with for me (I tend to drop manga if I dislike the art). While she includes some out of the ordinary elements/happenings in the story (won't go into detail as to not spoil the plot for anyone), I liked the overall feel of "normalcy" in the story-telling. I've got this series marked as must-buy for my collection. |
     |
| This was a nice read. It is true that you end up loving the art after a few chapters..you even find it beautiful somehow. And there were some unexpected things here that made me love almost all the characters.. dollie_mixtures said: I liked the overall feel of "normalcy" in the story-telling. Totally agree, even when there are some interesting twists you don't feel like something is out of place..everything goes smoothly. I would have liked to know more about what the Sensei was thinking, or his feelings, it is more like you get to see what is happening and work everything out from expressions instead of internal monologues. Which is really interesting, adds more to the realistic feeling at least. And the humor is light but perfect, especially the sensei mean ways. |
| i started to read it, and just finished the first volume. i could say about drawing, i didn't like that much, but story..it's so good to read, and it's different from the most of manga that i've read. usually you could understand what will happen next.. but in "prince charming" i can't guess what will happen' |
| Like geisha, I really did like Kagami (I was actually solidly believing that he'd end up with Asahina), and I agree that the characters weren't cookie-cutter ones but I guess the story didn't make much of an impact to me. This is probably because I couldn't feel that much for the characters and it was hard for me understanding because the way their expressions are drawn are a bit the same all throughout. I enjoyed it, though! |
mahoyajiNov 2, 2009 9:28 PM
| |
neko11lover said: Like Queen, I really did like Kagami (I was actually solidly believing that he'd end up with Asahina), and I agree that the characters weren't cookie-cutter ones but I guess the story didn't make much of an impact to me. This is probably because I couldn't feel that much for the characters and it was hard for me understanding because the way their expressions are drawn are a bit the same all throughout. I enjoyed it, though! Hahaha that was Geisha's favourite...but I can't say I didn't like him a lot! especially that part you mentioned :), he is really sexy with all his perverted ways. |
| "It's a masterpiece!" i finished the manga. i was searching a manga like this. there's so many manga but they always have the same ending or same story. but "prince charming" is one of that rare manga. i really enjoyed while i read the manga. (i spent my all night awake -- it's night here) but i'm happy to read something like this serie. well i can say, muy fav. is yuasa.. and pairing yuasa-goal keeper. i didn't liked the sensei at all O.o and fav. scene: |
| After the first volume... the story is not bad, even cute, but to me the characters are pretty girly.^^ |
 |
Dasha9x said: Asahina sensei gave me impresion like he doesn't really care who screws him. I didn't like him. oh, yes. it's a little bit disappointing to see yuasa chooses him over soccer player guy. but it was a good story. |
Hahaha that was Geisha's favourite...but I can't say I didn't like him a lot! especially that part you mentioned :), he is really sexy with all his perverted ways. Oops, edited it XD Asahina sensei gave me impression like he doesn't really care who screws him. I didn't like him. I agree with this too. He did say that he was curious, though. =_= |
| |
| Wow, many interesting opinions, I find everyone's thoughts really interesting. A small info for all who like me have a thing for Kagami, he appears again in a smaller supporting role in the first story in "My Bodyguard. It's my least favourite work of her, but at least it was nice to see Kagami again. I wish she'd do his story as well - he is deserving of a love affair as long as he doesn't get paired with a sweet, innocent, cutie, he needs someone who can keep him busy ... preferrably me, but I guess I would need MAJOR surgery to appeal to him. What Queen said about the perspective in story telling, that the reader is not inside any of the characters heads but observes everything from the outside just through the dialogue and the pictures and mimic of the characters is really outstanding and interesting. With this way of story-telling Takaido doesn't exactly choose the easy way out to get her readers round. It's much easier to feel with a character if you know what he's thinking. I believe this is one of the reasons why she needs more pages and a slow tempo to tell her story, I don't think it would ever work otherwise. Dasha9x said: Asahina sensei gave me impresion like he doesn't really care who screws him. I didn't like him. No one seems to like Asahina all that much.He's not exactly my favourite character either. And the first time I read Prince Charming I did not like him either. Before doing the review I have re-read PC for the ... I believe 4th time and I can tell you that every time I re-read the manga I caught something that diminished my dislike of him. I still don't "like" him, but I think I understand him better now. But yeah, he's not someone I would like to have as a partner in life. Too easily seduced by handsome strangers ... Still I thought I'll try to argue his side here a bit , but I can't do that spoiler-free ... Well, that being said I still like slutty, but secretly serious Kagami best of the bunch. |
| Lately I've been re-reading some manga, including this one, and I decided that I had either over- or under-rated so many titles. And then it hit me, how easily my mood affects my ratings. And then I change my rating. And now I feel guilty about giving a low score to any particular work, in case my mood decides something like, "This is not a comedy, it's just ridiculous." This, for instance, when it was first featured, I got excited to see a new featured series and read it right away. I'm one of those who voted this was 'Not bad'. After a re-reading several weeks back, this suddenly turned awesome. I absolutely love how the mangaka depicted the pain and uncertainty and all these emotions. I thought it was shallow before. So sorry, Geisha, I wish I could re-vote, haha... This was a great pick :) Er, I didn't mean to rant. But I just did, anyway :| |
Athena said: Lately I've been re-reading some manga, including this one, and I decided that I had either over- or under-rated so many titles. And then it hit me, how easily my mood affects my ratings. And then I change my rating. And now I feel guilty about giving a low score to any particular work, in case my mood decides something like, "This is not a comedy, it's just ridiculous." This, for instance, when it was first featured, I got excited to see a new featured series and read it right away. I'm one of those who voted this was 'Not bad'. After a re-reading several weeks back, this suddenly turned awesome. I absolutely love how the mangaka depicted the pain and uncertainty and all these emotions. I thought it was shallow before. So sorry, Geisha, I wish I could re-vote, haha... This was a great pick :) Er, I didn't mean to rant. But I just did, anyway :| Hahah how nice, I am not the only one that feels sometimes guilty about the change of mood or perspective. It happens to me a lot...I always think, where is my objectiveness? or something like that. But then again, why do we have to be objective in our tastes? I think each manga has a particular perfect time/mood to be read. Some of them are so unlucky to not have it anymore so we consider them bad always! |
Athena said: Lately I've been re-reading some manga, including this one, and I decided that I had either over- or under-rated so many titles. And then it hit me, how easily my mood affects my ratings. And then I change my rating. And now I feel guilty about giving a low score to any particular work, in case my mood decides something like, "This is not a comedy, it's just ridiculous." This, for instance, when it was first featured, I got excited to see a new featured series and read it right away. I'm one of those who voted this was 'Not bad'. After a re-reading several weeks back, this suddenly turned awesome. I absolutely love how the mangaka depicted the pain and uncertainty and all these emotions. I thought it was shallow before. So sorry, Geisha, I wish I could re-vote, haha... This was a great pick :) Er, I didn't mean to rant. But I just did, anyway :| I'm a professional, published reviewer who actually receives advance reading copies from authors ... (though that's books and not mangas most of the time) and it pains me to see how much my liking or disliking a book is still depending on my mood. Believe me, you are by no means alone, I think it's normal, actually. And with "Prince Charming" I already pointed out how much my perception of Asahina changed each time I re-read the series. I think that this is the kind of story that gains from a re-read especially as it has a quiet but deep undercurrent underneath the obvious story that you are likely to miss the first time around. Also we should not feel guilty about changing our opinion or judging based on mood - reading is not an objective pasttime as you devour the story into yourself you are making it a part of you, it's how your feelings relate to a story that makes you think it is good or not - there's some parts of course that we can judge objectively, but in the end how well it is received by ourselves that just can't be seen objectively. If the right story hits you in a mood when you are especially open for such a kind of plot, the book might be lucky, but let's be honest ... a brilliant book can set its own pace and change your mood. That's actually how you know just how good the writer is. |
| is this really a good manga??? im going to read it... |
More topics from this board
Sticky: Poll: » How did you find out about the AGUY club?Queen2408 - Jul 20, 2010 |
21 |
by CloudyRing
»»
Sep 8, 2019 2:02 PM |
|
» The Uke-Sensei List (Student x Teacher)Geisha_X - Aug 23, 2009 |
44 |
by Geisha_X
»»
Dec 4, 2018 11:15 PM |
|
» Looking for some AGUke Manga? ( 1 2 3 )Queen2408 - Jul 24, 2009 |
117 |
by Geisha_X
»»
Dec 2, 2018 1:30 AM |
|
» The Showbiz Yaoi List ( 1 2 )Geisha_X - Feb 1, 2010 |
81 |
by Geisha_X
»»
Dec 1, 2018 4:32 PM |
|
Poll: » Manga discussion: Seven DaysGeisha_X - Feb 1, 2010 |
21 |
by Geisha_X
»»
Dec 1, 2018 1:47 AM |